The dream was dead, the car was scrap. Bought as an engagement gift, this 1974 Austin 1000 should have been perfect for a hopeful young couple eager to ride together. A life on the road, touring with their friends in a classic Mini; but the rust had eaten too much, the bodywork needed was too expensive.
“He was absolutely gutted when we found out about the amount of repairs it needed,” Samantha Snucins says. “I don’t think he talked for a day or two, which, if you know Andrew, is about as rare as it gets.”
And there the story ends, with an ambitious plan thwarted by cold reality and the parts sold off to become part of someone else’s dream. A sensible decision. The practical choice. The serendipity had seemed to be there – Samantha’s full maiden name was even Samantha Minnie Cooper – but resurrecting the little yellow car was simply too much work for a newly married pair.
Happily, it wasn’t really up to them.
Fast forward to Vernon, and the beginning of the 2016 running of the Spring Thaw. A multiday event that sees owners blow out the cobwebs over more than a thousand kilometres of the best backroads in British Columbia, it’s run by Classic Car Adventures. CCA runs several rallying programs across North America, including the growing Maple Mille this September in Ontario. The Thaw is perhaps the oldest and most well-attended event, with about 80 cars of all manner and descriptions.
More photos: During and after the restoration
Andrew Snucins has been photographing the Thaw for years. Drivers will see him at the side of the road, hunched against the rain, staked out at a great curve.
His photos are for sale, but otherwise he works for the joy of it, for the feeling of being involved in this odd community with grease under its fingernails. The Austin he bought for his then-fiancée was meant to be his chance at last of joining in the experience fully.
Samantha thought she was getting a cedar-strip kayak. “But it was a Mini!” she says. “Rust and bare wires and all, I fell in love instantly.”
There are two ways to enjoy a classic machine: Drive it, or look at it. The latter is popular, standing around quietly in parking lots or fields, handing out ribbons, hoping it starts again but confident a tow truck isn’t all that far away.
That, my friends, is for wimps. Nothing compares to seeing two nutcases in an open Lister D-Type battling through a freak snow flurry, or getting chased through the hairpins north of Pemberton by a prewar Bentley, or hearing an Alfa Romeo snarl through the wilderness on its way to a ghost town. They’re cars: They’re meant to run. The Snucins’ little Austin was meant to run. So the community made it happen.
The catalyst was Robert Maynard, a soft-spoken mechanical genius from Britain. He’s the owner of RWM & Co. restorations, and his daily bread is bringing Aston-Martins and Jaguars back from the brink. He and his wife, Jaclyn, are frequent attendees on the Spring Thaw, driving the sweep car numerous times. Their faces have become a welcome relief to drivers stranded on the side of the road. At the end of a long day of driving, when almost everyone else is headed to bed, you can often find Robert in a dimly lit car park, helping an owner diagnose an electrical fault.
So, the selflessness is not the surprise: The subterfuge is. Having informed the Snucins that the floorpan rot on the Austin was near-terminal, the Maynards first agreed to work on the project in the off hours, to keep the project within budget. Secretly though, they were plotting something bigger.
“If you go to lift a box,” CCA’s Dave Hord says, “Andrew’s arms are right there helping you out. Robert called me up and asked, ‘What do you think?’ At first, we thought of holding how-to restoration classes with it over a weekend or two, but we finally agreed it should be a surprise.
“I had to take him off the official mailing list,” he adds, “and then send him his own Spring Thaw updates, so he wouldn’t get suspicious.”
As Andrew moped his way towards making a crushingly sensible decision, the couple’s little yellow Austin was having new sheet metal welded in. While the couple steered themselves towards accepting that the pressures of work and bills didn’t allow for the escape valve of a revvy four-cylinder on a sun-dappled back road, the Mini was headed back from the paint shop. Andrew and Samantha prepared themselves, still cheerfully, for another year of the Thaw on the sidelines, volunteering their time. Meanwhile, more than a dozen other volunteers were wrenching away, bolting the Austin back together for deadline.
The scene: an impromptu driver’s meeting the evening before everyone sets off. Andrew has his camera, Samantha’s nearby. Both are more than a little annoyed with Hord, as he’s been weirdly insistent that they shuttle back away from their home after what’s already been a long day of preparation. Hord reaches in his pocket, presses call on his cell phone. “Why don’t I just call them and ask them to bring it over?”
And there she was, yellow paint shining in the setting sun, friendly little headlamps peeking out.
“Andrew’s usually pretty good in front of a crowd,” Hord says. “But this time, he couldn’t even speak.”
“Well,” says Andrew, finally, “since the restoration by RWM & Co., we have already put 2,500-plus miles on the car. Endless road trips, attendance at every Classic Car Adventures event we can bring it to, including plans for Colorado next year for the Silver Summit, and the Maple Mille in Ontario.”
Some dreams you can’t just let rust away. “This car represents a decade of love and friendship,” Andrew says, “And will be a treasured part of our lives forever.”
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