Louis P. Meehan bought a 1937 McLaughlin Buick but modified it with parts from a 1993 Buick hearse and several other more modern vehicles.
Spotting the black 1930s sedan ahead of me on Kingston Road, I remembered: Judy and going steady, the drudgery of Grade 13, and another black 1930s sedan, my own.
And catching that car ahead of me might capture more memories of being 17, if only for a moment.
My 1937 Chevrolet was decades old when Orv York of Orv York Chevrolet-Oldsmobile agreed it'd be mine for $95 at $10 a week (pumping gas and delivering the Toronto Telegram made it possible).
This car was a Buick, circa 1937, I saw as I caught up, but soon I was to learn – windows down, in adjacent lanes at a traffic light and talking with its occupants – it was made in Oshawa, a 1937 McLaughlin Buick. A special Buick, then, as General Motors dropped the McLaughlin name of the company founder when Canadian production resumed after the Second World War.
"I used to drive a 911," its driver shouted, gesturing to my old Porsche. "Sold it, this is my driver now." Incredible. Next intersection, I jump out with my name and number scribbled on some paper: a few days later, Louis P. Meehan got in touch.
First impressions can be as wildly askew as old memories. When we met for coffee, I learned his car is not black, but blue – Azores blue, a 1987 Porsche colour – and then I learned it's not a restoration, it's a Meehan vision realized.
"My car is two cars – a 1993 Buick hearse grafted to a 1937 McLaughlin Buick," he says. "I've got no-draft windows and air-conditioning. Best of two worlds.
"I love the Art Deco style. That's why I bought this car in the first place," Meehan says. "But I'm intolerant of '30s technology, for that matter '50s technology. With the original straight-eight engine, there's no PCV valve so oily fumes would be blowing into the car as we drive, and who wants that?"
His McLaughlin Buick is a restomod, a term for an old car modernized to taste. He bought the 1937 in 2003 for $3,000 from a dental surgeon who had picked it up for $100, still solid after a long life in New Liskeard, Ont. As for the 1993 innards, when a hearse reaches the end of its road, Meehan knows someone who sells them for $1,000 with lots of life left in the powertrain.
So the V-8 (rebuilt for 340 horsepower), automatic transmission and disc brakes are from the hearse, a Camaro's rear-end fits with just the right track, and a Mustang II front clip from respected Fatman Fabrications in Charlotte, N.C., affords proper rack-and-pinion steering along with a modern suspension.
"I'm the engineer, I decide what I want to do," Meehan says. "Guys I trust expedite my ideas, like Paul Spiers at Performance Improvements and Duke Brown, who built the car over a winter, like Dave Britton and Mike Taylor at Davies Autobody. I can weld, I can do this kind of work, but I can make more money in my business [Sunnyside Capital Canada]."
A yellow Meehan Motors sticker on the trunk, in script that dealerships used years ago, suggests he's "engineered" many cars. Three are under way at this moment. Ask him how many cars he owns, Meehan tells a story. "When Johnny Carson asked Steve McQueen if it was true he owned 50 cars, McQueen said, 'Well, that's what my wife thinks.'"
He remembers a 1970 Corvette as his first hot rod, purchased the day he became a chartered accountant. Buicks? A 1968 Wildcat was the first of what he calls "a cache of Buicks" he and his late brother Pat bought.
"Buicks are for some reason different. Buick was the doctor's hot rod. Before GM screwed up by deciding all its divisions would use the same engines, the Buick Wildcat was the BMW 5-Series of its day."
My turn at the wheel is a revelation: His car may be 77 years old save for the moving parts, but it steers, stops and rides like a new car.
The seat (from a 1980 Oldsmobile Delta Royale) is electronically adjustable, the steering wheel (1959 Chevy Impala) tilts. Each component was chosen with deliberation. "An Olds Toronado steering wheel is beautiful, but so dished I'd have to position my hands too high. A '59 Volkswagen's too flat, the '59 Impala perfect. If you're not comfortable, you don't enjoy driving a car."
"Press that button on the left side of the dash," he commands. "Don't be a wimp – press it!" And when I do, the siren from a LaFrance fire truck wails. "The neighbourhood kids love that," Meehan says.
When I was 17, I redirected my '37 Chevrolet's exhaust out the side, figuring it'd give me more power, rescued a scrapped Austin's leather seats, sawed the gearshift short to make it more like a Jaguar's. Now I realize it was only a start.
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