Sometimes we tend to forget that most of the Poncho's we covet today were daily driven in all weather conditions. They were exposed to salt, snow, rain, mud and because of this few good examples remain. However if one took proper steps (undercoating, regular cleaning etc) a car can survive these extreme elements. This brings us to our December feature car. Dave Anderson (a.k.a beaumontguru) joined Canadian Poncho back in February 2008, less than a month after the site was created. Dave is an asset to the website and an encyclopedia of all things Beaumont. While Dave has a few "nice weather" classics, his vehicle of choice for the harsh Manitoba winter is this 1967 Beaumont Custom four door sedan. It's safe to say if it weren't for Dave, this Beaumont would have been crushed years ago. While some may balk at driving a Beaumont for the winter, my hat is off to him for doing so. I'm sure you'll enjoy reading Dave's story about his Beaumont as much as I have:

"The car that started it all. This is my 1967 Beaumont Custom 4dr sedan. I bought the car in the fall of 1996. I was 19 years old and this was my first Beaumont. My intentions were to find a good driver for winter. The dreaded Manitoba safety inspections had come into effect 6 months earlier, so finding a “safetied” winter driver was next to impossible.   I saw an ad in the Buy-And-Sell for this car out in Woodlands, so I went to look. It was safetied and a little pricey at 2200 dollars. It was a nice clean driver, and being used daily on the highway. Reliable, but not too nice for year round use. I bought it for 1800 and drove it back to the city.

 The Granada gold paint was cheap and fading bad. The first thing I did was a good cleaning and polish. It came back really shiny and looked fantastic. But faded fast.

I drive the Beaumont every year, all winter, and only in the winter. I think I drove it occasionally in the summer for the first 2 years I owned it, but it is really just a winter only car.

I have an interior car warmer, a really strong blower motor, and I put in a GM accessory rear window defogger (period correct and it works wonders in the cold). The engine has 2 block heaters, just in case one fails, but so far so good.

2001: The paint was starting to fade bad, but worst of all, so thin that half the car looked like grey primer, so I gave it a 2-tone black roof. I found some Magnum 500 style Buick rallys and sand cast some “cheetah” emblems for the front fenders. The black and gold really gave it a Conroy Pontiac “Cheetah” appearance. I ran it like that for a few years, but then got tired of it, and the rust was starting to get bad.

2002: The motor developed a fairly bad rod knock and piston slap, and was generally pretty tired, so I replaced the non-original 230 with a 250. I am on my second Powerglide. The car has factory power steering too. But its funny after all these years I never have sprung for the GM documents.

September 2008: I sanded the whole car down, and re-sprayed it with proper automotive paint (I used Single stage PPG Omni). A quick, and cheap, weekend job that took me maybe 3 days in total(Afterall, winter was coming). This time the sides were getting really rusty so I thought black would hide most of the rust. I drew up a paint scheme similar to my favourite NASCAR, the Smokey Yunick 1966 Chevelle. I made half of the passenger side quarter and trunk area, lots of welding and a bit of body filler. I replaced the badly rusted out hood at the same time.

2012: I decided it was time to get rid of the terribly pushed in grill that had been driving me crazy for years. I took the front end part, and fixed body mounts, replaced the heater blower, and did a general nut-and-bolt on the whole front clip. Major improvement, got rid of all the squeaks and rattles, and now the grill sits straight. That same summer, I recovered the front seat base. The insert was bad and the foam was gone. I sewed up a really simple seat cover, tightened the springs, and added new foam.

September 16, 2016: The 20 year anniversary: I started driving to work at Canadian Tire when I was just out of highschool in 1996, then College, and various jobs and now an extreme daily city commute. The car gets beat on and battered every day, but has never let me down or left me stranded after all these years. I have been running studded snow tires for about the last 15 years. In 2010 I upgraded to 15” wheels and had all 4 tires studded, I will never go back to anything else.

I replaced the gas tank in 2015 with a brand new spectra premium one. At this point in time, there is no fooling around; the car has to be reliable. In the summer of 2017, I completely rebuilt the front suspension. New ball joints, tie rods, upper and lower bushings, shocks, etc. I have done brakes numerous times over the years, as well as other maintenance and cosmetic upgrades. I just recently installed the third or maybe fourth exhaust system in 2017. I also oil spray it with transmission fluid and chainsaw oil (About 3 times each winter). It is really saving the car, still no frame rust, but it does get more and more rust blisters every year. I plan to keep the car for as long as I can. When i bought it in 1996,  some people would have used it as a parts car, but it was too good for that. So here we are 23 years later, people comment that i am "wrecking that beaumont", my responce is: after 23 years of driving, i haven't wrecked it yet!

Ya its gone thru a few incarnations, but i think it still looks better than every other beige Toyota on the road!"