POC History “Vincent Van Velzer

POC HistoryVincent Van Velzer / Member Number 125

By John Momeyer

Vincent Van Velzer was member 125 in the POC. Over the last few months, I have been communicating with Vincent’s son Bill. Bill provided me a few pictures and stories of his dad taking him to POC events. Vincent was coming upon his 100th birthday in April, but unfortunately, he passed away on February 20th. The pictures provided are of a trip Vincent made with the POC to Ensenada in April 1959.

Vincent drove a 356 hardtop, and according to him, the seventh car up in the picture was his car. Bill said, “I have vivid memories of dad taking mom, my older brother, and I to Box Canyon in Canoga Park shortly after we moved into our new home near Fallbrook and Roscoe Blvd. My brother and I still talk about rolling around in the back seat while mom pleaded with dad to slow down.” While I was communicating with Bill, I worked with Ron Palmer to transfer all POC archives to a more permanent location. I am happy to let you know that Don Kravig will become the POC Historian. He now has all the records of the POC dating back to 1955. I have to tell you, when we opened the first box of archives the top item was an old black and white photo of Don’s father at a POC event. Don will categorize the archives and perhaps even display some of the items at Precision Motion’s shop. We plan on bringing a bit of history to the upcoming Velocity magazines by including some old articles. The POC has been around for a long time. Talking with Bill about his father’s time in the POC and going through the old archives makes you appreciate our history even more.