Winkler Police chief restores ‘72 Cutlass Supreme
A vintage set of wheels parked at the Winkler Police station last week was turning heads, but despite the siren on top and the retro department logo on the doors, it’s no police cruiser.
Rather, the restored 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme has been a labour of love for Chief Ryan Hunt for years.
“I bought this car in 2006,” he shared as onlookers checked out the classic set of wheels. “And I started working on it right away, but then I took a bit of hiatus with it; life gets busy. It’s been the last four or five years that I’ve really been spending most of my spare time on it.”
Hunt’s career before becoming a police officer was in autobody, and he’s maintained those skills as a hobby by restoring collectible vehicles for others in the years since he put on the uniform.
“Over the years I’ve done a lot of projects for other people, but this is the first one for myself,” he noted.
It’s a relaxing way of escaping the stresses of work and life and just focusing on bringing something back to its former glory days.
“That whole process of taking something that somebody would look at and say, ‘That’s junk’ and taking it apart and bring it back to where it’s probably better than new. That’s the part that attracts me to this.”
The Cutlass was in decent shape when he got it.
“It’s always been in this area—I think it might have been bought new in Morden—and it didn’t have a lot of miles on it,” Hunt said. “It had some usual rough spots on the bottom, but the car was in pretty good shape, which is why I bought it.”
Nonetheless, the frame-off restoration included stripping it down and building it back up again, installing a new motor and muffler, a redone interior in black, a fresh coat of paint, an updated air conditioning system, and more.
“Most everything is new again,” noted Hunt. “And everything’s been re-chromed.”
Work was mostly complete on the car last fall (though just last week he did finally find one interior piece he still needs to install—”You’re never really done something like this,” Hunt reflected), but a few finishing cosmetic touches went on just this spring.
“We tried to make the logo as close to the one they had then,” Hunt said of the Winkler Police emblem he has on the front doors, complemented by the red siren on top. “I just thought it would be a cool touch to try to make it look like an old police car, a little bit.”
While he doesn’t intend to be chasing down ne’er-do-wells in his Cutlass anytime soon, the chief will be taking it out on plenty of drives this summer.
“It handles like new,” Hunt shared. “It drives nice and smooth.”
And with this vehicle finally done, he has time to start on the next project—or two, or three.
“I have three more that I want to restore before I’m too old to work on them,” Hunt quipped. “I just love being in the shop where it’s quiet and you can just tinker away at it and slowly bring them back to life.”
