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A 30 Year Buick Family History


Guest Tom

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I had been planning to do this for some time, but the introduction of this new Me and My Buicks forum finally prompted me to get off my butt. My family owned Buicks with a few exceptions from the early '50's until the 80's. As a matter of fact, at 85 years of age, my mom still drives her '87 LeSabre. My dad was a prolific photographer until he passed away in '79, so while on vacation over the holidays I went through all of our slides and prints looking for pictures of all of our Buicks. Some I new existed, others I was pleasantly surprised to find and I was able to find at least one picture of every car. I thought I would post our family Buick history in hopes that those that frequent this website might get some enjoyment out of it. Some of the pictures leave a little to be desired since the car in the picture was not the principle subject and many were scanned from slides that are 40 and 50 years old. I know looking at old slides and photos can be likened to a trip to the dentist for some people, but I think most people in this club enjoy the history of a car as much as the car itself.

Please feel free to correct me if I have identified any of the cars incorrectly, I am going pretty much by memory and I was either not born yet or too young to remember the early 50's cars.

The 1st is what I believe to be a '51 Special 4dr sedan, model 41D. My mom says it is a '52, but she may be confused since the picture was taken in '52 in front of my granparents house in the small Wisconsin town of Durand. Based on the '70 Years of Buick, I believe it to be a '51. I don't know anything about this car as I wasn't born yet, and didn't even know we owned it.

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The next is a '55 Special 2dr hardtop, model 46 R. This photo was taken in the summer of '55 in front of our house in Minneapolis Mn. I love the awnings on the house across the street. My mother was pregnant with me at the time so this would have been the 1st Buick I ever rode in on my way home from the hospital. My mom says that a friend of theirs had an identical car and when it was time for my parents to get a new car, she told my dad she wanted one just like it. The picture looks like it is black and white, but it is actually a dark green. Quite a stunning combination in my opinion with the wide whites and full wheel covers.

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Next is a photo of my dad and the same car in front of a cafe. Place and time is unknown, but I thought it was a great represenation of a small town cafe especially with the old Coke signs on the outside.

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The following picture is of a '57 Roadmaster that belonged to my aunt. I believe this car to be a Riviera Sedan, either model 73 or 73A. I don't know what the difference would be. The picture was taken in front of our house in 1962. Everyone used to comment about Aunt Helen's pink Buick. She was all of about 5'1" tall in heels and 110lbs dripping wet, so this was quite a sizeable car for her. She quit driving at the age of 75 a few years after this picture was taken and the car was sold to the pastor of her church. I can only imagine the condition and the mileage on the car when it was sold as she was the proverbial little old lady who only drove the car to church on Sunday and to the grocery store. We always thought of this car as nothing but a big tank. If we only had the foresight to have kept this car.

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Next up comes our '59 Invicta convertible, model 4667. The car of my dreams and the one that prompted me to find the Invicta 2dr hardtop we now own. According to my mom, the car would have been purchased in the fall of 1958. The 1st picture is one I have posted before is of my dad on his 40th birthday in April of 1959. He was evidently quite proud of the car as there are at least a half dozen or more pictures of it either as the focus of attention or in the background. It was in the pace car colors of white with red interior and had a white top. It had typical options of the day with no power windows, seat or air conditioning.

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Another photo of the '59 with my mom joking around unpacking the car after what I believe was their trip to Florida. I particularly liked this closeup of the rear of the car as one can clearly read the license plate number and the dealer emblem on the rear panel which is "Buerkle Buick" St Paul. This dealer is still in business, albeit at a different location.

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One last picture of the '59. A somewhat unusual picture of the top of the car taken in 1960 from the upper deck of the lake Michigan Ferry that crosses the lake from Wisonsin to Michigan. As I have been told, there wasn't enough room for the car on the regular deck where they kept cars, so it was loaded onto the deck where the rail cars were kept. The tracks are cleary visible.

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As you can see by the next picture, my dad was clearly into convertibles at the time. The '59 was traded in on this '65 Wildcat Convertible. I believe it was a model 46467 Deluxe as it did not have the bucket type seats. It had the standard 401 engine and automatic trans. The interior was black which my mother detested. The picture was taken in the early spring of 1967 at a lake cabin that belonged to Win Stephens, the owner of the Buick dealership that the car was purchased from. My dad was an insurance agent and one of his commercial accounts was the Stephens Buick dealership. All of his cars from this point on came from that dealer. I was not old enough to drive this car, but my 2 older brothers were and from what they tell me, it was quite a car to drive. I remember my dad complaining that it only got about 8 miles to a gallon of gas, which I'm sure was the result of having 2 teenage male drivers. While the Invicta is my personal favorite, the Wildcat is the favorite of my brothers. I keep telling my wife we need to start looking for a nice Wildcat convert to complement the Invicta. A resounding "No" can probably be heard in the background.

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That was the end of the convertibles and 2 door cars as my mom insisted that the next car be a 4dr with A/C. It's ironic that the next car for my dad was a '67 model 48469, 4dr Electra 225 Custom Sedan, while the Wildcat became my mom's car. The next pictures are of my brother packing to go away to college in September of 1968, which explains the goofy picture of him holding a pillow and sucking his thumb. These are the only half way decent pictures of the car, and I chose them because of the triple white stripe tires which are a topic of another post.

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In this picture the taillight of the Wildcat can just be seen inside the open garage. Doesn't get much better than this, a 2 Buick family.

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Starting in '67, my dad started to get a new Buick every 2 to 3 years. The 67 was replaced by a '69 Electra, either a model 48239 or 48439. Not sure which it was, but since it had vinyl interior, my guess would be the the standard hardtop sedan. I remember the color combination to be a "Burnished Bronze" (I think) with a Buckskin top and interior. Some friends of ours had a Custom 4dr sedan with the same exterior and interior color, but with a dark brown top. The dark brown top made the 2 cars look totally a different color. Once again the 1st picture was taken at the Win Stephens cabin in either '69 or '70. Not a real good picture as it is a little dark.

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I believe the next picture of the same car with my sister, one brother and me (on the right of the photo) was taken on Easter Sunday, again in '69 or '70.

It shows the color of the car a little better.

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In addition to the '69 Electra, we got a new '69 Skylark 2 dr hardtop model 44437, that year for my mom. (Imagine that, a 2 door with no air). The Wildcat was still around for awhile, driven primarily by my brother. The Skylark is the car I got my drivers license in and drove mostly through high school. I had a pretty major accident in it (not my fault) in June of '72 when I got broadsided by someone when I was turning left into a parking lot and they were trying to pass a gas truck behind me. I thought it should have been totaled, but it was repaired and about a month later, while parked in front of a friends house, the teenage girl from across the street, (pretty nice looking if my memory serves me correctly) backed into the drivers quarter panel which had just been replaced. Back into the shop it went for another new quarter panel. The one and only picture of the car was taken by me in March of '73 at Colorado State University when a friend and I went out to check out the campus before I started to go to school there later that fall. When we returned we found the gas tank was cracked and leaking and with several other problems, the car was traded in on a '73 Olds Cutlass. It still came from the Buick dealer and I believe was a rental car. It was still a 2dr, but it had air this time.

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It was 3 years before we got the next car, a '72 Electra 4 dr Custom Hardtop sedan model 48439. I remember that when my dad ordered the car, he wanted a dark blue top to match the light blue exterior and dark blue interior. For some reason, it was a special order and was put on hold for some time as they couldn't get the blue top. After waiting for quite a while, he decided to switch to a black top and we didn't get the car until either January or Feb of '72. The high school I attended at the time was directly across the highway from the dealership. In order for the new car transports to get to the dealership, they had to come down the frontage road in front of our school and go under a bridge up the road to get to the other side of the highway where the the dealership was. I clearly remember sitting in classrooms that faced the road watching every transport that came by to see if I could see our car on it. Probably explains why I was a mediocre student. This car also suffered the indignity of a major accident in the summer of '73 (my fault) when I was on my way home after dropping a friend off late one night after a wedding. (No I had not been drinking). It had been raining heavily, and a puddle of water had formed on the inside lane of the highway. I had the cruise control on and when I hit the puddle, that was all she wrote. The car spun backwords into a light pole. Not the kind of phone call you want to make, especially since it was my dad's company car and the only reason I was driving it is there wasn't enough gas in the Olds.

The picture is of my mom getting out of the car at my grandparents house in the fall of '73 after the car was fixed. I never saw the car again after the accident as I was off to college.

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The '72 Electra was replaced a couple months after the prior picture was taken by our '74 Electra Custom 4dr hardtop sedan model 4CV39. The picture was taken in the spring of '75 in the front of my apartment as I was packing to come home from CSU for the summer. I just remember driving this car across Nebraska on I 80 with the cruise on and my feet up thinking it was like sitting on a living room couch. If one remembers, the speed limit at the time was only 55, so it was a loooong drive.

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After the '74, came the '76 Electra Limited 4 dr hardtop sedan, model 4CX39. At the time, I had quit going to college and was working for a Lincoln-Mercury dealer at the time. I remember always thinking that the white on white Lincolns were sharp looking cars, so when it came time for my dad to replace the '74, I made sure I went with him to order out the '76. I suggested the white car with the white padded top and my dad wanted it with the blue brocade interior. It was a flat out gorgeous car and had pretty much everything on it, except I could never get him to order the rear window defroster even though we lived in Minnesota and cornering lights were not a high priority with my dad.

Unfortunately when the car came in my dad was in the hospital, so my mom had to pick the car up from the dealer, She tells me it was snowing like mad at the time, but my dad had her drive it over to the hospital on the way home and park it out front so he could see it from his hospital room. She was terrified, but made it home without an incident. The picture was taken at a fundraiser car wash at the local neighborhood gas station. I think it shows how much he liked the car as I can't imagine too many people in this world would bother to take pictures of a car while it is being washed. Note the CB antenna on the trunk, which was a hot item at the time and which my mom felt was a necessity due to his health. I remember driving this car and it wasn't unusual to see people stop and look as you drove by.

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That was the last of the big ones and in '77 as everyone remembers cars started to become downsized. The '76 was the last of the big Electras we had and due to failing health, my dad had to retire early and with the second gas crunch in full swing, his next car was a much smaller '78 Regal 2 dr Coupe model 4AJ47. Back to 2 drs, but mom didn't care much as the kids were gone and it was getting expensive to drive the big Electra. I once again helped him order out this car and he was just as happy with it as any of the Electras we owned. It was a sharp looking car for it's time.

The picture was taken as best as I can tell sometime in the winter of '78 in front of my grandparents apartment in Wisonsin. They had sold their house and literally moved down the hill to an apartment.

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My dad passed away in February of '79. I was still working at the Linc-Merc dealer a few years later when my mom decided she wanted another car and a 4dr again. Since I could get a discount at the dealer I was at, she traded the '78 Regal off on a '82 merc Cougar 4dr sedan. I remember the Regal only had 28,000 miles on it at the time and did not stay on our used car lot very long.

The Cougar was traded off on a '87 Lesabre and mom was back into Buicks. The following pictures show the Lesabre in the background next the the '64 Skylark Convertible I restored from 1987 to 1990.

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I sold the Skylark in '93 and it wasn't until 2001 that I ventured back into the collectible car hobby with our '59 Invicta 2dr hardtop. I plan on doing a couple more posts which will detail the Skylark and Invicta stories separately.

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Guest imported_MrEarl

Tom, thanks so much for spending the time to dig up all those neat old photos and writing such an enjoyable story of one families Buick history.I really enjoyed it!!

Looks like Buick blood is pretty thick in the Liddy family.

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Tom, this is a fantastic story, and I'm so glad that your dad was such an active photographer.

Thank you for putting this together for all of us to see and enjoy! And, yes, I wish that your aunt's '57 Roadmaster had been saved.

I'm sure that you've brought back some great Buick memories for many of us, and I hope that you've inspired some of our other members here to put together their own personal Buick histories.

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Guest imported_MrEarl

Tom,

just curious, is your little brother really aware his pillow picture is being displayed to the world of the internet. grin.gif

if so you may want to be very cautous of any suspicious lookin packages in the mail tongue.gifgrin.gif

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Mr. Earl,

No, my brother doesn't know his picture is on the internet and I don't plan on telling him about it either!

I'm glad you all enjoyed seeing the pictures. My wife and mother couldn't quite understand what I was trying to accomplish by posting all of these photos for others to see, but they don't seem to understand the fascination I, and those of us on the board here, seem to have with these old cars and the history behind them.

My mom, who just turned 85 this week, did however ask me if I would take her to a car show this season. So looks like we may have a new old car fan in the making.

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Guest imported_MrEarl

Tom,

my Mom just loves to go for rides in the 54's and also loves the little die cast's that I bring her from swap meets and shows. wink.gif

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