A MacGregor resident helped put MacGregor somewhat on the map a little more, especially in Las Vegas, anyway. Len Boschman of Fourway Motors drove his Mystery Machine replica from the famed Scooby-Doo cartoon series down to Las Vegas recently.

He was invited to bring a custom build to the car show of car shows -- the 2021 International RATical Rod Build-Off Drive-Off. It was meant to happen last year, but COVID arrived and changed all of that.

He rebuilt a 1961 Econoline that came from the DEW line in Northwest Territories. He acquired the vehicle in 1996.

"We did a full custom paint as you can see, that's converted to a 6-litre Powerstroke diesel five hour 110 OverDrive transmission," says Boschman. "We've made it into a dually, so it's got the four 50 series tires underneath the back. It runs on air-ride. Of course, lots of custom fabrication. There's 3,000 hours into the whole build, so it was a very extensive project. It was all done in-house here."

He notes the door hinges were made in a suicide style, where they open opposite to the usual modern manner, to give it a vintage look.

"We've got the stereo sound system that's pretty state-of-the-art with HDMI," adds Boschman. "It's got a 40-inch screen TV that comes down from the roof to display the build process. We've got 1100-and-change pictures, plus approximately $100 of video that we've done of the whole build as we were working with a TV producer out of Los Angeles doing TV production on the build-off."

"We've displayed all of our sponsors that helped us with the build," says Boschman. "We know we know we made a mark even though we're from just little MacGregor, Manitoba, here. But we showed the Americans there, you know, with the real high-dollar builds, that we can build something here in Manitoba just as well as they can down there. So we're very, very proud of that."

Scene with Boschman's photo filter
"We're part of another group called Battle of the Builders, and we had made the original couple cuts before we went down there and were judged," continues Boschman. "And then on the Monday prior to the show opening, November the 1st, the judge panel went around. We made the Top 100 but we did not make the Top 40, so we were in between there somewhere. We were up on the top 80 board that we know of, which was on display for everybody to see. Where did we fall into place? We're not too sure, but even making the Top 100 -- I was so proud of that. Like I say, we're dealing with some major high-end dollar professional builds there. This is just a hobby for us here, so I think we did very well."

He notes the drive covered almost three days, with 1,500 miles for the journey.

"We stopped at the Las Vegas Speedway, "adds Boschma. "We got some lot of nice pictures there at the Speedway. Actually, they had just taken down what looked like a circus or something. So, we drove through where they're disassembling all the amusement rides, and we actually went by the race track there and got some good pictures by the NASCAR track. It was a very, very good experience there."