The Globe and Mail
The beneficiary: “Gillian” is a single 60-year-old finance professional who splits her time between a Toronto condo and her cottage north of the city. Her father, not rich but sufficiently “wise with his funds,” collected cars starting in the mid-seventies right up into the early 2000s. Those years brought more than 30 cars that he parked in rented or borrowed garages, a converted barn and city parking lots in and around the Greater Toronto Area.
The inheritance: Among the collection, the crème de la crème (to Gillian and her late father) was a 1965 Chrysler New Yorker that he bought off a Bay Street lot for $2,500 to fit his growing family. A decade later, with 200,000 miles (almost 322,000 kilometres) on the odometer, the car was almost sold for just $200. “My dad figured it was worth more than that just from a sentimental perspective so he covered it up in the barn,” says Gillian.
Sixty-two years later, the Chrysler’s still going strong. “It’s a very large, comfortable, 100-per-cent Canadian-made car with electric seats and windows – very luxurious for the era,” she says. The car has been recently appraised at $30,000.
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What she did with it: Though Gillian inherited her late father’s love of restored classic cars, both father and daughter knew that she didn’t want or need his whole collection. “As sad as I was to see them go, I was grateful that I wouldn’t have to deal with a stable of cars on top of everything else,” says Gillian, who was executor and primary caregiver for both of her parents.
So when his health worsened and he wasn’t confident driving any more, her father called a consignment seller to unload all the cars but one: the New Yorker, of course, perhaps because he didn’t consider it his to sell. In the mid-eighties, after almost a decade in the barn, the car was unofficially gifted to Gillian to take to university. Before she took the wheel, it was completely mechanically repaired, refurbished and given a fresh paint coat of its original colour, Persian White.
Though she’s long graduated and had many cars in the meantime, her father still considered the New Yorker “Gillian’s car.” Thankfully her siblings agree: “They don’t have the burning love for the classic-car hobby that I have,” she says. “So there are no issues there.”
To prevent the car from becoming part of the estate, Gillian and her father trekked together to ServiceOntario a few years before he died to make her inheritance official. For the symbolic dollar that saves an interfamily car recipient from Retail Sales Tax, Gillian became the proud owner of the same car she’d once happily ridden in as a toddler and drove to university.
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What she learned: Unlike some who inherit vintage vehicles, Gillian already knew lots about old cars. “They’re not like today’s cars where you can be a complete idiot and still drive them,” she says. “There’s no power steering or power brakes or power anything.” Old cars also don’t have airbags, crumple zones or anti-lock brakes, and if and when repairs are necessary, it is often difficult and expensive to source replacement parts.
Gillian also couldn’t just add her Chrysler to the car insurance she has for her “everyday car” (a 2012 SUV). Her regular auto insurance doesn’t cater to the classic-car market, so Gillian sought out a specialty insurer. “It’s actually not as much as you’d think, because you don’t drive the car every day,” she says.
Gillian pays about $80 a month to cover the Chrysler and another classic car she’s since added to her collection for parades, shows and touring. Soon she’ll spend a week driving the Chrysler alongside like-minded friends from the Antique and Classic Car Club of Canada, staying at hotels along the way. When the Chrysler’s not on display, it’s stored either at Gillian’s cottage or beneath her Toronto condo in one of five parking spots her father bought 30 years ago for $1,000 apiece – then and now, an undeniable bargain.
Gillian plans to gift the car when the time comes to a family member who’s expressed interest in it – but not without having a serious conversation first. “It’s one thing to take a drive in a classic car and love it, but it’s totally another to actually own and take care of it.”
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