Yes Virginia, there is a town named Olds, and it is located in Central Alberta, but it was not named after the famous founder of the car company, Ransom E Olds.
Instead, it was named after George Olds, the traffic manager for the rail company that ran a line between Calgary and Edmonton, the two major cities in Alberta.
The net result was a community with a name that fits very well with the famous car brand, although Olds (the town) is not well-known outside of Alberta.
Jim Sutherland
Ken Pilidis is a devoted fan of Olds (the car company), as well as an Alberta resident, so he decided to create a car club to celebrate the famous GM brand and enlisted the help of two other like-minded Oldsmobile loyalists during the early 1990s.
Ken was already a member of the Oldsmobile Club of America, a large club with charter chapters in many states and Canadian provinces. Ken was granted access to the Oldsmobile club’s member list for the northwestern US states and western Canadian provinces so he could gauge their interest in his potential new charter club, namely the Oldsmobile Northern Lights Chapter, Alberta.
The response was good, so the Oldsmobile Northern Lights Car Club was founded in 1991 and continues to thrive to this very day.
As mentioned earlier, Ken is an Alberta resident and well aware of the community of Olds in his home province, so he and fellow club members felt the town was the perfect place to host their Olds-only car show.
It was a solid game plan, and their annual event has been attended by many visitors who live a long distance away from the town of Olds. The common denominator is their love for all things Oldsmobile, and the aptly named community of Olds is indeed a perfect venue for the Northern Lights hosts.
MyStarCollectorCar has attended many of their car shows over the past 17 years because the Oldsmobile name is an interesting part of the vintage car hobby, and we have gathered many stories at the Olds show in Olds.
This year’s event provided more of the same, including an amazing 1962 Olds Holiday Ninety-Eight four-door hardtop that may be the best definition of a survivor car we at MyStarCollectorCar have even seen at a show. Believe it or not, this beauty still had its original plastic on the seats and looked like it had just left the showroom.
There is a big story behind this amazing survivor car, one that will be revealed in a future MyStarCollectorCar article.
The other car on our ‘Olds-in-Olds’ list is a 1969 Cutlass convertible that has undergone a major restoration from its basket case status 25 years ago to a totally rebuilt drop top with some very cool upgrades.
Nothing about the process was easy for the convertible’s restoration, given its horrible condition, but its owner invested his time and money into the project to make it perfect. Find out how and why in a future MyStarCollectorCar feature story.
Oldsmobile owners are a special breed of car guy, and we at MyStarCollectorCar would like to thank them for their devotion to a very cool car brand.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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