Sept 18
Some pics from the Targa Newfoundland Facebook page
Sept 17
So after an adrenaline pumping 106kph run into Salvage, we took a break here.
Today’s moment of peace and serenity.
Ready to Rock Eastport. Got Dee and DeeDee fitted up with the appropriate safety gear. Apparently they were getting uncomfortable without it, since neither one knows how to fly.
Sept 16. We’ve been on the road since the 28th of August. I no longer know what day it is without looking. But I know we are going racing.
Today’s route took us through Glenwood, Bobby’s Cove, Pleasantview, Point Lemington, Leading Tickles, Glovers Harbour, before finishing off in Appleton.
Glenwood and Appleton were both city stages. Narrow streets, white picket fences and lots of spectators along the road. Pretty cool to rip through someone’s subdivision wide open and have them cheering you on instead of screaming at you.
Point Lemington and Leading Tickles stages were incredible runs. I think the views were awesome, but ripping through a twisty road with posted limits of 60km with lots of slow to 30 signs and averaging 105kph doesn’t give you a lot of time to look around.
#classiccartours #tourismnewfoundland #gmcanada #targanewfoundland #beaumontconvertible #bucketlistadventure #tourismcanada #Beaumont #jellybeanautocrafters #crosscanadadrives #driveitlikeyoustoleit #targanl #followus #Gander
Sep16
Bay Bulls. Newfoundland. Entering town with some style. Bet you never thought a 65 Beaumont with basically stock suspension would move like this. Set em up right and go have fun. (Legally at Targa Newfoundland)
Sept 16
Some more footage from Targa Newfoundland. Kids, these are closed roads and a fully sanctioned event. Please do not make a random video like this. Come to Targa. It’s the only place in North America you can drive like this with all the safety stuff in place. This is 1965 Beaumont Sport Deluxe, mildly modified, trying to chase down a pretty sweet 2017 BMW M2
Bay Bulls. Newfoundland. Entering town with some style. Bet you never thought a 65 Beaumont with basically stock suspension would move like this. Set em up right and go have fun. (Legally at Targa Newfoundland)
Sept 15. Sorry didn’t post yesterday. It’s been some monster days at Targa. Having way too much fun, if there is such a thing. Check out the video. Where else can you this, totally sanctioned, local police coming to watch you tear up the town. This is what we did today.
Sept 13 Arriving at the farthest eastern point in North America after 2 weeks on the road. Cape Spear, Newfoundland.
Sept 12 evening
We ended up at an A&W car meet tonight in St Johns. What a great crowd of enthusiasts from every age group. Didn’t take many pictures since we couldn’t break away from the car for the 3 hours we spent there. Absolutely overwhelming response from the local car community.
Sept 12. Today was a lot of fun. It was also very educational. We started with classroom sessions on how to read a proper rally book. We moved into more classroom sessions on how not to die during Targa. lol. The event actually has an exelent track record for safety. After a few instances in previous events, they have instituted mandatory training sessions the last number of years on course safety and how to make sure we are able to maximize our fun level by staying on the pavement.
The classroom sessions were followed up by a few stages of practice runs, done at posted speed limits to get used to giving a receiving instructions. It gave us a chance to figure out how we were going to communicate without having the added pressure of trying to go fast.
The evening brought cars and coffee event at a local A&W. Great turnout. We never saw many cars because we couldn’t break away from our car for the better part of 3 hours, but I am guessing well north of 100 cars showed up. The level of interest in our car and what we were doing was the highest we saw anywhere in our trip so far.
1st day of Targa in the books, 1 more training day tomorrow and then things get real.
Sept 9
Here’s the view out our hotel window tonight. Port aux Basques, Newfoundland
Sept 8. Our route today takes us from St John NB to New Glasgow NS. Started by having breakfast with a friend we hadn’t seen since she moved to St John, met her husband as well. Great time catching up and sharing some laughs.
Got on the road in bit of light rain, but that was gone about noon, and the top came off again.
Stopped for lunch at a little cafe, talked to
a guy for a bit,and when I told him about Targa he broke out in a huge grin and says “you just added an item to my bucket list!!”
Travelled mostly back roads today again, took the Confederation Bridge across to PEI, got off the main highways again and took our time across the island. Our GPS finally figured us out today, and took us off the #1 at one point and put us on Wood Island road. This was a little backroad with cool rolling hills and some great scenery. I hadn’t put that road on our route map so it worked out well.
We are on the ferry as I post this, a couple more hour to travel but should be an early night after a couple days of not enough sleep. #targa #targanewfoundland #jellybeanautocrafters #Beaumont #classiccars #backroads #bucketlisttrips #crosscanadadrives #gmcanada #PEI #touringinaclassiccar #driveyouclassic
Sept 7. Left Quebec today, ended up in St John NB. Continued to follow Hwy 134 along the river. Great drive today until about mid afternoon when the rain set in.
Went through a town called Beaumont, and a place called Acadian. Too bad they didn’t have a sign for Acadian except the one we blasted past on the highway.
Had to swap out the front tires today. The ones I had on it were awesome for turning and stopping, not so much for a trip across the country. 350 tread wear tires are fun but expensive. Shout out to Canadian Tire in Levis Quebec for awesome service.
Sept 6 This was the car meet we stumbled across. Heard about on a Ferry from random strangers that came to look at our car. Turned into an incredible evening of making new friends.
Sept 5 My Travel comment for the day. After seeing some of the most amazing roads and cool towns, if I never need to drive in Montreal again I will be a happy man.
Vancouver, you have no idea what a traffic jam, but look what we have to look forward to!!
Sept 4
Happening now… GM assembly plant in Oshua. Car wanted to visit it roots.
Cool thing we did today while on our coast to coast drive to participate in Targa Newfoundland.
Decided to wash the front tires in a place called Bath, on the shores of Lake Ontario.
Sept 4. Today’s journey took us from Toronto to Gananoque. We began by meeting Frank from Canadian Hotrodder Forum and Points West tour fame, and his lovely wife Judy. They hooked us up with a hoist at their friend Roger’s place, so I could do an oil change along with a quick inspection on the car. We have run just about 2000 miles so far.
Everything checked out great, so after a nice lunch, we hit the road.
For the most part. We stayed on hwy 2 and 33. What a great ride along the shores of Lake Ontario. Some side trips were to the GM assembly plant in Oshua, where there media person Lauren came out and took some pics of the car and got a bit of the story for their companies internal media sites. So our car will be on the big screen TV s they have throughout the plant. Pretty cool.
Also got to dip the front wheels in Lake Ontario.
Beautiful roads, a great history lesson on the areas we drove through dating back to very beginnings of Canada from a random guy that stopped to talk to us at the side of the road. What a great day, here’s a few highlights.
Sept 3
Today took us to some pretty cool stuff. We started out in Tobermory,and went to Toronto via Wasaga beach. Some beautiful driving roads, and a trip down the 401 into Toronto that was as good a prep time as you could have for Targa Newfoundland. At one point I was doing 130, and people were passing me.
Finished off with CN Tower and a Blue jays game.
Here’s some highlights of the day
Sept 2
Travelled to Tobermory today Got messed up by Ferry schedules so lost 4 hours of travel time. Oops. Anyways, had a great trip. The run from Sault Se Marie to Tobermoray is absolutely fantastic. Good part about missing the ferry we wanted to be on, we got the sunset cruise
August 31
People are awesome. We stopped at Kakabeka Falls tonight. Ended up talking with a family for a while. One question asked was “do you like Indian food? I certainly do. Well, they just dropped off food for us. Fresh, homemade.
Woo hoo!
August 30
Today was great day of family visits. Spent some time with Lu’s family in Swift Current and Regina. Ended up at my (Kurt) cousins place in Winnipeg. Saw a cousin I hadn’t seen in about 40 years. Die hard car guy.
He showed me pictures of his 74 Bossa Nova. This thing was one of about 35 ever made. Crazy rare car. Sadly it got totalled. The only picture he still has of it is when it was wrecked. I’ll put a pic in the comments.
So far it’s been main hiways, making time and seeing people. Tomorrow we start sight seeing on our way to Thunder Bay.
August 29
Today features my lovely sidekick
August 28
We got a full tank of premium, tops down so here we go. The start of 18 000 kms in 5 weeks.
Targa Newfoundland, Kurt Penner
So day 1 is in the books. We had a few last details to look after on the car, like a front signal that didn’t want to signal, a control box for my Speedo that gave up control, and we didn’t get the fire extinguisher and console mounted yesterday.
So, by the time we got that done, headed back home to pack the car and got on the road we were a lot later leaving than intended. Didn’t get as far tonight as we wanted, but will get an early start tomorrow and still be in Swift Current Sask by tomorrow night.
Targa Newfoundland is only a few weeks away, so this Tuesday, August 27th, is “Departure Day” for Kurt (one of the owners of Jellybean AutoCrafters ) and is wife Lu.
They’ll embark on the 18,500 kilometer (11,500 miles) round trip, including 2,000kms of the Targa itself.
The drive will be 5 weeks, so it’ll be a lot of seat time.
They’ll “Dip the Wheels” in the ocean on Tuesday the 27th, at the Vanier Park Boat Launch at 2-3pm, to launch their epic drive from coast to coast and back.
From 5-7pm we’ll have the official Send Off at the shop, located at #208 – 19425 Langley Bypass. There’ll be snacks and drinks as well as plenty of cool cars to see.
We invite you to come to both events, so come to one or the other (or both) bring your cool car and celebrate this adventure with us.
We hope to see you on Tuesday
August 16 2024
Kurt, one of the owners of Jellybean AutoCrafters, talks about the 1965 Beaumont Sport Deluxe Convertible (less that 400 ever made) he and his wife have driven for over 180,000 miles, and now will face it’s ultimate challenge, Targa Newfoundland
August 1 2024
