Dragula (aka 1951 Ford custom car) – Zehr Insurance Brokers Ltd.

Owned by Gord Osborne, ON

As a young grade school student, I use to come home from school have a snack and watch the T.V. show the “Munsters”. One day there was an episode where Herman was trying to impress his son and raced a school bully’s father at a racetrack and lost the family car in a Drag Race. The Grand Father who was very creative, proceeded to build a car using a coffin, organ pipes and various things to race at the track and try to win the family car back. When Dragula the racecar came out of the barn, that was the day at eight years old I will never forget. Coolest car I have ever saw and they did win the family car back.

As a teenager I was hooked on building cars and racing, and I was focused on becoming a licensed technician. 20 years later I became a high school automotive teacher where I teach skilled trades to the students. We build various things fabricate trailers etc. and repair vehicles.

One day the students wanted to build a project that would be really cool, and that was the day I told them about the T.V. show “The Munsters. After the students watched the episode where Dragula came to life, they wanted desperately to build a car like that and wanted to know where we can get plans for such a project. I laughed and said there is no plans, we must make them up.

Starting with chalk board drawings and tape on the floor, the project came to life and was turning out so fantastic. I told them if they keep working hard, I will enter it in the Detroit Autorama. They did and I entered it in the largest Auto show in America.

The car we built was our version of the original Dragula which is named Dragula 2.O. It was the first Canadian High School project to ever win 1st place in an international auto show. They also had me as the teacher enter it in the professional division and it also won 1st place also. It was a dream come true 50 years later and passed this on to students and they created history.

Gord Osborne
KDHS Tech Department Head
Transportation Technology