my mother’s side, they were Dutch and German
with a bit of Irish thrown into the mix. When he was
just eight years old, my grandfather, Ben Wachter, drove
horses and mules along the Oregon Trail all the way up
to Wilbur, Washington. He eventually became a farmer
in Alberta and worked building the railways. He was
truly a pioneer. My grandma, Clara, was a big, imposing
woman who came from St. Louis, Missouri, and after
she married Ben, she stayed home to look after the
house and family. When we were kids, we’d go on lots of
road trips to the farm. It had no running water or paved
roads, but tons and tons of bugs. It was as natural as
can be. In summer, it would get so hot when we were
driving, we’d cook chuckwagon dinners on the manifold.
At Christmas, it would be too cold to drive to church,
so we’d go out with the horse and sleigh.
My parents met skating one day back in Alberta.
Sigurd was seven years older than Ruth, and both
were ready to marry; in the end, they had fifty-four
mostly happy years together. My mom was a good
cook, generous host, talented seamstress and bit of a
poet. My dad was a great mechanic and really smart, so
smart that during the Second World War, he was sent
A (very) young John Fluevog
discovers his love of cars in his
dad’s garage, where Sigurd sold
cute Hillmans from England.
1951
My grandparents were
pioneers in the truest
sense of the word.
25
26
to Bella Bella, a remote village in the rainforest along
the British Columbia coast, to decode secret Japanese
messages. My sister Karen was born up there. After the
war, they moved to Vancouver, where my dad opened
his own garage near the Kootenay Loop, at Hastings and
Boundary. He loved anything that had wheels and sold
these cute English cars called Hillmans. I’ve inherited
his love of cars and all things mechanical.
In 1952, when I was just four years old, he opened
a soft-serve ice cream place on Kingsway in Burnaby,
British Columbia. It was called the Luxury Freeze
Drive-In and it became a real scene. Everyone went to
the Luxury Freeze. They’d go to socialize and, most of
all, to show off their cars. There were lots of custom
cars loaded with fashion statements like fancy grills
and doodads and dingle balls. Cars were a real status
symbol in the 1950s. You could be unpopular, but if
you had a cool car you could get a pretty girl to drive
around with you. My dad and I shared a love of cars,
and by the time I was ten, I knew everything about
every model that would pull into the drive-in. Now
I realize that’s where I kind of developed a feel for
shapes and lines and the feelings they create.
I spent a lot of time hanging around the Luxury
Freeze. My dad was basically my babysitter, and as I
watched him work, I learned a lot from him, both what
to do and what not to do. He did everything by himself.
He never hired anybody. He considered it evil to spend
the money when he could do it himself. Besides, he
always thought he could do things better himself. It
wasn’t always true, of course, but he did teach me one
of the most important lessons of my life: If you want to
do something, you just start. There’s nothing you can’t
do if you really want to.
The Luxury Freeze was super successful, not just as
a business, but as a place where my dad could spread
the gospel because, of course, he was still a good
Christian. My parents were good-looking and could
have been a real power couple, if they’d wanted to.
Everyone knew my dad. Everyone knew Sig. He talked
to everyone and, by the time I became a teenager, that
Sigurd Fluevog closes his garage
and opens the Luxury Freeze
Drive-In. The soft-serve ice
cream joint becomes the cool
place in the city for people to
hang out and show off their cars.
John becomes fascinated with
the stylish cars, fashion and
music of the 1950s.
1952
The
