Jump to content

my buick story


Guest 54buickbandit

Recommended Posts

Guest 54buickbandit

there might be names in this story that arent right for this site and for that i apologize, i wrote this for the 54buick forum, but i thought i would share it with other buck lovers out there.

This story is about a passion for old American iron, a new found love for Buicks, and a relentless fiancé who couldn’t stand see a 54 super get crushed. This story starts about 6 months ago when art (Buick nail head) sends me his 4GC Rochester and it has been a labor of love since. This story will tell you about the countless miles of digging up money and 13 hours of trying to find a figgin trailer. Here I will tell you about a new love for our new car.

The Buick story for me starts actually 7 years ago when I met nail head online on Xbox live. We have had our fights and had our 3 years of not speaking to each other but reconnected about two years ago when I was going threw my breakup with a girl of 8 years. Art and I would swap stories about his nail heads and my Plymouths and basically how we both thought the other was damaged in someway shape or form. In march art sent me his 4GC Rochester to restore mechanically and paint wise(which btw if anyone wants one done it will be $250, and ask nail head about how painstakingly accurate I am)

Since I got arts carb I have been haphazardly looking for a Buick, nothing too serious, not really wanting one at this time. Now lets fast forward too Friday July 30<SUP>th</SUP> 2010. Me and my fiancé (ali) were going up to met art in Ames ia, we get there ad he is now where to be found. Instead, we find a 1954 Buick special, it looks ruff, but is very solid with very little rust threw. We started too look the car over, and realized that it was a gem. The floors are solid and it had most of the trim. I call up nail head and tell him to get him and his dad out there, too tell us if we were making a mistake wanting to save this car.

Nail head and his dad get out there and of course I get a massive ribbing from his dad, and nail head ali and me are getting dirty. The frame mounts are great, the grille is almost perfect the chrome is in awesome shape, and it is all original, its all there. I cal the guy up and he wants 300 for it, ali told me to go for it, lets make it our first project.

We head out of the show and head home. We are talking about our hopefully soon to be project and how we want to bring it back to its former glory. On Saturday we get up to the show a little later then I wanted too, ali slept in and so did I, we get to the show around 10am and we were both worried that out new found love was going to be gone, we start walking over to where the Buick was sitting and there she was, still there. I here my named being yelled “mike hey mike, MIKE!!!” by nail head and ali nail head and I started too look for the owner of the car. We find him in short order, I told him who I was and that we had talked the previous evening, he seemed surprised to see how young I was, and the fact that I new what I was talking about( mind you I owe that to nail head and his hours of babbling on about these old Buicks). I start to talk to the owner and he informs me that he doesn’t want to bring that car home with him, and it was used as a parts car for his “road super” as Mr. Earl so loving dubbed it.

He shoots me an offer that we couldn’t refuse, 150 bucks for the car and its mine. I figured it was worth it.(that and if I didn’t get it, well, hell hath no fury like a women’s scorn for a lost Buick) I borrow a 100 bucks from nail head and give it too the owner. It puts a hold on the car. Now all we have to do is find 50 bucks. I make a few phone calls wait for calls back and get one around 3. In the time we waited we started to clean out years of crap from inside of the car, let it dry out, and realize how nice it really is. And how much of a deal we got. We started to clean out the car, and people started to talk. Talk about how this young kid saved this car from a horrible death, and why the girl was doing all the dirty work. I was running around all day trying to find parts and connections, made a lot of friends, and found a lot of parts to aid in restoring this car. Lots of people as the day went on started to gather around this old rusty Buick, happy to see it saved, and even more happy to see a young couple buy it. Around 230 pm I get a call back saying my friend will loan me the money, and there shortly after I see an old friend who said he would trailer the car back to des Moines. What a happy day this is really turning into. Our fear of not getting our new car home is just turned into hope with a simple nice gestur from a person at the car show. I drive the 30 minutes to go get it and the 30 minutes back. Have the 50 bucks in hand. I couldn’t fine the owner of the car and made a phone and found out that he had left the show with the title too the car. Luckily for us he hadn’t gone too far. He was just down the way filling up with gas. So we start heading to the station and meet up with him

Here it is, 415 pm, been at this since the night before. We have the title, and our trailer has just showed up. Suddenly that pathetic looking car, that faded blue and rusty white top Buick is on starting too move from its former death row spot. The car is starting too take on a new look, a look of hope and a really big dream. The time is now 5pm. And the car is on the trailer. And it looks so much defiantly now. It might because the sun had officially dehydrated us. Or maybe the mouse crap had poisoned us. Or maybe just maybe it really did look differnt.

We started down the road with the truck and our new car behind us. As I looked out the side view mirror I see a tow strap break.. then a second one, then the third one.. there’s only two holding this car on the trailer now. The truck takes a quick right into a parking lot. And we were soon to follow. Come to find out, the straps had broke. We didn’t get them tight enough and the car started to rock on the trailer. And it snapped the straps. We almost lost the Buick. Ok. Take two. The car and truck headed to des Moines. And we headed over to the dinner and awards to give nail head a map home. Started to talk to people and said our good byes.

Around 615 we got the shop where the car is sitting at now. We unloaded the car and our journey was finally finished. The car and our day is finally done. Nothing was lost and we now have a new “baby “as ali puts it.

This is the story of our Buick. The 245miles we put on out car in one day, And the effort that was put into it. The only thing now left to do is find a good name for this car. I hope you have enjoyed our story as much as I have enjoyed telling.

Mike “Buick Bandit”

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good to hear...if I'd been more available I might have been able to haul it home for you on Saturday...the winch in the trailer makes life easier. It is good to hear about a car being saved from the crusher. I'll have to do some checking around, but I now have 3 sets of headlamp bezels - the best will go on my car, the next set is on Zizzerman's wish list, and a third set could brighten up the front end of Lucky if you didn't already find some (there were a lot at the meet).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome to this board Mike. Sounds like an exciting day, and a great project too. I was a bit confused though. Is it a Special or a Super? Specials are neat but Supers are...well...Super.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...