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He is one of Canada's most recognizable faces, probably best known for his Gemini award-winning role in CTV's The Eleventh Hour.
Spanning his 25-year career, actor Jeff Seymour has accumulated a long list of credits: Show Me Yours, H20, The Grid, DaVinci's Inquest, Hill Street Blues, Knot's Landing and Bosom Buddies. He also wrote, produced, and starred in his own TV series, Jeff Ltd.
These days, Seymour is developing a new reality series on cars — it's a restoration show focused on transforming classic cars into greener machines.
That's right up his alley, considering his garage is filled with such classics as a 1955 Jaguar MK7, a 1956 Ford Continental Mark II, a 1958 Facel Vega, a 1960 Facel Vega Excellence, a 1960 Facel Vega HK500, and a 1961 MGA.
‘By the time I was 20, I had bought and sold 20 cars,’ Jeff Seymour says. (GLENN LOWSON FOR THE GLOBE AND MAIL)
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But his two daily drivers are a 1954 Jaguar XK120 Drop Head Coupe (DHC) and a 2006 Ford GT. One is a classic and the other isn't, but they share one trait — both were the world's fastest production cars at the time they were built.
Hands down, his first love is the '54 Jag. "I always wanted an XK120. I always thought that was a sexy car."
For Seymour, the wheels were an obsession. "When I was a kid, I saw this car parked in the driveway. I pursued that owner for 17 years to sell me the car. He wanted to hang on to it, but after 17 years, I managed to pull his fingers one by one, peeling them back off the car. Finally I got it," he boasts.
"It never moved from that spot. Once or twice a year, I'd connect. I'd call or send a note: Have you changed your mind? Finally, I sent a cheque for $10,000 with some story — you just say it and I will transfer the funds into this account.
"A year after that, I got a rambling message on my phone and I was, 'Who the hell is this?' I had never spoken directly to him, I spoke to his wife, I'd seen his kid grow up and become the captain of the Air Force, and then I realized, 'Oh my God, after 17 years, Ernie is going to sell his car!'"
But there was one obstacle. "Of course, I was broke at the time. So I thought now what? I pursued him for 17 years and when he finally said yes, I said no — what a bad story.
"I went to his place. I made a deal on the car. We agreed on the price and we shook.
"And then I said: Here's the deal. I only have this money right now, but if you accept 2,000 more than this, I'll give you a $500 non-refundable deposit right now with a promise to pay you in two months." With that, the deal was sealed.
Seymour had a lot of practice perfecting his sales and restoration skills on so-called "driveway makeovers." "By the time I was 20, I had bought and sold 20 cars. I got really good at being able to find cars.
"What I was able to capitalize on, if a car gets a little derelict in any way, people just forget it. I would find those cars in people's driveways, go up and offer them cash, get it on the spot and then for $100 I could completely fix it up and make a few hundred on it. I did that all the time," says the single, fortysomething Seymour, who is up for grabs at Toronto's Finest Bachelor & Bachelorette Auction, a fundraiser for juvenile diabetes on May 7.
"As a kid, I loved tinkering with things. I was always taking things apart. I took the toaster apart when I was three, but I couldn't put it back together again.
"I was always into that. My father was the opposite. He was a scholar and worked with the CIA as a linguist. He's the type of guy who would mow the lawn in a suit," laughs the native of Washington, D.C., who now calls Toronto home.
On the opposite side of the spectrum is his 2006 Ford GT, the first new car he ever bought.
"New cars — they're okay. They look a lot alike to me. I'm into the old-car styling. When they came up with the Ford GT, which is essentially a remake of the '66 Le Mans winner GT40, I thought, 'That car looks retro to me.' I was at a black-tie affair at the auto show and I ran into a car restoration guy I knew who was with a bigwig at Ford. We were looking at the GT and I thought, 'Wow this is a new car I would own.' I turned to this guy, 'Hey, Craig, could I get one of these?' Now mind you there's no way on earth I could have afforded this car. He said, 'They're never coming to Canada.' So I thought it was safe.
"Every time I saw Craig, I'd say, 'When am I going to get my GT?' Half joking — then one day I was driving and I got a call from Craig. He said, 'I'm gonna get you your GT.' And I thought 'Oh, my God. Now what am I going to tell him? That I'm just a lying actor — that I've just been joking?'"
Luckily, Seymour landed Jeff Ltd. and his financial situation dramatically improved.
He hopes to add a few more classics to his collection. But it's a tossup between dream wheels — a 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing or a 1964 Aston Martin DB5 (the James Bond car).
"I've spent a lot of my life drooling over those two cars."
