Thriller

Dan...I don't know how well they are attached...there was a limit to how close one could get to that board (easily at least). It certainly is a neat display though. Unfortunately I couldn't get a decent close-up. There are a number of early McLaughlin-Buick hub caps there. That sort of wrench won't work on my '29 hub caps. What year did Buick stop making this style? Just curious.

Sorry Mark...guess I wasn't clear. I was referring to the frequency of electronic ignition failure. I suspect they don't go often, but when they go, the car is immobile until you replace the unit. Points take less "spares" space in the car.

My experience is with moving cars out of the USA. If they are less than 15 years old, they have to be inspected to conform with Canadian laws (e.g. Canada required daytime running lights before the US). If they are older than that (or newer for that matter), the federal government only wants its 5% sales tax. The province it is going to may also have sales tax (7%) here and an inspection required before it can be licensed. Getting on soap box...I hate the concept of these taxes. For instance, the previous owner of my '41 would have paid all requisite taxes when he brought it from Minnesota, and of course, paid taxes on goods and services to work on the car. When it changed hands, I was required to pay provincial sales tax before I could license it. Grrr. Getting off soap box now. This is one of the reasons why I would consider bringing a Reatta north (beyond 15 years), but not a last generation Riviera (yet). That being said, the cost of shipping can be a huge expense. I am trying to limit my car buying to local purchases now. The barn is full at the moment, so I have been generally able to behave myself.

Thanks John. Everyone said they enjoyed themselves...I don't think they were just being polite I know the owner of the Sport Wagon (an old friend of the owner of the '41 Limited) said he'd like to come back up and spend more time. We certainly couldn't have had better weather for the weekend. Of course, yesterday we got a pile of rain at our country property, so it was definitely better last weekend than this weekend. I don't know if we could make this an annual event, but I think I could manage to put something together every other year. I didn't want to give away too many details - Teresa is working on documenting the tour to send to Pete for the Bugle.

Welcome aboard Dave. Nice cars.

The down side to electronic ignition is that when they fail, you need to replace it. At least if you have points and such, you can easily carry spares - something I should be doing as the points burned out on my '41 recently leaving me stranded (until CAA came along). I don't know how frequently they fail as I have no direct experience. I do know that there are folks sitting on both sides of this fence.

Interesting thoughts there NTX. I, for one, would prefer BCA meets NOT be in "destination cities". Since I generally try to be one of those two generation families at the event, frankly, destination locations drive up the cost. I'm not suggesting events be held in the middle of nowhere, but I suspect that Rochester was less expensive than the Twin Cities, for example (although I may be wrong). There are still interesting things to see and do. I guess in thinking about the National meet, people are there for different reasons. Some show up for Saturday judging and unload the car for as little time as possible. Some are there to take in the tours in a location they may never have visited before. Some are there to spend time on the show field with the Buicks. Some are there for the people - friends old and new. Others may be other things I haven't thought of or a combination of things. Personally, I'd like to see some racing as well. I'm not sure whether or not I'd like to see how my slow Buicks would do. I'm sure my boys would definitely enjoy some 1/4 mile action. At any rate, some folks need to either drop their prejudices towards owners of Buicks they don't think belong, or at minimum shut their mouths and not be openly hostile.

More photos.... Oh yeah...after the legislature, we made a brief stop at our city place for a potty break before heading to the restaurant for lunch...where our illustrious club secretary got pickled

Well, after things fell through due to lack of interest last year, this year we made it happen. I put together a bit of a tour and invited my fellow Gopher State brethren to head north for the weekend. In the end, the turnout was a bit disappointing, with only 2 cars and 5 people coming up. We did get most of our local BCA members out for at least some of the activities on the weekend. On Saturday we went southwest of Winnipeg and met the Americans at a fossil museum in Winkler. There was a bit of a navigation error, so we waited for the Minnesotans in the parking lot. Next time, the crew with the GPS navigation unit leads, right Kris? After this we drove about 25 miles to have lunch and visit a small town museum. They invited us to park the cars on the grass in the shade near the museum, so we obliged. We then went to have a homemade meal at our country place. Sunday had a bit of a driving tour. We saw the Air Force Heritage Park...and promptly spent more time there than I had planned. We visited the Manitoba legislature building and wound up cutting off the rest of the tour due to timing. We had lunch and visited a local museum of automobilia. After this, we went to a local cruise night, where the BCA was the feature club. This provided a bit of exposure and we had some suds, some food, some laughs, and handed out some BCA membership applications. That was the end of it as some folks needed to work on Tuesday and had about 450 miles ahead of them to get back to the Twin Cities. We had fabulous weather with sun and temperatures in the low 80s. Mosquitoes were the only distraction. All told, we had a '98 Riv and '69 Sport Wagon from MN, and through the weekend other BCA vehicles included a mildly customized '66 Wildcat, '41 Limited model 90, '54 Century Estate Wagon, '47 Roadmaster convertible (Ewing), '66 Wildcat (mine), '62 Special convertible, and 2006 Rainier. Here are a few photos....

At the cruise night on Sunday I was chatting with a fellow with a '67 Riviera. He mentioned that there was some sort of stopper or seal on the dipstick that had deteriorated / fallen apart. What sort of item was this? Is a reproduction available or should a new one simply be created from gasket material or weatherstrip rubber or something else? Thanks. Just trying to help out a fellow Buick owner (who has a '71 Riv for sale as well).

Excellent. I'm looking forward to photos of the car at the festival...perhaps at a winery.

Some interesting stuff. It seems to me from some of the comments is that, like Buick itself, perception is much of the problem. We have Brian with pre-war cars reaching out to other groups interested primarily in performance (I never saw mention of a '36 Century though). We have Roberta with a race car and a '56 Special in the wings. We have folks like me who have collections that span the decades (while I don't have what would be considered performance cars, a couple of them weren't slouches in their day and one has seen some significant modifications...not to mention that I want to round out the collection with a turbo car from the 80s). We have the chairman of the BPG speaking more eloquently about loving all Buicks than some BCA members. We have folks that belong to some or all of the aforementioned groups. We have performance-minded Buick enthusiasts who don't know all the BCA can offer. We have BCA members who don't know what some of the other Buick clubs offer. We also have individuals who have expressed a preference for one type of event over another. The primary BCA membership benefit is an excellent monthly magazine. The Bugle is not only high quality, but there are a number of classified ads for cars and parts that you may very well not see anywhere else. The BPG membership benefits have been listed, but many of them don't apply if you don't get to the event. As for what is in the Bugle, Pete has some influence, but if, say, numerous requests were made and articles submitted on say, the history of the GS, Stage engines, turbo cars, etc., then they would wind up in the Bugle. To a degree, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The reality is that no club is going to be all things to everyone. Hopefully though we can all remain civil and continue to talk to each other, hopefully keeping the peace and even getting closer. Personally, while I'm no racer, I would like to have the opportunity to run a 1/4 mile with my Buick friends...regardless of which Buick I bring - the dual carb '41, the '54 Estate Wagon, the '66 Wildcat, or the '76 Indy pace car. That would certainly add an element to the event. Of course, I would be concerned a bit about breaking my cars though too, since I'm not a racer. Mark - I'd love to hand out Bugles with application forms, but I'm unwilling to give away all my old Bugles and, if we all get on the bandwagon, there aren't enough old Bugles to go around.

Granted, you stated you can't afford another car, but there are some neat collectibles that don't cost a lot of money. Would a Reatta work for her? There are many out there for under $5k and, being a 2 seater, things don't come much sexier. They can have issues, but they have a fairly bulletproof drivetrain. My wife is in her early 40s and, not only does she support my Buick addiction, she encourages and finances it. Last I knew, her favourite was probably our '41 Special. She likes how quiet it is and it certainly does attract attention. Good luck, and keep holding your head high. That big straight 8 is a nice smooth engine and there probably isn't a much better highway car around. Maybe you need to take a little trip in it, perhaps a romantic getaway, even if it is only 50 or 100 miles away. So long as the car performs well, it will give confidence in its ability and it will give you an opportunity to create some fond memories with the car. Perhaps even getting away from your local area will show how much people appreciate seeing the car as well.

Whimper. One of those would be neat to go along with my '41 41SE, but then my wife would definitely need to work on using a clutch. To post pictures, under Additional Options below where you are typing a post, there is a button to "Manage Attachments". This will bring up a window which will allow you to browse to photos on your computer and upload them. If that doesn't work for you, feel free to e-mail them to me and I could post them for you (click on my username and there is an option to e-mail). Good luck.

Cool. My '29 has a heater in it much like #3 above, although I'm sure it was added later as the mounting bolt goes through the data plate on the car (sigh).

The judging manual has starting engine numbers, which will tell you whether or not the engine should be correct for the year (that's how I found out the 248 in my '41 is a '47 engine). The engine block number you give is out of whack with what is in the manual...could that be a casting number rather than engine serial number? Paint code 542 is Rainier Blue upper and lower. Wheels should be body colour with a Cream stripe(s). Model and style number identify it as a Series 50 (Super) 2 door sport coupe, of which 26,251 were built according to the Standard Catalog of Buick.

Perhaps there is a local auto detailer that you could discuss this with, someone who could see the car in person and may be able to provide suggestions or take on the task himself. Good luck.

I hope I'm not bringing a dead thread back to life, but last night at a local cruise night I arranged to get the BCA as the feature club. They allowed me to speak a bit about the BCA. We had two cars up from MN for the weekend, and we started off with 3 other BCA member cars there (ewing's '47 Roadmaster, and my Wildcat and '62 Special). As other Buicks pulled in, we encouraged them to park with us in the prime area. I don't know what the end result is...and may never know. Prior to the weekend, I had printed out a number of applications from the BCA web site with my name and BCA # in the sponsor field. I had printed up 10. I have one left. Basically, when we got a Buick to park with us, I introduced myself, handed the driver the application form, and chatted a bit about what the BCA has meant for me. I also put a few on driver's seats of cars that I didn't get a chance to see the driver. Another got handed to a fellow who approached me to chat since I had the Wildcat there. He is restoring a '64 Wildcat. One of the fellows from Minnesota also has a '64 Wildcat, along with parts, expertise, and so on. We had a good chat and this fellow seems a likely prospect. At any rate, if over the coming months, we see new members listed in the Bugle from Winnipeg, it would seem I was somewhat successful. If not, at least I exposed additional Buick owners to the existence of the BCA. The BCA is our club. It will survive if we want it to and are willing to take a bit of action on its behalf.

I take it your car doesn't have a radio. If it did, perhaps RediRad Classic Car AM radio adapter- MP3/Satellite Radio to AM band would be an option.

Very nice. There was the same car in red at the local cruise night last night.

That's some great shine to that car. It is nice to see the photos in natural light.

I'm really curious to see how a Cadillac wagon is going to sell. I really don't see it being a good seller. They won't give Buick product because they don't think it will sell, but Caddy gets a wagon...go figure. I had my Century Estate Wagon out today...it really brings people back to when the wagons ruled the road as the family travel / cottage-going / camping vehicle. Wagons could replace some of the SUVs and vans on the market if they are well done. Volvo has always had a wagon...isn't that approaching the demographic Buick is targeting?

Good points. The starvation issue is unfortunate. What sort of volume does the Corvette have? Do they make money on them? The other thing for me is I'm looking ahead. Granted, my children are growing, implying getting them into the back seat will get harder, but in another 5-9 years, I won't be ferrying them around as they move on into their own lives. At that point, my requirements will be different, implying that the need for four door practical transportation will change.

You mean you haven't been? Tsk, tsk. I'm learning (slowly, but I'm stubborn) that folks like Willie have a lot of good, solid, sage advice to give, learned from experience. I know I need to do a better job of listening to folks like him.

Hear, hear!