Regrettably, Paul Dunnett has shrunk in height in retirement. The once chartered accountant is now six-foot-one, but was an inch taller when he and his wife arrived in Vernon a few years ago, and when he purchased his vintage automobile while living in Asheville, NC, in the U.S.
Dunnett may be a little disheartened by the drop, but it still gives him plenty of head room inside his 1968 Ford Mustang Coupe automobile. "The Mustangs have the most ceiling height, which is one of the reasons I like the car," said Dunnett, 73, a member of the North Okanagan chapter of the Vintage Car Club of Canada. While in Asheville, Dunnett met a couple who owned a repair shop.
Through his son, Dunnett developed an interest in the Mustangs, and learned the woman from the shop had acquired her late father's Coupe. He bought it. Dunnett returned to Canada, to Muskoga region of Ontario, after he pulled the Mustang apart.
He had the parts shipped and the car restored there. When their daughter transferred from east to west (coast) during COVID, Dunnett and his wife helped her move, driving to her new home. "We had come through the west a few times, but when our daughter moved, we decided to take a drive and came through here (Vernon)," said Dunnett.
"We thought, 'this seems like a very nice place,' and we stayed." One of the first things the Dunnetts did when they arrived in the North Okanagan was visit the Vintage Car Club's annual Father's Day show in Vernon, at the north end of the Village Green .