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to Bella Bella, a remote village in the rainforest along

the British Columbia coast, to decode secret Japanese

messages. My sister Karen was born up there. After the

war, they moved to Vancouver, where my dad opened

his own garage near the Kootenay Loop, at Hastings and

Boundary. He loved anything that had wheels and sold

these cute English cars called Hillmans. I’ve inherited

his love of cars and all things mechanical.

In 1952, when I was just four years old, he opened

a soft-serve ice cream place on Kingsway in Burnaby,

British Columbia. It was called the Luxury Freeze

Drive-In and it became a real scene. Everyone went to

the Luxury Freeze. They’d go to socialize and, most of

all, to show off their cars. There were lots of custom

cars loaded with fashion statements like fancy grills

and doodads and dingle balls. Cars were a real status

symbol in the 1950s. You could be unpopular, but if

you had a cool car you could get a pretty girl to drive

around with you. My dad and I shared a love of cars,

and by the time I was ten, I knew everything about

every model that would pull into the drive-in. Now

I realize that’s where I kind of developed a feel for

shapes and lines and the feelings they create.

I spent a lot of time hanging around the Luxury

Freeze. My dad was basically my babysitter, and as I

watched him work, I learned a lot from him, both what

to do and what not to do. He did everything by himself.

He never hired anybody. He considered it evil to spend

the money when he could do it himself. Besides, he

always thought he could do things better himself. It

wasn’t always true, of course, but he did teach me one

of the most important lessons of my life: If you want to

do something, you just start. There’s nothing you can’t

do if you really want to.

The Luxury Freeze was super successful, not just as

a business, but as a place where my dad could spread

the gospel because, of course, he was still a good

Christian. My parents were good-looking and could

have been a real power couple, if they’d wanted to.

Everyone knew my dad. Everyone knew Sig. He talked

to everyone and, by the time I became a teenager, that

Sigurd Fluevog closes his garage

and opens the Luxury Freeze

Drive-In. The soft-serve ice

cream joint becomes the cool

place in the city for people to

hang out and show off their cars.

John becomes fascinated with

the stylish cars, fashion and

music of the 1950s.

1952

The Luxury Freeze was

where I kind of developed

a feel for shapes and lines

and the feelings they create.

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