The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s tour of British Columbia has included rides on float planes, hovercrafts, boats, and jet aircraft. Regrettably, William and Kate didn’t ride aboard the true Canadian royal carriage: a 1939 McLaughlin-Buick.
It carried Prince Charles and Diana. It carried Queen Elizabeth II. It was built specially for the grand pan-Canadian tour of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Prince William’s great-grandfather and great-grandmother. For 77 years, it has stood ready to carry royalty and dignitaries across this land, crests and standards blazing out with pride. It still stands ready.
Also, it would appear one of its former owners used it to pull stumps on a farm, loaded a full-size upright piano into the back, and went cruising on the highway with the kids playing away. Commoners – one has to shake one’s head.
Eventually, it was acquired by its current owner, mechanic Vern Bethel – which is a good thing. But first, some history:
It’s 1939, and a beleaguered Britain casts a worried eye at developments in Europe. War seems a coming certainty, and while Britons will bravely defend their island fortress, help will be needed to turf the Nazis from the mainland. Hope lies to the West, with the plucky Canadians and the sleeping giant of the United States.
Newly crowned King George VI is a less charismatic leader than his brother Edward VIII. However, Edward has abdicated the throne to marry Wallis Simpson, putting the introverted, stammering George in the unwelcome role of leader and symbol. Personal appearances are hardly King George’s favourite activity.
Still, needs must. A massive cross-Canada visit is planned for 1939, with the royal couple arriving in Quebec on May 17, and spending a full month crisscrossing the country and dipping into the United States. Two special locomotives are selected, both outfitted with royal heraldry. However, this coming war will be a race to built tanks, planes, bombs, and guns. That means the auto industry needs to be well-represented.
Four cars are provided for the 1939 royal tour. From Ford comes a Lincoln K Phaeton V12, which resided for a long time in a museum in Dearborn, Mich. From Chrysler comes an appropriately-named Royal convertible, built in Windsor, Ont. General Motors decides a King deserves something outside of the ordinary, and has two special Buicks custom built.
McLaughlin-Buick is one of Canada’s oldest car companies. Initially a carriage builder, it began using the Buick name after a tit-for-tat stock trade with William C. Durant of Buick. Sam McLaughlin, a titan of Canadian Industry, was essentially responsible for the creation of General Motors Canada when he merged McLaughlin-Buick with Chevrolet of Canada. The company still produced McLaughlin-Buicks until 1942.
Two Buick Eight limousines are sent to GM of Canada, where they are cut apart and coachbuilt back into a pair of monstrously large convertibles. At nearly seven metres long, they are the longest manufacturer-built vehicles in the world, a title they’d retain for several years. When fully loaded with royal passengers and retinue, they tip the scales at nearly three metric tons. The engine is a 5.2-litre straight-eight, making 155 horsepower. Not fast, perhaps, but smooth and stately.
Of the four royal cars, all painted in identical maroon, the McLaughlin-Buicks are the flagships. Each one features an enormously complicated folding roof, one that takes the work of four strong men to pack away. The roofline is higher than any ordinary production car so that the King can sit in full regalia without removing his hat.
Most of the time, the cars operate open, so that Canadians can more clearly see royalty. This leads to an on-the-fly modification when King George demands the rear opening ventilators be replaced with a single solid sheet of glass so he doesn’t have to lean forward. The team swaps it out mid-tour.
One of the McLaughlin-Buicks now sits in the Canadian Science and Technology Museum, retired after a life serving several governors-general in Ottawa. The other royal McLaughlin, Car No. 1, lived a far more interesting life.
After the tour, which was considered a success, the other McLaughlin-Buick is sold to Helen Palmer of Victoria. Palmer had connections within GM and had been angling to buy the car even before the royal tour concluded. She, with her friend Maybelle Burns, drive this enormous maroon tank unsupported all the way from Windsor to Victoria.
In Victoria during the war, the McLaughlin was borrowed by the Duke of Kent, the King’s younger brother and an RAF Commodore. It was also later used by visiting Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.
Decades pass, and the car is used in all sorts of ways, some decidedly non-Royal (this is where the stump-pulling and piano hijinks come in). It even briefly serves as a hire car for a taxi company. In 1972, it is acquired by Bethel.
Bethel leads me deep into a basement complex near the centre of Vancouver, opening a huge door to a warehouse filled with old car parts and collector machines. There’s a BMW Isetta tucked in one corner, an air-cooled Porsche 911 in a rare colour, a 1926 Buick with gas rationing stamps still affixed to its windshield. There, next to a new Shelby Mustang GT350 with only delivery mileage on the odometer, sits the royal McLaughlin-Buick. It dwarfs everything else, including a Hummer H1.
“It’s been a working car its whole life,” says Bethel, who runs False Creek Automotive. An expert mechanic who used to pay house calls to fix John Lennon’s Rolls-Royce for Jimmy Pattison, he managed to get the McLaughlin-Buick fully restored in time for the 1986 visit of Charles and Diana.
“Charles was picking there a bit,” he says, pointing to a piece of chrome, “And the trim came off. We fixed it up quick.”
The car also carried Queen Elizabeth II for a lap of the track at B.C. Place, during the opening of the Commonwealth games in 1994.
Royal McLaughlin-Buick No. 1 is still in running condition, despite not having moved in three years. Today’s security concerns prevent the royal family from using open cars, but it’s roadworthy and ready to go. If William and Kate called upon it, it would be ready to serve faithfully. Even if they wanted to bring a piano along.