1930 "Field Car"

[Buick Bruce]

Anybody else out there watching the PBS series this week on the history of US National Parks? What really caught my eye last night was a 1930 Buick roadster that was bought and modified for use as a "field car" for George M Wright, the first National Park Biologist. It had a pickup-type open box replacing the rumble seat but kept a weatherproof compartment accessed by the golfclub door. There was a few seconds of original movie footage of the car in use.

I web searched this morning for any photos or additional detail and found very little. Anyone know anything more about this Buick?

May 24, 1930 (most likely in Berkeley):

This is the first official field season

of "was," wild animal surveys in National

Parks. This party consists of

Joseph Dixon, economic mammalogist

at the University of California,

George M. Wright, scientific aide,

U.S.N.P.S., and Benjamin H.

Thompson, field assistant. We start

in a car of the latest vintage (registering

160 miles only) which the

members of the party have had built

from an idea of their own.

In Thompson's 1987 interview, he

tells a bit more about the research

vehicle: "It was a Buick Roadster

and three could sit comfortably in

the front seat. They cut the conventional

back off, and built a truck bed

on the back, like today's trucks.

There was a water-tight compartment

built right behind the front

seat for camera equipment, books,

and other things you needed to protect.

Camping gear, pots, and bedding

and everything else was under

a tarp in the back."

[Guest buicks39]

i saw that show. george wrights parents had alot of money.imagine ,he paid for that three year study out of his own pocket.that was a nice looking buick,sorry can't tell you anything about it though.

[jscheib]

I am surprised there was not more on the forum on that National Parks Show. They certainly did highlight the Buicks as a car worthy of the trips trough some pretty rough roads.

I especially liked the part about the couple from Omaha (I believe) that had 17 Buicks in 20 years on their tours to most all the parks at tat time. But I beleive the photos used did not always indicate the year they were talking about, becuase I thought sure they were tsalking about the eralt '30s but showed photos of cars in the '20s. Maybe they just used the new cars at home and "roughed it" with the older ones, and did not do a "trade-in".

And the last night (not pre-War), with the Cabarello was cool.

John

[Buick Bruce]

I dusted off the old VCR and caught some of the PBS National Parks segments rerunning today.

The 1930 Field Car - 1st three photos

The Nebraska couple (bio from PBS website The National Parks: America's Best Idea: Park Visitors | PBS):

Edward Gehrke (1880–1939) and Margaret Gehrke (1883–1978)

Episode: 4

Edward and Margaret Gehrke, a childless couple from Lincoln, Nebraska, began traveling together to the national parks in 1915, when they stopped at the Grand Canyon on the way home from a trip to San Francisco. For the next quarter century, traveling first by rail and then in a succession of new Buicks, the couple would visit all of the national parks that existed at the time. During each summer journey, Edward snapped photographs and Margaret recorded their adventures in her journal. The journals and photographs were eventually given to the Nebraska State Historical Society.

In the 1930s, Edward built a "house-car," but he died in 1939 before they could drive it to a national park. In 1948, Margaret traveled once more by train to Rocky Mountain National Park, the couple's favorite destination.

[Larry Schramm]

I have been watching the show today and heard the comments. :-)