1927 Whippet with top chopped off
Published Friday November 14th, 2008
Born in 1934, Joe Buchanan grew up in Sussex, New Brunswick.
He got his driver's license when he was only 14, but his driving was restricted to helping his dad with his work installing refrigeration units in ships in Saint John.
In the early 1950s, Joe bought his first car for $15, a blue 1927 Whippet two-door sedan built by the Willys-Overland Company and named after a racing dog.
Queen Elizabeth became our new monarch in February 1952 and her Coronation was celebrated all across Canada.
Joe cut the roof off his Whippet, repainted it red, white, and blue, and entered it in the Coronation Parade in Sussex.
It was a big hit in the parade, but with the roof gone, he and his friends had trouble keeping the doors closed.
A girl actually fell out once when Joe was driving through Fundy National Park. She tore her skirt but was otherwise all right.
Going up a hill one day, the old Whippet threw a rod right through the block.
It came out by the carburetor and a tongue of flame shot straight up into the air (the hood had been off the car for quite some time).
All four occupants (including Joe) jumped out of the car, which kept rolling along the road by itself.
By the time the four of them caught up to it, the fire had died out.
The car itself looked pretty dead too, so they left it at the side of the road and hitch-hiked home.
A few days later, Joe received a letter from the Department of Highways instructing him to remove his car from the side of the road.
He arranged for a truck with a flatbed to pick up the car and take it to a scrap dealer.
Joe gave the truck driver five dollars for his trouble and the scrap dealer gave Joe five dollars for the car (including the new battery).
And thus, another old car disappeared off the face of the earth.
The Whippet was a low-priced car introduced in 1926 by Willys-Overland to compete with Ford and Chevrolet.
The 1929 model featured "finger tip control" with a horn button that honked the horn when pushed, started the engine when pulled up, and turned on the lights when twisted. It was impractical and prone to failure.
With the onset of the Great Depression, car sales plummeted. Willys-Overland survived the ordeal but the Whippet was discontinued in the early 1930s.
n Bill Sherk is an automobile historian who has had a passion for the topic since his days pumping gas as a teenager.
We want to say thank you to our readers who send in their stories. We are giving a copy of Bill Sherk's book, 60 Years Behind the Wheel: The Cars We Drove in Canada 1900-1960 to each reader whose story is published in this column.
To share your stories or photos e-mail billtsherk@sympatico.ca or write Bill Sherk, 33 Oak St. E., P.O. Box 10012, Leamington, ON N8H 2C3.
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