1950: Recovering the S.G.V.
originally published in the VCCC Vintage Car Volume 1, Issue 3 (1958)  "Trials and Tribulations"   by Laurel Ellwyn


Early Saturday morning, Don and I left via the Blackball Ferries, for Nanaimo.  We were to drive from Nanaimo to Victoria and meet Paul and Rose Bolam at a pre-arranged destination and stop-over.  Cliff was to join us early Sunday morning.  The purpose of our trip was to bring Cliff’s 1911 S.G.V. back to Vancouver.

In 1948 the S.G.V. was found sitting out in the open under a pine tree, in a junkyard on the Lake Cowichan Road in Duncan.  The licence plates read 1923.  The price asked was $1500. In 1950, after two years of haggling, Cliff finally obtained the car for a fraction of the original price.

junkyard3
 Cliff took his 1927 Studebaker, along with a small trailer to Duncan, with the intention of towing the car home to Victoria.  The trailer turned out to be too small for the load so he went to the lumber yard and bought a couple of good-sized planks.  After some nailing and joining Cliff finally managed to load the car.  Via the Mill Bay Ferry, the S.G.V. was towed back to Victoria for storage in Cliff’s home.

There was a lot of cleaning up to be done on Cliff’s new purchase.  The car had been sitting under that pine tree for at least three years.  The top was rotten and the car was filled with pine needles.  It is rumoured that, in 1911, a Mr. Doring [sic] and his bride journeyed to San Francisco on their honeymoon, bought the new S.G.V. and brought it back to Vancouver Island.  I wish we could talk to Mr. Doring and learn what the letters S.G.V. stand for. junkyard2

The S.G.V. was made by the Acme Motor Company in Reading, Penn.  About forty years later it had a final breakdown and was sent to the end for most cars; the junk yard.  A few months previous to this Cliff’s brother-in-law heard that there was a Winton somewhere around Victoria.  For several months he scoured the area and finally learned that the “Winton” was an S.G.V. that had a few months earlier been sent to the junk yard near Duncan.


junkyard4
 In 1950 when Cliff had finally purchased and stored the car, the restoration was underway.  However, due to several moves on Cliff’s part, the car ended up being packed from one place to another in pieces and boxes.  Early in 1954, Cliff moved to Vancouver and, since he had no place to store the car, it was left in Victoria in a basement.

Well, to get back to the present, this was the purpose of our trip.  The S.G.V. was to be somehow brought home to Vancouver. The car was made ready for towing and a passage was bought to bring it back via the C.P.R.’s Princess Joan.

The next afternoon we found ourselves towing the S.G.V. to the C.P.R. dock.  Heads were turning all the way down.  I don’t think the people could quite make out what we were up to and I think they thought we were a little bit daft.  But still they watched and wondered.  At the dock we were immediately surrounded by curious people, Questions were being fired at us left and right and I was pleased to see that these people thought we were sane and fascinating.  Of course, we were having problems getting the car on the boat.  Cliff had not bought a ticket for himself as he had flown over.  However, one official told us that legally they had to get him on the boat somehow as the car had a ticket and he had to accompany it.  They were very considerate of our problems and finally got us all settled on the boat.  Once the S.G.V. was free of people we went upstairs for a well-earned drink.

We had no major problems getting the car off the boat and slowly started our crawl home with the S.G.V. in tow.  Cliff has finally got his car home and has now started work to restore it.