Rural museum gives cars a second life

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/04/2022 (1475 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TREHERNE — Originally built as a space to house one couple’s private collection, the Second Chance Car Museum has evolved into an up-and-coming tourist destination that showcases around a century’s worth of automotive history.

Tucked away in the small community of Treherne, the museum first opened its doors in the summer of 2019, with its contents originally consisting of 40 to 50 classic vehicles that local farmers Ken and Linda Van Deynze acquired and maintained over the years.

Talking to the Sun on Wednesday, Ken Van Deynze said he originally built this 160 by 180-foot structure to serve as a simple storage facility, never intending to put these cars on display to this degree.

However, as their collection garnered more and more attention from members of the community, the Van Deynzes eventually saw the value in making the space a little more visitor-friendly, especially since a lot of the vehicles were already known to the public.

“We were involved in going to care homes with the cars. We would take four or five cars to a care home and give people rides,” Ken said. “We’d done that for years and so I guess [we] thought we could do that here.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic put a slight damper on the museum’s growth, the Van Deynzes and their team of volunteers have still been constantly working in the background to optimize the space.

For one thing, the facility now houses more than 80 different vehicles from the past 100 years, from a 1915 Ford Model T to a 1960s to ’70s-era Chevrolet Corvette to a modern Shelby Mustang circa 2012.

The museum even makes room for pint-sized oddities like a 1975 Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar, which was the most popular electric car in North America before the emergence of Tesla Motors.

Spokesperson Craig Soldier told the Sun that most of the new models are donations from members of the broader Manitoba car community, who are beginning to recognize the museum as a great venue to put their vehicles on display if they don’t have the means to maintain or store the machines anymore.

“They can still come to the facility and look at their vehicle and reminisce about all the great trips they had with it,” Soldier said. “Basically, that’s what we’re looking at here, is grasping that history but also keeping the memories alive with every vehicle in the museum.”

But outside of the vehicles themselves, the interior of the Second Chance Car Museum has also gone through some major renovations to ensure that it’s more than just a massive garage.

Taking up the centre of this facility is a vintage gas bar and storage facility, which gives visitors the opportunity to check out rare automotive memorabilia.

Right now, Soldier is also overseeing the construction of some train tracks that will allow an electric-powered train to traverse the interior of the building roughly 10 feet above the ground.

“A number of retired gentlemen are taking on the responsibility of building each section of that train,” he said. “It’s a real community effort.”

Despite not engaging in a major advertising campaign, the museum has still been able to retain a decent amount of visitors throughout the pandemic.

According to Soldier, gear heads have travelled from as far as Winnipeg, Portage La Prairie, Brandon, Altona and Steinbach to check out all the vintage vehicles on display, which ensures that word of mouth will continue to circulate.

“It’s just phenomenal how the car buffs out there communicate with each other and how they talk about the facility, with this being one of the few [car museums] in Western Canada,” he said. “So the potential for growth is huge, in my opinion.”

The museum’s classic car collection even recently caught the eye of some CBC producers, who decided to feature some of its older models in a new historical drama series called “The Porter” that was shot in Winnipeg last summer.

“I hope it continues on for two or three more seasons, since they’ll be coming back for more vehicles.”

Because of all this recent attention and the removal of most COVID-19 restrictions province-wide, Soldier and the Van Deynzes think the time is right to open up the museum even more.

Outside of completing their ongoing renovations and stepping up their promotional campaign, this means shifting away from a “by-appointment” visiting model in favour of more “drop-in” availability.

“We have a long list of volunteers who are willing to open up on weekends for us.”

Soldier also isn’t counting out the possibility of expansion or building a secondary site for the museum, given how many vehicles they’ve accumulated so far.

But no matter what happens in the future, Soldier wanted to highlight how important Ken Van Deynze’s contributions have been, since his private car collection served as the foundation upon which this new rural tourist attraction was built.

“I’ve been working with him for quite a few months now and he’s a very humble person, and despite what he’s accomplished, he still can’t figure out how he got to this point,” Soldier said.

“Just through suggestions and the willingness to listen to suggestions, he’s gotten the facility to where it is today.”

Anyone looking to learn more information about the Second Chance Car Museum can contact Soldier directly at 204-208-0526 or secondchancecarmuseum@gmail.com.

» kdarbyson@brandonsun.com

» Twitter:@KyleDarbyson