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rowan782

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On 12/4/2017 at 2:51 PM, rowan782 said:

I apologize if this is  old hat to the group - it was new to me.

24131434_2017199775219689_3264134092521260704_n.jpg

 

It's been around a few times but always receives likes. For that money I would buy both, put the 55 running gear in the fitty fo and have a good runnin and good LOOKIN Buick. :lol:

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By 1969 Dad bought the 1958 Buick Limited for a whopping 175.00.

In 1972 I paid 500.00 for my 1958 Buick Special convertible. 

In 1973 I bought (by NO means a comparison car) one 1963 Dodge sedan (winter beater to save the Buick's) for 50.00 needing new brakes and tail pipe which I did for the price of the parts.

All these cars were just used cars then, much like 2000 to 2008 cars are just used cars today only with much higher mileage I suspect.

Edited by dei (see edit history)
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My Grandfather was selling cars and I worked there from 1959 (11 years old) until 1967. Then for almost a year after the Navy '72ish.

 

$300 cars on our lot were a reach for the customers. $125 to $195 was our bracket, mostly Chevies. Anything else was odd ball stuff and in that under $100 range. People were buying used tires from us at $5 and we were buying junk cars to get the tires off. Investing $12 in a new battery was a big deal and the Buicks, Olds, Chrysler products (very few of those) always needed some monkeying around to start.

 

I would guess the picture to be 1964 or '65.

 

In May of 1966, a few weeks before High School graduation I bought this '60 Invicta from our village Buick dealer for $600,

1960Buick-1.jpg.45b9545f87d79e36314866d820e47189.jpg

In my area we didn't see many older cars. Rochester was Kodak and Xerox city. New cars were good sellers. Buffalo, 60 miles away, had a strong used car market, less money in town.

 

I had a HS shop teacher who drove a real clean 1953 Buick and at the time we considered it a old car and an exception.

 

My Dad worked steady at Kodak and part time for my Grandfather at the time shop and used car lot. He liked cars and would buy some $50 specials to resell.

 

Here is a picture of me, pretty young, standing by a '50 Pontiac he bought and sold. The man who bought it still raves about what a good car it was. That was a $50 car at the time, pretty close to a week's pay for the buyer, maybe more.

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That's a fanner 50 toy pistol I got for Christmas.

 

Good memories, and even though I was working and getting paid by the hour at 11, I was brought into a style of life where I never had to work very hard. That has worked out well.

Bernie

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23 hours ago, parkertom said:

I will take both and alternate driving them each day.

 

I mentioned Kodak earlier, that's a Kodachrome statement. Everything looks good out of context. It must have been 1979 or 1980 that I bought a'70 Cadillac Eldorado from one of the seedy back row lots in Rochester. It was a real nice car from St. Petersburg, FL. I paid $1,000 for it. The dealer said a lot of locals looked it over but no one had the cash. There's that affluent suburban guy in the city story again.

 

I was driving my '64 Riviera then, as well. I was out at one of our local hamlet bars with the Riviera and three guys traveling the US from Antwerp, the Netherlands, not RT11 in the north country, stopped in the bar and started talking cars. They had rented a Toyota and ended up in sleeping bags on my living room floor. When everyone had sobered up we walked around the yard and they looked over the Caddy. One guy looked at the 8.2 Liter badge on the grille and keep saying OchtPoint Drei in thick Flemish. He was in trace. In Antwerp owners were taxed by the displacement of their car engine. He said he had just worked up to an income where he could afford a 750cc car. 8.2 Liters overwhelmed him. He said you would have to be a very rich man to own such a car where he lived.

 

It is similar to one owning both those Buicks in the early '60's. You might own them but the odds of picking which one to drive might not happen. Keeping one car going was a lot for most.

 

Lunch time coming up, I just stuck my hand in my pocket and suddenly realized how many tankfuls of 1965 gas I could buy. But I rarely filled my tank back then. I always top it off now.

Bernie

 

Edited by 60FlatTop (see edit history)
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On ‎12‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 7:58 PM, Ben Bruce aka First Born said:

The car visible between the Buicks is , I believe, a first gen Ford Falcon. Looks like a '58 Ford to the left.

 

  Ben

 

'57 Ford . . . single headlight.  Guess they were parking the good stuff back closer to the sales office?  So they could keep a better eye on them?

 

NTX5467

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…. well my first dad bought a 54 Buick and loved it to his dying day, my second dad bought a 58 and swore it rode so well he could drive it to hell and back … we never doubted him so we waited & waited or his return … my third dad just had to have a big wide 60 and he always would say how he just loved how that fashionable clock sat on the dash kinda like a big ol egg laying on a bar … they tried in a timely fashion but just couldn't remove it after the accident …. my 4th dad was hip and just had to have a 65 Riviera with all that twisty torque and what with that big tree he really got twisted … however my mom on the other hand never like any of them …. but when it came to those cars she just had to have a Buick …..

 

Edit:  Oh, and btw bought my Caballero for $ 35.00 in the summer of 73 and all it needed was to have the reverse anchor replaced and the radiator cleaned and you could put an egg on the air cleaner and it just sat there while it idled … got me through college and then some  I paid $ 35.00 for it because when asked how much I had on me by the car lot  sales manager, it just so happened that was all I had on

me !!!! ... True story ….

Edited by buick man (see edit history)
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If I could come up 

On 12/4/2017 at 1:51 PM, rowan782 said:

I apologize if this is  old hat to the group - it was new to me.

24131434_2017199775219689_3264134092521260704_n.jpg

 

If I come up with $77 is there a '56 Century or Roadmaster - and I would pay a few bucks more for a convertible >?

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  • 3 weeks later...

In around 58 or 59 my grandfather bought 2, that’s Two,53 skylarks for 3 Grand. The year before he bought a 51 or 2 special two door hardtop for $250. He had these until he died when I was early twenties about 72. They would all be considered high quality drivers today but then they were just old Buick’s. He took great care of them and I did all the mechanical maintenance until my uncle took them after his passing.

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On 12/8/2017 at 5:48 PM, NTX5467 said:

 

'57 Ford . . . single headlight.  Guess they were parking the good stuff back closer to the sales office?  So they could keep a better eye on them?

 

NTX5467

 

Sorry but nope. It's a 58 Rambler Deluxe with single headlamps.

Image result for 1958 rambler deluxe
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Perhaps the '54 was the "low mileage special" and the '55, having more performance from mechanical improvements and yearly upgrades, was the "performance one" of the two?  If so, the '55 would have been the bargain of the two?

 

NTX5467

 

(If they'd put that Rambler on the front line, it might have killed their business!  But Buicks made it appear more "upscale" and "desirable", instead.)

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