The restoration of a rare royal Cadillac convertible

Jim Carpenter of Peachland, British Columbia, drives part of Canadian history.

He owns a black 1951 Cadillac convertible that was used during the Royal Tour in the fall of 1951. That’s when then-Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited Canada for the first time, before she ascended to the British Throne following the death of her father in 1952.

Jim first heard about this car almost 40 years ago, but he didn’t buy it until 2012. Then it was a few more years before he completed the restoration. Now it’s an award winner at car shows.

The 1951 coast-to-coast Royal Tour lasted five weeks. With the Princess’s father, King George VI, in failing health, the visit meant the future Queen Elizabeth was able to get to know Canada better. As well, Canadians had their first chance to see their future monarch.

The Big Three automakers provided cars for the Royal Tour, and one of the Cadillac convertibles used in B.C. is the one that Jim has restored.

The original dash plaque is still in place, and says: “HRH Princess Elizabeth and HRH Prince Philip Toured Vancouver in this Cadillac Convertible Coupe During the Royal Visit Oct. 1951”

After the Royal Tour, this Cadillac was sold to a Vancouver resident who made a few modifications. He had dual exhausts put on and changed the rear bumper so the exhausts would come through the bumper like a ’52 Cadillac instead of going below the bumper. He had the Cadillac repainted white and drove it until he traded it in on a new 1957 Chrysler.

It was bought by Jack Thiessen of Vancouver, who used it as a daily driver until 1969 when there was an engine fire. Then the car was parked.

Jim was studying electronics engineering at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in Vancouver and later worked at BC Tel. In the early 1980s he car pooled from nearby Mission.

One day during the trip to Vancouver in Jim’s 1954 Dodge Regent, one of his passengers, Jack’s daughter Cindy, mentioned that her father had an old Cadillac convertible that had been used during the 1951 Royal Tour.

At the time, Carpenter wasn’t really interested in buying another old car.

Then, 30 years later, in 2012, in Cindy’s Christmas card to Jim, she mentioned that her father wanted to sell the Cadillac, and if he was interested, he should take a look. And he did.

“It sat for 45 years in a damp, leaky garage in Abbotsford, B.C. All four tires were flat. Everything was rusted, stuck, broken, worn out, wrong, pitted – you name it. It was just a pile of scrap metal,” Jim told me when I visited him at his home in Peachland, overlooking Okanagan Lake.

“I had to have it,” he added. So he bought it.

“As well has having the wrong bumper on the back, from a 1952 Cadillac, it had been in an accident in the 1960s, and the front end had been damaged. In those days it wasn’t as easy to find parts as it is now, so they fixed it with parts from the next year up, a 1952. But the engine number shows it’s a 1951. I decided that I wanted it to look like how it looked when the Princess rode in it in 1951.”

Jim had no problem finding restoration parts for his Cadillac. That’s because years earlier, when he was looking for parts for his 1965 Vauxhall Viva, he was always on the search for other old car parts.

“I would go to swap meets, and I bought some tune up parts in a box labelled Viva. I realized I had a lot of extra parts. Then I started restocking from a supplier to have a comprehensive selection of tune-up parts.”

While working full-time, Jim had a hobby business at home on the side.

“I would be using all my spare time, like my lunch breaks, to be on the phone around the world, buying parts or selling parts. Once a week I would make a trip to the U.S. to pick up and drop off parts.”

Later he went full-time into the classic car parts business, which grew into Collectors Auto Supply Inc. Jim sold the business to the current owners, Mike and Chris Ware, in 2016.

Jim’s new 1951 Cadillac sat in the corner of his garage for a couple of years before he got working on it.

In 2014 the Vintage Car Club of Canada was having its annual May Tour, and the destination was Revelstoke, B.C. Jim wanted to participate. Organizers told him he had to say in March which one of his classic cars he would be taking on the Tour that was coming up in just a few weeks. Among his other cars are a 1939 Oldsmobile, a 1965 Vauxhall Viva and an Opel GT.

“I said I’d take the 1951 Cadillac – and then started working on this car that hadn’t run in 45 years.”

The engine was seized, the gas tank was rusted, the gas lines were corroded and the brakes had to be redone.

“The gas tank was so rotten, animals were climbing out of it. Everything was covered in rust. All eight pistons were stuck from rust and carbon.”

But with lots of work, Jim was able to have the Cadillac ready for the tour.

“Basically I got it so I could drive it on that tour in 2014 – with about a week to spare.”

Jim’s Cadillac got plenty of attention – and then when he got back home, it was back to work to get it looking even better.

“I took off all the chrome and took it all to a shop. The power top wasn’t working. The upholstery needed to be redone.”

And he got it painted. With the cosmetics completed, he took it on the May Tour in 2018 to Campbell River, B.C. – and it won three awards.

Jim takes his Cadillac out once every couple of weeks and puts on about 3,000 miles a year.

“I have pride in thinking that I took this thing from a piece of junk that sat for 45 years and in six weeks had it rolling down the road.”

This Cadillac restoration is truly suitable for royalty – and looks and runs just as well as it did in the fall of 1951 when Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip rode in it.