Very good on you Shawn.   I remember when cole was a member of the Canadian Classic Chevelles & Beaumonts club out of B.C.  Back in the good old days!

Sad story, for sure but it's great to see you taking care of a rare Beaumont like this.

First of all, congrats on being on the top of the page this month. Your car is beautiful! The colour is on-spec Warwick Blue, AKA Dusk Blue.

I love Beaumonts and I love seeing them with unusual features or equipment. The L48 4-speed combo is one of the best all-around drivetrains that year, with Muncie & 12-bolt. It may be the best compromise, with guts, smooth running, quite reasonable fuel economy, and it isn't a shoehorned-in massive chunk of nose-heavy iron like a big block. At 300 horsepower and a 10.25:1 compression they had punch. With the original L48 having been replaced by a lower compression truck 350 you shouldn't have to deal with high compression detonation, a real problem on today's fuel. They are often 4-bolt mains, like your original L48 was.

When you say truck 350, do you mean light duty as in 1/2 to 1-ton, or do you mean medium duty as in up to 2.5 tons? Factory light-duty 2-barrel truck engines had common 1.94" intake valves and were like passenger car engines, but ironically the 4-barrel 350 truck (both light & medium) engines had puny 1.72" intake valves (like a 307 or inline six). "Truck", as in medium-duty truck means governed to lower rpm range, and moving freight means much of the time a heavy foot, hence smaller valves & carbs for limited r.p.m. economy & life. Think 2-barrel versions of 348, 366 V8s, GMC V6s, even Ford 360 (361), 390 (391), SD 477 & 534 V8s.

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend Cole. Losing friends this way really sucks. In no small way you are keeping your personal memory of him alive in you via this car.

It is interesting but not surprising by the sound of your story, that Cole being the historian he was, left the unusual D99 mouldings in place on the car. Today most anyone would remove them, but Cole seemed to recognize that unusual, almost regionally popular, option.

E-T mags were one of my favourites back in the day, when you could run out to Parkdale Performance Centre (insert YOUR local speed shop here) and get a set of E-T I, E-T II, E-T III, E-T IV, or E-T Super mag wheels. Even Canadian Tire started selling them the year your Beaumont was made. Although they may seem puny today, a set of 1-piece polished aluminum 5-slot 14x7 dished wheels looked great on the right car, such as yours. I can almost see white-lettered Polyglas GT's on it back in the day. I still think they'd look awesome on a '67 Impala SS. The Ansen Sprint was Ansen's version of your wheel.

Congratulations on a great example of a 69 Beaumont! Back about 1972-1973 when I was working part time pumping gas at a local Supertest gas station, a customer there had almost the identical car to this, except it was a bench seat. He was the second owner, it was in pristine condition. We never realized then how rare these Beaumonts were.