Family’s McLaughlin stands test of time

BILL TAYLOR/FOR THE TORONTO STAR

Silvio Venchiarutti proudly poses with his 1916 McLaughlin Buick.

Bill Taylor

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

When he went to a car auction at the CNE Automotive Building in 1983, Silvio Venchiarutti hoped to find a ’65 Mustang for one of his teenage sons.

He came home instead with a Buick and kept it for himself.

Now, 27 years later, Venchiarutti thinks it may be time to let the car go “because I hardly drive it any more and it deserves to be driven. We had some great use out of it. It’s one of the most reliable vehicles I’ve ever owned.”

That’s quite a testimonial for any Buick. But for one built in 1916, halfway through World War I . . .

“It’s nice to see something old that just keeps on going,” he says. “Kinda like me!”

Venchiarutti, 73, is a retired developer and building contractor. He built the house he and his wife Edda share in Mississauga and made sure the garage was big enough for the sometimes hefty classic cars he’s always been fond of.

This one, more than two metres high with 26 centimetres of road clearance, is a five-passenger McLaughlin Buick D45 Special touring car, green with black fenders, top and upholstery.

There wasn’t a lot of difference between stock Buicks and the McLaughlin variants built in Oshawa (the company, founded by Col. Robert Samuel McLaughlin in 1907, morphed into GM Canada). But the Canadian cars came with a few more bells and whistles.

But no speedometer or spare tire, unless they were ordered as optional extras. Venchiarutti’s car has both. And a single windshield wiper — hand-operated.

He has a lot of the original paperwork. The first owner paid $1,420. One online conversion site equates this to about $30,000 today.

Coincidentally, that’s about what Venchiarutti figures the car is worth.

It was valued in 1987 at $17,000 but, he says, “the value of vehicles like this generally hasn’t gone crazy. They’re not like muscle cars.”

In more ways than one.

Nowhere does the literature appear to mention the size of the six-cylinder engine, saying only that it develops 45 hp. In fact, it’s 225 cubic inches, about 3.7 litres.

There’s a driver-operated cut-out on the exhaust to bypass the muffler and give, along with a more raucous sound, a little added power. Still, if you were clocking the McLaughlin from 0 to 100 km/h, you’d want to use an hour-glass because it might never get there.

But that’s not what a car like this is all about. Dignity, comfort and stately progress are more in its line. And leg-room, especially in the back.

To fire it up, you push a button to switch on magneto, then set the hand-throttle (think of it as primitive cruise-control; there’s a conventional gas pedal, too) and press the starter on the floor. The updraft carburetor takes a gulp of gas — “regular unleaded is fine,” says Venchiarutti — and the motor rumbles into life, the exposed valve-gear on the cylinder head dancing like mechanical ballerinas.

The firing order — 1-4-2-6-3-5 — is embossed on the inlet manifold.

First gear in the three-speed transmission is to the right and back; second is up and to the left and third straight back.

Steering at the best of times is of the “Armstrong” (that is, strong-arm) variety, but it’s stiffened up enough lately to need adjustment. No problem, says Venchiarutti.

Back then, you didn’t just drop the car off at the dealership for service. You were far more likely to do the work at home. His “Buick Reference Book . . . Season of 1916” contains full instructions for “operation, maintenance and repair” of pretty much everything.

Not that the car has needed much of anything over the years, he says. He believes it was bought in the 1950s by a 19-year-old who very painstakingly restored it.

“All the numbers match; body, chassis, engine,” says Venchiarutti. “It might even be the same air he put in the tires!”

The rear rubber is “non-skid.” That’s what the tread pattern spells out. The wheels have polished oak spokes, superbly fitted and finished.

Everything about the D45 spells craftsmanship. Crouch down and the steering-gear cogs could have come from a gargantuan Swiss watch. Even the grease-nipples are things of beauty.

Apart from the optional speedometer, the only gauge on the mahogany dash is an ammeter, with a notice: “Important. Fill battery with distilled water every four days.” The temperature gauge is on the radiator and the fuel gauge on the gas-tank.

The Venchiaruttis’ daughter and three sons all rode in the McLaughlin on their wedding days. But none is interested in taking it over “so most of the time it just sits now,” says Edda. “I’ll shed a tear or two when it goes but, really, let someone else enjoy it.”

Venchiarutti has been a car buff since shortly after he and Edda were married and he bought a 1928 Model A Ford sedan. That was followed by two Packards, a 1915 centre-door Model T Ford — “You entered by the back seat and then moved up to the front” — and a Murphy-bodied, seven-seater Hudson from the ’20s.

“A lovely car,” he says. “When The Great Gatsby came out (in 1974), we drove in it to see the movie. I had no idea there were even old cars in the film. But they had exactly the same Hudson. I’d parked outside the theatre and afterward people just stared.”

These days, he’s happiest in his Porsche Boxster or the couple’s Mercedes R500 wagon.

And that ’65 Mustang he’d been seeking for his son? Venchiarutti got him a VW diesel pickup truck instead.

Uh, thanks, Dad.

Freelance writer Bill Taylor can be reached at billtaylor2@me.com

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