Golden Ears Chapter,
Vintage Car Club of Canada
Golden Ears History
In 1975 Dick Grober and Don Warren talked about the possibility of forming their own chapter after joining the Vancouver Chapter and driving back and forth for a few months. An ad was placed in the Maple Ridge Gazette to see if enough people were interested. That meeting was held at the home of Don Warren in October
1975.
After finding out the criteria for forming a new chapter an application was made to the National and it was approved at their next meeting. The Golden Ears Chapter became a reality. With a hundred dollars in the bank, the Golden Ears Chapter was in business.
The first major event was a car show held at The Canadian Legion in Maple Ridge. This proved to be successful and the start of seven annual Car Shows
List of names from the registration book at one of the first meetings
* - still members
Don Warren (d) Lilah*
Roy Shull *
Claude Lacroix *
Al Hemminger *
Fred Kallweit
Marshall Buss
D Martineau
F White
Doug Warren
Richard Grober
Jack Magnell
R Plett
R Martin
Rick Krego
Gordon Tilley
Jack Sharpe
D Male
G Hall
D Cullen
Clarence Heppner
As our Chapter began to grow we knew we needed activities that were of interest to the members and their families. The car shows we started proved to be just the ticket.
We chose a weekend in May. As a new Chapter we hadn’t heard about the ‘May Tour’ yet. Following our second car show, which was now moved from the Legion to the Maple Ridge Civic Arena, Don and Lilah Warren drove out to Chilliwack to observe first hand this May Tour and what it was all about. It looked like fun so it was concluded that the club aught to get involved. Every year since then Golden Ears has had a great turnout at each May Tour.
Our Chapter put on the second car show with only $150 in the bank, and a budget of $1500. We had a member with a fibreglass manufacturing plant, Dave Callen, he donated a car topper (boat) as a major door prize. Lordco donated a good quality battery charger. We decided to award the battery charger as the prize to the member who sold the most tickets. Ken Shull won hands down. His pitch was “For a buck you get a chance on a $400 boat and a look at some of the greatest cars in the Lower Mainland!” On the weekend of our show, some of the members moved in (literally) to the arena, on the Friday morning and went home thrashed on Monday night. Most of our shows also included a fashion show and whatever entertainment we could get; barber shop quartets, singers, special displays, garage scenes, false fronts, auto wreckers, etc.
The first show was billed as the "Largest Indoor Silent Movie in B.C." A screen was set up showing silent black and whites, with all the cars facing the screen. All security personnel were in costume rented from the Hyak Theater in New West.