The Leaf legend's weakness for fast cars was his downfall on Feb. 21, 1974. But the story of his De Tomaso Pantera wasn't quite what it seemed. By Edward Brown, Special to the Star Tim Horton loved cars more than he loved coffee, and it cost him his life. By 1973, the 43-year-old four-time Stanley Cup champion and future Hockey Hall of Famer had played 23 seasons in the NHL. Nonetheless, with the new season approaching, Buffalo Sabres general manager Punch Imlach enticed Horton to play an additional year for $150,000 and sweetened the deal with a sporty De Tomaso Ford Pantera. Imlach preyed on Horton’s lifelong weakness for fast cars, and the player couldn’t resist the offer of owning the supercar. Four months later, when Horton perished driving the sports car at breakneck speed through St. Catharines in the early hours of Feb. 21, 1974, Imlach was beside himself. ![]() Over the years there has been speculation about what happened to the car. Many people assume a salvage yard crushed the car Horton was driving to avoid souvenir hunters picking over what remained of the hockey icon’s ride after the devastating accident, 50 years ago this week. I have long been curious about what happened and recently set out to find an answer. And it turns out that parts of the automobile, including the powerful V8 engine, were salvaged and survived long after the terrible crash. Tim Horton, born in 1930, grew up impoverished in northern Ontario. Black and white photographs from the era depict a young Horton seated on the running board of a Model T Ford or leaning over the hood of a roadster. After he signed his first professional hockey contract to play for the Pittsburgh Hornets in 1949, he purchased his first car, a Mercury. In under a year, he’d written it off. This wouldn’t be the only time reckless driving cost him a car. During his playing days with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Horton, fearful of slipping back into the poverty of his childhood, had side hustles to supplement his NHL salary during off-seasons. Before owning Tim Horton Motors on Yonge Street, he sold Pontiacs at a Scarborough car lot. One afternoon, he made a sale to Jim Charade. Charade owned Your Do-Nut Shop on Lawrence Avenue East near Warden. Completing the paperwork, Charade asked Horton to partner with him and open a chain of coffee shops. The pair launched the first Tim Horton Donuts in 1964 in Hamilton, on a former Esso gas station site. The partnership lasted a few years before Charade would be replaced by Ron Joyce, who would build a fast-food empire. "So proud of that car' After 18 seasons with the Leafs, the celebrated defenceman announced his retirement in 1969, but extended his playing days and was traded to the New York Rangers. Beginning in 1969 he would routinely announce his retirement at each season’s end only to sign for one more year — it became a running joke among hockey people and the press at the time. By 1972, 30 stores bearing Tim Horton’s name were in operation. By this point, Horton, the married father of four, felt confident the coffee shop business could support him and his family upon leaving the game of hockey. ![]() Horton was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and when that team was eliminated in the first round of the play-offs, he hung up his skates. However, Imlach, his former Leaf coach who was now the Buffalo Sabres general manager, convinced Horton to play for that team in 1972, and the Sabres made the play-offs for the first time. At the end of that season, Horton called it quits again. This time, he told the press, he meant it. But days before the start of the 1973 season, Imlach brandished a large contract and dangled the offer of a Pantera under Horton’s nose to convince him to play one more year. The financial payout appealed to Horton, but the car sealed the deal. The sleek automobile coveted by Horton resulted from a partnership between Ford Motor Co. and Italian car manufacturer De Tomaso, combining European design with American muscle car ingenuity. Among the original wedge car designs, Horton's was purchased at Gateway Lincoln Mercury on Yonge Street north of Steeles for around $17,000, comparable to the cost of a Ferrari at the time. In an interview, former team mate and honorary pallbearer at Horton’s funeral, Eddie Shack, said that Horton was “so proud of that car. He came up to me and said, ‘Shackie, look at my car … Listen to the sound of the engine. Listen to that power.' ” On Feb 21, 1974, around 4:30 a.m., Horton’s eastbound Pantera blew past OPP Const. Mike Gula on the QEW so fast the officer couldn’t confirm its colour. Several hours earlier, the Sabres defenceman had played his final match against his former team at Maple Leaf Gardens, but he left the game early with an injured jaw. While team mates returned to Buffalo on the team bus, Punch Imlach permitted the veteran player to drive his Italian sportscar back to Buffalo. Horton stopped in Hamilton to discuss business with partner Ron Joyce, and they talked into the early hours. Gula gave chase and minutes later encountered a single-vehicle accident near the Lake Street exit. Horton, estimated to be speeding at around 160 km/h, lost control of the car, rolled several times, and crossed the grass median. The vehicle came to rest on its roof in the westbound lanes. Horton, not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected. Twenty minutes later, the hockey legend was pronounced dead en route to a local hospital. Canadians awoke to the startling news. A secret collision report While the nation mourned, gawkers wandered the median of the busy four-lane highway, collecting souvenir bits of glass and chrome from the battered wreck. The morning of Horton’s death, before Imlach visited the towing yard to see the remains of the coupe for himself, he spoke with Joyce. Too despondent to inform Horton’s wife of the tragedy, he pleaded with Joyce to make the call, stammering, “I know I shouldn’t have got him that damn car.” The motor vehicle collision report from Horton’s accident reveals what happened next to the heavily damaged vehicle. The report was withheld from the public until Ottawa Citizen reporter Glen McGregor obtained it and Horton’s autopsy findings through a Freedom of Information request in 2005. The report shows that while Horton lay in the morgue, his demolished Pantera was hooked to a tow truck and transported to Simpson’s Towing Yard in St. Catharines. Students from a nearby school skipped class to visit the yard. More people arrived, trying to get close to the car. When the crowd swelled and became unruly, police were called to keep order, instructing towing yard staff to cover the vehicle with a tarp. Two days later, OPP transport driver Ernest Anderson hauled the wreckage to the OPP garage at 125 Lakeshore Boulevard East in Toronto. The wreck was transported around the corner to the Centre for Forensic Sciences on Jarvis Street on the day of Horton’s funeral in North York. A team led by forensic engineer Eric Krueger thoroughly examined the vehicle, focusing on the steering, tires, suspension and brakes. Krueger’s team sought evidence that mechanical defects contributed to the deadly crash. Krueger’s report completed two weeks later concluded the Italian sports car was in working order before a combination of high speed, excessive alcohol consumption, and barbiturate use by the driver caused the accident. Had he been belted, Horton might have survived. A Maritime connection At the end of March 1974, an insurance appraiser deemed the car a write-off valued at $500. Horton’s estate released the vehicle to Grant Collision on Jane Street. Because souvenir hunters desired a piece of the car that ended Horton’s life, it’s been assumed the wreck was crushed in a salvage yard compactor, but that wasn’t the case. Former Toronto Star Wheels contributor Patrick Smith wrote an intriguing blog post on phscollectorcarworld about Tim Horton’s Pantera, hinting that part of the car might live on. The Star followed an online trail to track it down. The wreck, or parts of it at least, was purchased by the celebrated Maritime race car enthusiast Don Alexander, who co-owned Seabreeze Raceway outside Halifax. The late race promoter also built stock cars. Today, his son, Kirk Alexander, who lives in Dartmouth, N.S., is unsure if his father purchased Horton’s entire wreck or just the engine. “I don’t know if the whole car came or not, and the two people who would are no longer here. We ended up with the guts out of that car.” Don Alexander converted Horton’s V8 into a stock car engine. Kirk Alexander remembers, “Dad was going through 351 Clevelands like none tomorrow.” The Pantera motor got a second life under the hood of No. 75, a 1973 Ford Mach 1 Mustang. The stock car became legendary. Renowned driver Jim Hallahan, partnered with Don Alexander, took the checkered flag numerous times behind the wheel of No. 75. Many races were at Atlantic Speedway’s half-mile track, just outside of Halifax.
Today, the centre section of Don Alexander’s Mach 1 is stowed in a storage container in Dartmouth. As for the Horton engine, Kirk Alexander said, “The dipstick of that car is four feet long. It was hanging on the wall in my brother’s basement. May even still be there. There are bits and pieces of that engine still around.” Edward Brown is a Toronto-based writer.
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