This expansive private collection was put together by Andre Moizard, a Frenchman who emigrated to Canada to manage a farm near Alberta. He had long been a collector of unusual vehicles and he brought this hobby with him, slowly acquiring over 230 vehicles from across Canada and the United States.
Andre got married and had two daughters in Canada, and though the family knew of his passion for cars they didn’t know just how many he had collected. It wasn’t until he passed away recently that the family took stock of the full estate, and realized there were well over 230 cars not to mention various motorcycles, other vehicles, and automobilia.
The sheer diversity of this collection is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent memory. There is everything here from pre-WWII classics to military vehicles, malaise era customs, Cadillacs, Porsches, 4x4s, and more.
The estate disbursement is being handled by Antoine Gruson, Andre Moizard’s son-in-law, and I’ve included his full description of the collection below as it does a great job of providing background information.
A Brief Introduction To Andre Moizard And His Collection
The following was submitted by Antoine Gruson, Andre Moizard’s son-in-law.
Andre Moizard was born in France in 1953 and stayed there until his early 20s. That’s where his passion for fixing anything with wheel started. His father, Charly Moizard, always told him that if he wanted a bicycle or a car he had to figure out a way to get one, so he started to fix things at an early age.
His first car was a white Citroen 2CV that he fixed up and customized with a big Rolling Stone tongue logo on the back. By the time he was 20 he had fixed up all sort of cars (Jaguar, Citroen , Triumph etc.) when he was 23 he moved to Alberta, Canada to manage a farm – Andre’s family in France were farmers and that how he learned to manage a farm.
He brought his passion for car with him. In 1984 he moved to another farm in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada that he managed until he passed away in March of 2023. He has two daughters, Stephanie and Celine, and his wife is Marie Christine who moved from Paris to Vegreville, Alberta for him.
This is a photograph of Andre and Marie Christine with a couple of Andre’s favorite cars out on display. He had a particular soft spot for French and American classics.
As soon as Andre moved to Canada, he continued to buy and fixed vehicles with his interest changing to American cars. From what I know, Andre bought vehicles for a number of different reasons, and that’s why his collection is so diverse.
Sometimes he would buy because of emotions, for example he bought a Citroen Traction Avant 15/6 from 1954 because he has a picture of him in his mum’s arms in front of Traction, he would buy a Volkswagen Beetle because his daughter loved the Herbie movie, or a Pontiac Parisienne because his wife is from Paris. Sometimes he would buy to help a friend in need, often he would buy because he just had a huge passion for cars (especially Cadillac, Jeep, and Citroen).
He drove all over North America to pick up cars. He would often drive to Seattle (he bought and sold a number of cars from Evan McMullen of Cosmopolitan Motors) or all over Canada with his big Dodge 6×6 that he custom built, and his two car trailer.
He had a huge network in the classic car world and people would often phone him about all sort of vehicles. He was just passionate about cars and was always reading magazines (both European and American) or watching shows about cars. I think that’s why he also has an eclectic collection and that he had an eye for new trends ( i.e he started to buy square bodies in 2016 and 2017 for really good prices).
It wasn’t until after Andre passed away that his family discovered the full size of the collection he had amassed – a large museum’s worth of inventory acquired over a period of decades.
Beside his big Cadillac collection (more than 60 in various shapes and forms) , he loved Jeeps (he has some Willys, Jeep J20, Commanche, Army, Jeep Forward Control, Cherokees etc.), he loved french cars as well (he has three Citroen 2CV, one Citroen Camionette, two Traction Avant 15/6, one traction avant 11b Familialle, two Traction cabriolet that he picked up in California, one very rare Renault 4L Plein Air, a number of Citroen DS parts etc.)
The other thing that I noticed with him is that he liked rare or original things/vehicles i.e. fire trucks, limousines, a hearse, limited edition cars (i.e. a Cadillac Gucci), and army trucks.
He also loved to have projects: he picked up a Kaiser M715 from 1967 that he repainted and wanted to redo just like the one you had in on of your article you did – that’s how I found out about Silodrome.
He re-did a 1942 Power Wagon that he put on 2005 Dodge Ram with a Hemi and added all sort of extra equipment to it. He built a 2014 diesel Dodge Ram 6×6 with dual axles in the rear (not a dually) and loaded it up with all kinds of electronics and air suspension. He always had a ton of projects on the go and that’s also why a lot of them are not finished.
This Cadillac is one of many in the collection, most of which appear to date back to the 1950s. Most of the cars in the collection will need some work, with some requiring a full restoration.
We obviously know that it was his passion but we didn’t really know the extent of his network and also how big his car collection was. It was stored all over the place, in containers, fields etc. And we never realized that it was over 230 (not including tractors and some motorcycles).
When we called some of his car people around after he passed in march 2023, it was so nice to hear people we had never met talked about Andre. It was always the same adjectives: passionate, highly knowledgeable, kind, humble, and fair.
The full Andre Moizard Collection is now being offered for open auction by Prairie Auctions out of Canada. Bidding is now live and will be closing on the 12th of September. If you’d like to read more about the collection, see all the cars, or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
All images courtesy of the Andre Moizard estate
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
