As I sit here typing this on Saturday night – and probably as my fellow Calgarians sit there reading it Sunday morning – looking out the window shows one thing: snow. It’s safe to say that the summer car show/meet/cruise season has now officially wrapped, though that brings with it the beginning of the winter build season which I am excited for. I wish I could sneak in a few more drives with the S15 but after cramming so many into the second half of the summer it’s not like it didn’t receive enough kilometers this year.

Among the many outings that it saw following the overhaul were a few of the Alberta Pioneer Auto Club (APAC) Ice Cream Runs. Ones from earlier in the year have been shown on the site previously, and to follow them up I have for you today photos from the final run for 2020 – or at least the final run as far as the original schedule was concerned. The weather happily cooperated at the time so I believe a couple more were held following, but this was the last one I attended so these will be the last of my APAC photos for this season. It was after this that I took the opportunity to try out some new gatherings before the season wrapped up for good, but those photos are for another series of posts.

Breaking the normal schedule a bit, this “special edition” was actually held on a Thursday instead of the usual Tuesdays, and saw us head out to Black Diamond for – you guessed it – Marv’s.

While never huge, the APAC runs did usually draw out a decent little gathering of vehicles. This one ended up being quite…small…but no less enjoyable. In all honesty I wasn’t even originally planning to attend but had the evening free and decided to get the Silvia out of town for a cruise, and it wasn’t long before I found myself naturally pointing it in the direction of Black Diamond anyway.  The last time the car had been there I’d forgotten to grab a photo of it with the black diamond, so I was able to fix that at last.

For the 99.99% of readers who don’t call Alberta home and are likely unfamiliar with Black Diamond, I grabbed a shot of the business directory (displaying most of the town) to show how big it is. Answer? It isn’t.

I also made sure to get one of the coal car that sits next to the diamond; I love seeing little pieces of local history like this.

“This coal car represents Black Diamond’s early settlement as a mining town. The community was named for its rich resources of coal found along the Sheep River in the 1800’s.

Abandoned on a rocky slope for decades, the car was carefully retrieved and restored by local volunteers. This coal car is dedicated to the citizens of Black Diamond in recognition of the town’s 75th anniversary of incorporation.

October 6, 2004”

With the initial photo checklist taken care of it was time to head a couple of blocks down the road to see who’d come out for the night. The first car I saw, parked in front of Marv’s, was Barry’s ’57 Monarch. We’d probably passed by each other endlessly at shows over the years but never actually met each other until this evening; always good to put a face to another car!

A few car lengths away was Brent’s ’79 Cougar, which I tossed the S15 in front of…

…and that was the entirety of the turnout! Everyone knew the time and place and the weather was just fine so we’re not sure where the rest of the club was, but we didn’t care. It was still a perfect excuse to visit Black Diamond and hang out for a bit, plus getting all the cars together in one photo was a considerably easier task.

Anyway, we all hung out inside Marv’s for a while and I made sure to grab a few shots here and there as we did. I’ve said it before on the site but I’ll say it again – if you live around here and have never been to Marv’s, you need to fix that pronto! It’s a wonderful little gem not all that far from Calgary and the food is always amazing.

There’s never a shortage of memorabilia or little treasures to take in either.

Nor is it lacking for soda and candy selection.

After visiting for a while and finishing off the snacks, it was time to get back outside to the 1:1 cars for a couple more photos before we cruised back towards Calgary.

You may recall in the previous APAC post that there was a pale yellow ’66 Thunderbird – that too is Brent’s, with this Cougar being his other toy. I don’t think the ‘bird saw nearly as many miles as this one did this season, but I’m happy I was able to grab photos of both anyway and glad to see Brent was able to enjoy both as well; you know how classics and antiques are with their “tempers”. Totally unrelated (actually not) but guess which car decided it wants an engine rebuild next season? Hint: it’s not one of mine…

Of the trio of cars though there was no doubt that Barry’s was the most fitting of the night, given the era and especially its colour scheme! It looked right at home parked in front of the soda shop and it simply oozed presence as we all rolled down the road on the drive back into town. Short of maybe a Micra or something similar size, can you even buy a pink car these days?

While I didn’t attend a massive number of the APAC outings this season, the handful that I did made for some very memorable nights and allowed for some great photos too, adding more diversity to my memory card. Especially now that nights like this are behind us I’m very glad that I was able to get out to the ones that I did. These will be yet another part of the summer season which I will eagerly await the return of in ’21…

…though I’m not going to wait that long for Marv’s; perhaps I’ll go tomorrow (or for you reading this when it first goes live, today).

-Bill