You can be forgiven if National Inventors’ Day (February 11) passed you by yesterday, but it gives me a great excuse to write about Barney Oldfield, one of British Columbia’s own treasures.
Barney Oldfield:
Horace Basil (Barney) Oldfield was a mechanical genius and inventor who lived most of his life in Saanich, just outside of Victoria. He and brother Brian founded the Prospect Lake Garage in 1934 on Old West Saanich Road, which amazingly still operates as a family-run business. It was inside his little shop that he built a 24-ton truck out of scrap metal, specialized bulldozer blades and he developed a portable welder and other tools for the logging industry.
Teardrop car:
The two inventions though that attracted the most public attention was the teardrop car he designed and built in the early 1940s, and the rotating house located just a few blocks from his garage.
According to a Times Colonist story from September 1967 the aerodynamic car which he custom-built was the size of a VW bus and could reach speeds of 180 kilometres an hour. He called his invention the Spirit of Tomorrow. It was a combination of a 1939 Dodge frame, Ford V8 engine, transmission, two-speed Columbia over-drive, and front and rear suspension. John Norton, a Victoria-based metal worker built the aluminum body. A large metal fin went on the back of the car to provide better directional control in crosswinds.
For six months Barney carried sandbags in the uncovered chassis, putting them in different positions until he found exactly the right balance that he wanted in the car. John Norton told the Times Colonist reporter. “The airfoil design makes it sink at high speed. It drops a whole inch at 90 miles an hour.”
Rotating House:
Barney, who never married, built his 12-sided rotating house out of steel on top of Saanich Mountain. When he finished the house in the early 1970s, it rotated at 360 degrees with the flick of a switch and could spin at two speeds and reverse. The ground floor was 1,150 sq. ft with a fireplace and bathroom in the centre and kitchen, dining area, living room, two bedrooms and laundry facing outward. On the top was a 200 sq. ft round room with views of Mount Baker, the Malahat and part of the Olympics, and the controls to make the house rotate. Underneath he built a garage and basement.
Barney died in 1978 at 65. He had hung himself in his home.
© Eve Lazarus, 2022
For more stories like this one check out: Sensational Victoria: Bright Lights, Red Lights, Murders, Ghosts and Gardens
Sources:
- Five Eccentric BC Houses
- Times Colonist, September 5, 1967; June 28, 1973
- Website: Spirit of Tomorrow
- BC Assessment