Triumphant return for vintage vehicle

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This article was published 28/03/2022 (1448 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In advance the Super Run car show, event organizers arranged for a special return 65 years in the making at Murray Chevrolet in Brandon over the weekend.

For more than 40 years, Ernie Gruhn has owned and managed Ernie’s Auto shop in Winnipeg. Over the weekend, Gruhn brought in a prized possession passed on to him from his family — a 1957 Buick Special Riviera Coupe that shared a connection with the Murray family.

Clair Murray, one of the dealership’s three founding brothers, sold the car to Gruhn’s father in Souris in February 1957. The vehicle was brought to the dealership alongside a series of vehicles to promote an indoor display of what spectators can expect to see at the 2022 Super Run in Brandon.

Gruhn, 68, explained his family had just moved from Winnipeg to the Minto and Boissevain area shortly before in 1956.

“The thing about that car that is unusual, my dad didn’t like automatics, that car has a three-speed manual … 99.5 per cent of Buicks and Oldsmobile were automatics,” Gruhn said. “My dad was in Souris, he went to the lot, Clair was going to give him a better deal to buy an automatic. It’s only one of two I’ve ever seen.”

Growing up, Gruhn said he can recall the Buick became a family car, driving the kids to school for three years. The dark burgundy colour was originally supposed to come in a two-tone style.

“I’ve got a bill for 34,000 miles in 1960. Now it has almost 95,000 miles,” Gruhn said.

“That was my mom and dad’s only new car that they bought together.”

By 1975, he said his father stopped driving the Buick and took it to a car show in 1978, where it was last driven. After his father died in 1980, Gruhn said his mother would never let anyone in the garage to come and see it, and the car started to deteriorate.

“That car sat out there for 27 years in a damp garage with no cement floor, and she didn’t care,” Gruhn said.

In 2007, the car was passed on to him after Gruhn’s mother died. On the September long weekend, he visited his family’s old property in Westman and went to pick up the Buick. Gruhn said in all of his life, the car never failed to start until that day. He couldn’t explain why.

“The day I went to pick it up from the farm, she wouldn’t start. She was blowing flames out the carburetor. It’s as if it said, ‘I’m not going anywhere, I’m staying here,’” Gruhn said.

Gruhn serviced the vehicle in Winnipeg and resolved the engine problem. It wasn’t until 2011 when he started driving the Buick, and the car received a paint job, matching the closest colour to its original Burgundy look.

Looking ahead to Super Run, Gruhn said the car has been really good to him over the last decade and is excited to have it be part of the feature showcase in July.

“To have a car return after 65 years, I don’t know if it’s the oldest, but I think so, to be driven here, that’s incredible,” Gruhn said.

“I still say to people, it’s not my car, it’s my dad’s car.”

Dave Burba, one of the head organizers of Super Run, said they have recently launched their website for vehicle registration, and more than 50 vehicles have been registered.

With tours now finalizing, Burba said he is working on another showcase to take place in April as the excitement mounts for the show to return.

“We are anticipating 800 plus cars this year for sure,” Burba said.

“This show was an indoor show to get people revved up for Super Run.”

He said the group is eager to have a big presence downtown this year in the leadup to the July affair, with parts of Rosser Avenue closing off for a big car showcase. Burba said they are expecting people from as far as Surrey, B.C., Minneapolis, Thunder Bay and a group of vehicle owners from south of Chicago to attend the 2022 event.

“We’ll see the fruits of the labour so to speak over the past two years of people working on their cars,” Burba said.

Gruhn told the Sun he is thrilled to see all the different hotrods and believes all cars are meant to be driven to avoid deteriorating.

“When I left the shop on Friday to come to Brandon, it was snowing. The guys said ‘Aren’t you worried to take it out?’ I said it’s survived 17 winters, it’s not scared,” Gruhn said as he laughed.

The 1957 Buick Special Riviera Coupe and others will be available for Westman residents to come and see the showcase at Murray Chevrolet until the end of day on Tuesday.

» jbernacki@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @JosephBernacki