Woodworker applies skills to restoration

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This article was published 19/02/2021 (2043 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MUNICIPALITY OF HARRISON PARK — As a lifelong carpenter and stonemason, David Proven is no stranger to working with his hands and is currently using those talents to modify a 1930 Ford Model A.

Even though the Model A is one of the most recognizable cars in North America, the 70-year-old retiree is looking to put his own spin on the classic vehicle by installing a wood body type that turns its back half into a Romani caravan.

On Thursday morning, Proven showed the Sun his progress at his shop, which is located near Minnedosa in the Municipality of Harrison Park.

While he still has a long way to go, Proven remained in good spirits throughout the tour, since this car is his first big solo automotive project.

“I don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel at every turn, but I do like to be innovative,” he said on Wednesday. “And, in a way, by not being familiar with the rules of hotrod building, I do attack things a little bit differently.”

With that being said, Proven has worked on this kind of restoration before, helping contribute to the wood bodywork of a 1931 Ford Model A that belongs to Souris resident Harold Kuipers.

Unfortunately, major health problems forced Proven to miss out on large chunks of that build in 2009, robbing him of the satisfaction of seeing that transformation through from start to finish.

“I mean, I’m really proud of the car and stuff like that, but I felt kind of cheated out of the build,” he said. “So I wanted to do something of my own.”

Luckily, he finally got his chance in 2015 when he was scavenging for wood at a nearby farm and stumbled across a couple of Model As sitting in the bush.

After finalizing the car’s purchase with the property owner, Proven still had to come up with a unique design that was worthy of his abilities and wasn’t a retread of his past work for Kuipers.

Thankfully, the Harrison Park resident got a jolt of inspiration after watching the music video for Steven Tyler’s single “Love Is Your Name,” which features a Romani wagon known as a vardo.

“As soon as I saw that caravan, I said ‘that’s what I’m going to make,’” Proven recalled. “So this is going to be a truck camper, basically, and the camper part is going to be in the style of a gypsy caravan.”

While the Model A just looks like a modified truck right now, Proven plans to install a covered roof at the back that should provide a stylish ride for his grandchildren and other family members.

In order to make this automotive vision a reality, Proven is carrying over a lot of the same principles that served him well during his years working as a professional craftsman.

For one thing, he is using mostly recyclable parts in the build, since this is standard operating procedure whenever he is tackling some major woodworking project.

“I’ve gone sort of old school with the construction of it,” he said. “I’ve tried to avoid finding new reproduction stuff, other than buying new suspension and brakes and all that kind of stuff.”

While Proven’s mechanical know-how is pretty solid, he’s also relying on friend Rob Rose to guide his hand when it comes to restoring more complex parts of the vehicle like the chassis.

“I grew up on a farm and I knew how to tear down engines and rebuild them,” he said. “But when it comes to making frames and things like that, I needed to have the help of an expert.”

Even though he has been making steady progress on this build, Proven admits he has experienced a fair share of complications.

Not only has the COVID-19 outbreak limited his ability to acquire the parts he needs, but he’s also responsible for taking care of his 96-year-old mother, who started living with him after the pandemic began to ramp up in March 2020.

“That’s cut my shop time down to an hour or two a day, so things have slowed down quite a bit,” he said.

And while Proven isn’t sure when the modified Model A will be ready to roll in public, he’s still really excited that its chassis is 99 per cent complete, which means he can mostly concentrate on the wood caravan portion moving forward.

“Once I get over the chassis and the metal, then I’m in my element, so it wouldn’t take very long,” he said.

And despite all the speed bumps and hurdles, Proven is glad that this 1930 Ford Model A came into his life, since it has given him the opportunity to step out the box and fuse his knowledge of woodworking with the world of automotive customization.

“It’s a pleasure for me to do,” he said. “I’m just so happy to be able to bring this car back to life and have it back on the road again.”

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