The Cruiser's Car Club, A memoir of Edmonton in the 1950s, by Wayne Halabisky

One of Edmonton's early car clubs provides entertainment for a group of high school friends in the 1950's.
Date: 1959

This is a story of friends and cars. I moved to Edmonton in 1947, just in time to start grade one at McDougall School. We sat two to a desk and were placed alphabetically. My seatmate was Ed Greaves. After Christmas, my family moved and I went to Spruce Avenue School. At the end of Grade 2, we moved again and I attended Sherbrooke School (now called Prince Charles). In the middle of Grade 4, I was back at McDougall School. My mother still lives in the house she and my father built at that time. The first person I met back at McDougall was Ed Greaves who lived only a block from me. As I went through the grades I made more lifetime friends - Bill Marks and Mick Coppick in Grade 6, Ken Bilaway and Garry Intwert in Grade 9, Bryan Rhyason and Bob McMahon in Grade 10.


Victoria Composite was our high school. Being normal grade 10 males we were fascinated with cars. Bill Marks was the first to get a car. His older brother gave him a 1952 Dodge. The car was nothing fancy, but it was a car. We went everywhere in that car. One day we decided to go to a friend's place on the south side. Bill's car was packed to the rafters (about 12 people). There were no restrictions on young drivers in those days. After that trip one of the doors never again worked properly.


By the time we were in Grade 11, we all had cars (mostly junk by today's standards). Having no money, if a problem arose we had to figure out how to fix it. Bill's father owned H J Marks House Moving Company and had a workshop where we could repair to our heart's content. Information was shared between us and we learned together, some more than others. At this time customizing cars was a big thing and removing chrome, door handles and other miscellaneous trim was cool. There were numerous magazines available that addressed customizing questions but usually we just experimented.


In the 50's a phenomena called car clubs emerged. One of the first and larger ones in Edmonton put on a custom car show at the Edmonton Gardens. Our group thought we too should form one. One night in Bill's basement, where we spent many evenings, the Cruisers' Car Club was formed. It consisted of our Vic group and we even invited two members from Ross Shepherd. No club can exist without cards, jackets and plaques. We designed all of the above and we were on our way. I still have the plaque, jacket crest and courtesy cards. Our ambitious mandate was to give teen drivers a good name and help others. I am not sure we met our mandate but, with the plaques hanging on our bumpers we drove more carefully and we sure had a good time.


The Cruiser's Car Club was the only one, as I remember, that had most of its members at Vic. There were five or six car clubs in Edmonton all with jackets, cards and plaques. I suppose in reality, we were little more than a group of friends who were interested in cars and wanted people to recognize us a group. We did learn to organize ourselves to make plans and carry them out. We managed to hold a dance (Cruiser's Crash - 75 cents to get in), at Muir Lake Community Hall west of Edmonton on Dec11, 1959. It which was a success; we actually made money.


It was understood that Cruiser members would participate in learning to fix their own cars and help other members fix their cars. The camaraderie was priceless.


In that era of the late 50's, a car was inferior if it did not have a Hollywood muffler (basically an insulated pipe). With the Hollywood muffler an ungodly racket could be made by quickly accelerating then backing off the gas. As Garry lived by the "rat hole" we would take every opportunity to have the tunnel reverberate with a deafening echo from the muffler. The members changed a lot of mufflers.


We had little money to buy or repair cars and at least two cars were bought by cruising alleys looking in backyards for cars that the owner perhaps would sell to us. Needless to say, this meant the car was often in poor condition. I bought a 1948 Chev with flame painting on the hood and the steering wheel had to go around one and a half times before the car would start to turn. I did fix it. Bryan bought a 1949 Chevy coupe from a backyard and it sounded good except for a small ignition miss which caused it to run rough. After he had driven it for a few weeks, he was on a short trip when the engine basically blew out the head gasket. Upon investigation, we found the previous owner had taken out one of the pistons as the piston rod was defective and had grounded out the spark plug. When Bryan bought the car he had reconnected the spark plug wire. The gas from the carburetor was continuing to flow to the empty cylinder and into the crankcase where eventually the gas fumes built up and ignited.


The Cruisers had a variety of cars with the members favoring coupes. At one time or another I had a '40 Ford Coupe, a '39 Plymouth Coupe and a '48 Ford Coupe as well as a '51 Ford, '50 Meteor and '47 Chev. Garry stuck with his '48 Desoto Coupe and Ken Bilawey with his '48 Chev Coupe. There was also a '52 Chev, '55 Dodge, '56 Ford and others.


Once we left high school in 1959, we all remained friends. The Cruisers' Car Club remains only in memories.