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The ash body with Honduran mahogany panels was fabricated at a woodworker’s shop between 2012 and 2014, then hand-sanded and clear-coated at the restoration shop.Dan Proudfoot/The Globe and Mail

Vernon Smith’s Chrysler Barrel Back eased nearly silently into view from the early morning fog and all those seeing a 1942 Town and Country Wagon for the first time understood the epithet at a glance.

The Barrel Back starts conventionally enough with a handsome grille, but its bold chrome strips flow into the fenders and lead the eye to a funky conclusion. Some would have described the Barrel Back in wartime as the “business end of a torpedo,” or more fancifully now, as Humpty Dumpty, with its twin trunk doors cracking open on side-mounted hinges.

Competing cars in the American Classics Closed class – two imposing Packards and an Auburn – were already in their places on the fairway above Georgian Bay for the Cobble Beach Concours d’Elegance, back in September.

Arriving at 7:55 a.m., Smith had just enough time to wipe away the condensation and otherwise make things right before judging would begin.

“Two blown tires,” he told those who asked about towing the Town and Country from Newfoundland to Owen Sound, Ont., a drive he characterized as “three long days and the ferry. … Two blown tires and both after I crossed into Ontario. And I have to tell you, I found a screw in another."

Like chocolates from a just-opened box, he passed around tidbits of information to curious early birds. He said only 16 nine-passenger Barrel Backs are known to exist out of the 500 to 600 1942 models made before the Second World War brought production to an end.

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The distinctive side-hinged doors of the trunk open to reveal perfectly fitted picnic and parts cases that Vernon Smith bought at the Hershey, Penn., parts flea market.Dan Proudfoot/The Globe and Mail

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The picnic and parts cases inside the trunk.Dan Proudfoot/The Globe and Mail

Woodie wagons evolved as workhorses. An example near at hand, the 1928 Chevrolet Station Wagon in which entrant Scott Sinclair learned to drive, hauled supplies to Lake Muskoka for its original owner. Another woodie in the pre-war production class at the Concours, Fredrik Eaton’s 1938 Ford, appeared more modern than the Chevy, but remains a wooden box back from the steering wheel rearward.

With its steel roof adding substance and designer Buzz Grasinger’s lines providing the style, the Town and Country occupied another plane. Chrysler’s 1938 Plymouth Westchester was the first wagon to be classified a car, not a truck, and Chrysler kitted out this one as the first luxury wagon.

Smith demonstrated the middle seats folding into place in limousine fashion. He pointed to laminated wooden ribs within the roof lending richness to the leather interior and complimenting the white ash framing the doors. “And you know it’s the quietest car, just listen to this.” And with that, the flat-six motor whispered like a gentle wind through a maple forest.

“I get a chuckle out of this,” he said, holding up the original key fob with the car’s specs: 115 horsepower; road speed, 95 mph; wheelbase 121.5 inches; price $1,699.

A pièce de résistance: What would this tiny crank mounted ahead of the driver’s door, beneath the dashboard, be for? As he turned the crank, the radio antenna raised or lowered.

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The steering wheel is the original red mottled plastic. New gauges, a rebuilt radio and newly chromed brightwork were fitted.Dan Proudfoot/The Globe and Mail

He’d never seen a Barrel Back before this very car appeared at the 2009 Meadowbrook Concours d’Elegance (since 2011 the Concours of America at St. John’s, Plymouth, Mich.) “That’s when I fell in love with it,” he says. He bought it a few months later, after it failed to meet the reserve at a Worldwide auction in Indiana.

Worldwide now lists the car as its top sale at the 2009 auction, $440,000. RM Sotheby’s sold a 1941 Town and Country for $572,000 in 2012. Considering reaction to Smith’s car at Cobble Beach, the Barrel Back‘s time is at hand.

Emcee Ed Lucas’s honeyed baritone opened the award presentations that afternoon at the Cobble Beach resort. Lucas’s voice was familiar to Smith; he’d heard him announcing the Barrel Back as Most Significant Chrysler at Meadow Brook, when Smith was first enamoured.

First was “the kids’ choice,” the car selected as best of the show by the eight-to-14-year-olds in the Hagerty Youth Judging program. They picked the Barrel Back.

Surely the authorities judging Class Six, American Classics Closed, wouldn’t be so impressed. Lucas announced the third-place award first: a 1934 Packard 1104; second place, a 1938 Packard Club Sedan; first place: the Barrel Back.

Surely the sun was shining on Smith now. His car was named People’s Choice – all showgoers can cast a ballot – and after that, Outstanding Pre-War.

Only Best In Show ranked higher, the top award invariably the preserve of shapely two-seaters, this year Robert Jepson’s 1938 Delahaye 135MS Coupe from Savannah, Ga.

Smith wins his class at the Amelia Island Concours with some regularity, and in 2010 collected a third-place ribbon at the big show, Pebble Beach, but neither he nor his Barrel Back had seen a day that quite equalled this one.

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