A man, a bus, and a dream

By Carlie Connolly

On Aug. 15, a man by the name of Ed Spiteri drove his 60-year old mobile bus out to the Seven Persons Community Church to entertain family and friends for his first public event with his drive-in theatre bus. He describes the inside of it looking like a 50s snack bar.

“It does public events, special events, private functions, big family reunions and even weddings,” he said.

He is also the creator of Harvest Moon Promotions, which is a company that promotes small businesses in town, creating more sales for the smaller business person.

Spiteri says the drive-in acts as a sales tool for him as he does late night sales campaigns at Harley Davidson dealerships and car dealerships. He also runs old Charlie Chaplin and Keystone Kop movies which, he says creates a midnight madness kind of sale environment for the outdoor car sales.

His hope is to get around to the Harley dealership and Chevy dealership in town before the season ends this year.

Spiteri has always had a passion for old vehicles and came across this bus. He has owned old busses before and owned the bus in the movie Fido, which was a Hollywood production, filmed in Kelowna.

A week before his appearance at the Seven Persons Church, the transmission blew in the bus. Luckily he found another transmission that would fit in it by matching up serial numbers out of an old 1953 oldsmobile rocket. The transmission was pulled off the motor, taking 30 hours to retro fit it and put it in to make it to the event.

Inside the bus is Spiteri’s artwork with portraits of people’s cars which he turned into collections. “They’re great gifts at Christmas time for people that are car buffs. They love to have paintings of their own cars,” he said. So far, he’s sold over 400 paintings.

Ever since he was a young boy, he had a passion for vehicles.

“When I was standing up in the back seat when it was legal, I’d be looking out at all the cool cars running around. And when I’d seen a corvette for the first time, that was it, I just lost it.”

He started building his bus two years ago and started licensing it this year, and is hoping to build more of these and sell them as franchises.

“It was a dream two years ago and it’s a reality today.”

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