Major Ian Newby is thrilled that the Langley Good Times Cruise-In has moved to Aldergrove.
The retired officer has always brought a few of his classic cars and vintage military vehicles to the Cruise-In in Langley City, but with the new site of the Cruise-In a mere couple of blocks from his Aldergrove base of operations, he plans to bring at least a couple of dozen of his collectible vehicles to the event.
“We’re going to put the spectacular stuff on the street to lure people in,” said Newby.
Newby has at least 100 vehicles on his 15 acre property, along with thousands of pieces of military gear in a 14,000 square foot warehouse, at his privately-operated Museum of the Armed Forces.
The museum also doubles as a provider of props for movie and TV shoots, under the name International Movie Services, which helps Newby pay for the acquisition and maintenance of the vehicles and equipment in his collection.
Newby and his staff along with volunteers — most of them retired soldiers — will line up retired military jeeps, trucks, tanks, artillery field guns and tractors, an anti-tank gun, 8x8 Striker, an RCMP Riotmaster, even a Huey helicopter, on the street.
“We will also fill the Legion parking lot with military tents, uniformed mannequins and various pieces of equipment and we will have a crew of retired soldiers explain and describe how everything works,” said Newby.
Newby will be calling for volunteer help from the 15th Field Artillery as well as Western Command.
“Our displays will tell a story. It will be the most ambitious and biggest display of military vehicles and equipment ever seen here.”
Newby is planning the event in concert with the Aldergrove branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, which will hold an open house that day.
The Aldergrove Legion lounge will be open to the public and there will be an information booth in the parking lot, where members will also sell memberships to the public. The Legion will operate a barbecue that day and the 2nd Aldergrove Scouts, which is sponsored by the Legion, will also have a food tent in the Legion parking lot.
“We’ll have to start working on it the day before the Cruise-In on Saturday, Sept. 9, because the hordes start coming early, at 7 a.m., and we want to be ready to go first thing that morning,” said Newby.
“But it can be done in Aldergrove. Logistically, Langley City was too far to haul everything and set it up.”
Newby has been collecting military memorabilia since his youth in Essex, near London, England. He came with his family to Canada in 1953, when he was 10, when a family friend and former Canadian serviceman, Frank Sedman, sponsored the Newby family and brought them to Langley Prairie.
Ian Newby attended Belmont Elementary School and Kitsilano High School, and his father Reginald “Bill” Newby worked at Woodward’s stores on the lower mainland and Vancouver Island. Ian’s mother, Stella Marie Newby is now 91 and retired in White Rock after many years of working for BC Tel.
Ian Newby, who signed up with the Canadian Army in 1959 at age 15 — “I said I was 16” — and retired from the service in 1987, started his motion picture consulting company inside the “Airwolf” studio at the former Park & Tilford Distillery site. He relocated to the Dominion studios in Burnaby before finding his present Aldergrove location in 1989.
“Consulting doesn’t pay, so I started to acquire the inventory for rentals.
“These days I get calls from productions looking for props from all over the world, my reputation is international,” said Newby.
“But I wear two hats; it’s all historical pieces which I rent out to pay for it. It’s a symbiotic relationship. But my goal is eventually to build a permanent military museum here in the Fraser Valley. In the next five years the decisions will be made.”
