1958 Buick Registry

[wildcat70]

Greetings,

I have been in love with the 58 Buicks for years and years. I have recently stumbled into a 58 Roadmaster Convertible and am wondering if there is a registry that I may look up how rare/how many actually survived these last 60 years.

 

Thanks

[BUICK RACER]

Marty, the closest you are going to find probably is the 1958 Buick Division of the BCA 
Frank Lyle
Colorado Springs, CO 80927
b58century@msn.com
719-659-1308

[dei]

As to production numbers for all 1958 Buick series you can look over what I took from the book "70 Years of Buick" which is a great reference and come up for sale here and there.

While 1,181 is somewhat low it doesn't say just how many have survived from those produced.

I have one also that needs restoration some day but trying to focus on my Special convertible for now.

 

This is one that I believe is still in the BCA. If you are a member you might look over the membership listing and see who has one.

 

So that is two... 

Would love to see your car. Feel free to start a thread in the Me and My Buick section as we all love pictures.

[dei]

I agree with Roberta that Frank Lyle would be a good source for information on possible numbers.

He owned this beautiful car and drove it to South Bend National meet along with selling parts if you need something.

 

So that's three that I know of....

[Larry Schramm]

Not a convertible, but if you want to see a stunning '58 Caballero station wagon, come to the Buick Nationals in OKC this year.

 

Should be at AutoRama in Detroit this spring.

 

I was over at Joe's today with him.  Look here for the story.  It's an over the top redo.

 

 

Edited December 12, 2018 by Larry Schramm (see edit history)

[John_S_in_Penna]

On 12/11/2018 at 1:29 PM, wildcat70 said:

I have recently stumbled into a 58 Roadmaster Convertible and am wondering if there is a registry that I may look up how rare/how many actually survived...

 

From my years of observation, I think it is accurate

to say that the '58 Roadmaster convertibles are

MANY times scarcer than the '58 Limited convertibles.

People tend to favor the top-of-the-line models, and

the specialty models, in any given year, so Buick fans

have restored the '58 Limited convertibles in sizeable 

numbers.  Those Limiteds are seen frequently, especially

at auctions, and I venture to say that, despite their lower

production number, they aren't particularly rare any more.

 

One man I know has a '58 Roadmaster convertible in

the metallic lavender color they offered.  A nicely restored

yellow one was for sale a year or two ago.  If the one you

found is realistically priced, go for it!

Edited December 13, 2018 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[John_S_in_Penna]

Here are pictures of the other two 1958 Buick

Roadmaster convertibles I mentioned---just to

document them for others' reference.  I've seen

the purple one in person, but not the yellow one:

 

 

[Pete Phillips]

Al Eichelberger, a long-time BCA member in Tucson, Arizona, has a metallic blue '58 Roadmaster convertible. So that's another one.

[BUICK RACER]

4 hours ago, Pete Phillips said:

Al Eichelberger, a long-time BCA member in Tucson, Arizona, has a metallic blue '58 Roadmaster convertible. So that's another one.

Al says he knows of 11, he and Bill Schoening, both past BCA presidents, each have one.

[FireballV8]

These are such pretty cars, there was a metallic blue Roadmaster convertible advertised about a month or so in the Buy sell forum, that was down in Los Angeles, so that is another one.

I am restoring a Limited Convertible and it seems that there are a lot more Limited Convertibles that were saved survived than the Roadmaster Convertible. 

Post a few pictures of yours when you can.

Thank You

Steve

[Smartin]

Here is Hank Deglman's Blue Mist convertible.  Who knows where it is now.  It had factory AC.

[dei]

Beautiful looking car with the matching colour interior?

 

I wonder why he put the trunk handles on that are found on the Specials? The lower chrome strip has the handle moulded into it (above the fuel door).

[wildcat70]

The one I found is Silver Mist with Red Leather interior.

 

I will get some pictures up.

[wildcat70]

John S Said

Here are pictures of the other two 1958 Buick

Roadmaster convertibles I mentioned---just to

document them for others' reference.  I've seen

the purple one in person, but not the yellow one:

 

Someone tried to sell me the yellow one, but it was a scam. I heard this car went to Sweden but the scammer is trying to sell it from Poland...BEWARE THE YELLOW ONE !!

[John_S_in_Penna]

48 minutes ago, wildcat70 said:

Someone tried to sell me the yellow one, but it was a scam. I heard this car went to Sweden but the scammer is trying to sell it from Poland...BEWARE THE YELLOW ONE !!

 

In 2016, the yellow one was being offered for sale

for $49,000 as one of many cars from "The South 40

Collection."  That was a large collection in Florida,

of perhaps 30 very nice cars, that was being dispersed.

The cars belonged to Robert Shearer, deceased.

The asking prices of all the cars seemed very fair,

and even then it took them perhaps a year to sell off

the cars.

 

I heard about the sale of that collection from a posting on

our AACA forum here.  When the cars were being sold,

they had a website, www.s40collection.com, which

is no longer active.  Where the yellow Roadmaster 

went I don't know, but I know it was sold.  A scammer

is probably just using old pictures from the internet.

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[Smartin]

The trunk handles on the blue car...I believe someone before Hank had installed them, and they were none-the-wiser when restoring the car.  So there they are.

[BUICK RACER]

Here's Bill and Al's cars.

[wildcat70]

Here are some pictures....

 

[Larry Schramm]

Nice looking car.

[Buicksrule]

So far it looks like the roughly 14 known is pretty accurate.  None of these cars posted are a surprise.  

 

The silver with red interior convertible is the one that RV/PL/AE remember from the St. Augustine Tour about 20 years ago.  At the time it was owned by a very nice couple from maybe Illinois.   I think they lived in the less urban part of the state.     They also had a silver Roadmaster 75 4 door.  The owner did most or all of the restoration work himself.  Both cars were very well done.  I remember riding in the convertible in Florida at least one day of the tour.

 

Hank Degelman fell in love with the Blue car from Arizona at the 95 Chicago National.  It wasn't for sale so Hank searched through the BCA, possibly buying one of the cars that was known at that time.   The AZ car is restored to the colors it was built with according to the body plate, and runs the correct Flight Pitch Dynaflow.    It's possible that Hank's car was not originally blue.  If someone, maybe Adam, has a photo of the body tag, we can tell.  Knowing if it was originally another color might help determine if it came from another BCA member.      Because he liked the AZ blue one, he chose to restore as a blue mist car.  As I recall, Hank's car has the Variable Pitch Dynaflow.  Hank's car was a very nice car.

 

The most recent BCA Roster lists 10 Roadmaster 75 Convertibles, most of which have either been mentioned or posted here.   If someone in the St Louis chapter asks around at a chapter meeting, it's possible that someone might remember what happened to Degelmans car.

[John_S_in_Penna]

Even though this model is very scarce, I would figure

there are considerably more than 14 remaining.

What is the typical survival rate of 1950's convertibles,

ignoring specialty models like Limiteds that are over-represented?

 

Why more than 14?  Because marque-specific club rosters list cars,

naturally, that belong to club members only.  So we,

being Buick fans and BCA members, would tend to know

of those cars owned by BCA members and seen at

Buick events.  We're identifying cars that are likely already

in the BCA roster.

 

The cars that may be stragglers--owned by a member listed

20 years ago and now languishing in his widow's garage;  or owned

by an AACA member who owns a wide selection of 1950's cars;

or owned by a Buick fan who never joined the BCA;

or owned by an active Chevy fan who happened to find

something different--mean that there are others "under the radar"

for our poster and potential buyer!

[FireballV8]

Here is the other one at $50,000. Price seems too high, but you never know.

 

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/cto/d/1958-buick-roadmaster-convertible1956/6755233600.html

 

thx

[dei]

I Agree it is optimistic with top, interior and clearly wrong painted engine colour but wish the seller good luck.

 

 

Makes me wonder what mine would fetch (if it were for sale) in it's current condition???

[John_S_in_Penna]

2 hours ago, dei said:

Makes me wonder what mine would fetch (if it were for sale) in it's current condition???

 

Remember that the restored yellow one was offered

at $49,000--by a knowledgeable seller liquidating a

collection of around 30 cars--and it still took a while to sell.

Edited December 21, 2018 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[Buicksrule]

John,

 

I agree that the LA area car on Craigslist is priced very high.  The same seller has also offered some convertible only parts recently which seems unusual to me.   That's a situation where anyone seriously considering that car needs to fly there and spend considerable time checking the car out from top to bottom.   It appears that the top bows are either bent or missing which is not a small issue since the senior series Buicks would share top bows only with Caddy for 58 ( and probably 57).  The two tone blue interior is likely to be fairly rare and appears to be original style if not original.

 

While I understand your point about cars that may exist but be unknown, I've been interested in 58's since I was under 10 years old in the early 70's.   So, I'm not coming up with that number just by looking at the most recent BCA Roster.  I've been a BCA member since the seventies and AACA since the 80's.   I know of a few 58 Roadmaster Convertibles that are too far gone to be restored.  I have not included them in the 14.    The cars that are included in the 14 are actual cars that are restored or restorable.   

 

I've been tracking this model since the late seventies, including every issue of Hemmings since then.  Very few have ever show up, and most of them that have are already included in the fourteen.

 

I suspect that the number of viable survivors IS larger than 14 but it's also probably 25 or less.   I did not know about Dei's car, which I think is in Canada by the way.  There may be one in Scandinavia but once cars leave the US they seldom come back.  At one time I had contacted every known 58 Roadmaster Convertible owner doing some research.  Most responded with photos.  But some of those cars were sold and restored after that time.  Some of the cars turned out to be Limited Convertibles.  

 

Buick built 1181 Roadmaster 75 Convertibles in 58.   They built 839 Limited Convertibles.   We agree that because the Limiteds were known to be so rare, many more of them have survived.  For what it's worth, based on nearly 40 years of watching these cars come up for sale, the easiest big series 58 Buick to find is a Limited.     There are a couple other things that may be in play here.   The Roadmaster and Limited share a number of parts, basically everything other than the rear quarters/parts of the rear clip.  So, Roadmaster Convertibles and Limited Convertibles are able to be parts cars for each other.  That probably contributed to the disappearance of a few Roadmaster's.

 

58 was also a very low production year for Buick, especially the big series, Super, Roadmaster 75 and Limited.   Big series cars are hard to find in this year.

 

For many years in the hobby the 58 Buick was something of a joke in many hobby publications due to the chrome ( Olds had more chrome on a smaller body BTW ).  So, there weren't very many people who collected 58's.  Whether BCA or AACA shows or local shows, 58's just didn't show up that often.    The Specials and Centurys are somewhat more common but still not anywhere as easy to find as 58 Pontiac Bonneville for example.

 

I can only think of three to five Roadmaster Convertibles that have ever been shown at AACA National Meets since the late 80's.   The blue one from AZ, which was shown at 2018 AACA Western Spring, the Florida car ( yellow one ) you posted if it's the car I think it is, and Frank's car in CO.  I'm not sure if Hank's car from St Louis was ever shown in AACA.

 

I had a family member with a 58 big series as a new car.  It was traded in at less than five years old due to excessive oil consumption.  It was a well cared for and well serviced car.  The 58 folks on here can probably guess why it suddenly started drinking oil.   Even as a relatively new car fixing the excessive oil consumption issue did not make any economic sense.  Hint--the engine was probably NOT worn out.   One part had failed.  

 

Late 50's styling aged quickly, fuel economy was not great, the flite pitch transmission ( the ONLY transmission available in Roadmaster 75's and Limiteds from the factory ) was very complex and so very expensive to fix.  Flite Pitch for 58 was problematic.   I have been told that if a Flite Pitch was rebuilt ONCE it was fine.  Buick learned a lot about that transmission with the 58's.  

 

Many big series cars were built with Air-Poise Air Suspension which was also problematic.   Literally to the point where Buick created a retro fit kit to convert Air Poise cars back to springs.   This kit included big round steel plates to put over the holes in the rear cross member from the air bags.

 

In the era where cars were traded in every few years, big luxury cars tended to lose value fairly quickly.  Adding in styling that people either love or hate but which was definitely out of step with the times early in the 60's, oil consumption issues, transmission issues, suspension issues all of which are expensive to fix, even the dealers were likely to dump the trade ins just to get them off the lot.   Cheap used cars get driven into the ground.

 

I will say that when I bought my first 58,  in 1988 after 7 years of searching, a lot of my hobby friends were like--why did you buy that.  Those are ugly.  Then they got to know the car and she changed their minds.   The Mustangs/ tri five chevies and all the rest of the cars that can be built out of a catalog are many, many magnitudes easier to restore than any 58 Buick, especially the big series.

 

For what it's worth, there is a similar situation with 53's.   I have a friend that is a 53 Roadmaster Convertible expert since the seventies.    While they built something like twice as many Roadmaster Convertibles in 53 as they did Skylarks ( 1690), there's been a 53 Skylark for sale somewhere every month for years, but you will search a long time to find a Roadmaster Convertible.  The 53 Roadmaster's and Skylarks share quite a few parts so it's likely that the low survival of the 53 Roadmaster was impacted by some becoming parts cars for Skylarks. 

 

One of the reasons I agreed to get involved in this discussion is I'm hoping that some additional cars will come out of hiding with some photographs--like Dei's did.  If John is right and there are dozens of 58 Roadmaster Convertibles out there in garages, it would be great to see that.   But from what I've seen, I bet the final tally will land somewhere between 14 and 25--probably closer to 14.

 

For what it's worth, I don't care WHAT the value of 58 Buicks happens to be.  Ours have been wearing a NOT FOR SALE signs since 1988, 1994, 1997.   That will not be changing any time soon.

 

By the way, John, if you are the John in PA who likes to tour in a straight 8 Buick and also a generation 1 Corvette, we know each other.

[John_S_in_Penna]

Mr. Buicksrule, thanks for your observations.

No, I don't have a straight-8 Buick, so I'm not the

person you're thinking of.

 

I wonder how many 1958 Roadmaster convertibles,

if any, may be in Scandinavia.  One man I know visited

the Power Big Meet in Vasteras, Sweden, and found it

to be a show far larger than AACA's Hershey.  He said

there were so many 1958 Buicks that he lost track of them.

As you know, flashy late 1950's cars are popular in Scandinavia.

He photographed a remarkable SIX 1959 Dodge convertibles

all parked together;  their owners planned together and

were trying for 10, but a few folks were unable to attend!

 

Here's one picture he took at that meet--a 1958 Roadmaster 2-door hardtop:

 

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[dei]

I just have to say I'm really liking this thread.

Hearing and seeing other '58 Roadmaster converts that are out there is helping me keep inspired to continue my hope in getting mine back on the road one day.

Unfortunately I suffer from the old car hobby disease of too many cars right now which diverts energy and resources.

Therefore my efforts go in spurts and progress is slow. 

My wondering about value wasn't meant to divert the thread or a fishing expedition as the NOT FOR SALE SIGN is on mine also. My two sons will be dealing with the Buick's when the time comes but threads like this will help them to decide just how the cars fit into the survivorship equation.

I bought my Roadmaster way back from an ad in Cars & Parts if I remember correctly. It was in Lima Ohio and was parked in a dimly lit cement building with about 15 used (at that time), banged up cars. It was running as we drove it on the car trailer and off when back at home but went into storage as my focus was with my '58 Special convertible.

 

It has a long ways to go but.... there is hope. 

Thanks for the contributions and insights.

[wildcat70]

John,

 

That Certainly Makes sense that the Roadmasters became donor cars for the Limiteds, thus they disappeared.

[wildcat70]

DEI,

 

It might just be time for you to brush the dust off and get to building yours...smile.....

[Buicksrule]

John,

 

If you were the guy with the vette and the straight 8 Buick, you might remember the owners of the silver convertible that Wildcat 70 found.  He's toured with them more often and more recently than I have.

 

Is the yellow car that you posted photos of the car that was owned/purchased restored by a doctor named Eddie in FL?  You mentioned that it was sold off in a collection of about 30 cars.  Eddie had a fairly large collection of cars at one time.

 

Marty--did you buy their four door Roadmaster as well as the Convertible?

 

On the numbers issue.  I emailed Frank to see if he would share how many 75C's he has in the registry.   He may show up here and post himself or not his choice.   I have also emailed another guy that tends to know a lot about the whereabouts of 58's.  He may have accurate information about how many 75C's headed over to Europe.  He also may show up here and post, or not his choice.   

 

Just for fun, I did a google image search.  After eliminating all the wrong year, wrong series cars, the only photos google came up with are of the cars that we already know about, except possibly one that appears to be in England and maybe one more.  58's all look almost alike from the front so it can be hard to tell series from front views.  It can be done but takes a very close eye.

 

 

 

 

[John_S_in_Penna]

On 12/15/2018 at 8:15 AM, John_S_in_Penna said:

In 2016, the yellow one was being offered for sale

for $49,000 as one of many cars from "The South 40

Collection."  That was a large collection in Florida,

of perhaps 30 very nice cars, that was being dispersed.

The cars belonged to Robert Shearer, deceased...

 

 

I mentioned the name Robert Shearer in a previous posting here,

but I do not know the people involved.  Evidently the

"Eddie" you know had a different yellow '58 Roadmaster convertible,

or owned this car at a different time.  This particular car

had a yellow-and-black interior, I'm quite sure from recollection;  

but all I saw were posted pictures of the car.

 

For some reason, the Posting #'s aren't appearing anymore

on the forum.  Their invisibility is undoubtedly an oversight.

When they're there, it makes it easy to refer to "Posting #8"

and "Posting #29" on long threads.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2018 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[wildcat70]

The yellow and black roadmaster from Florida that I came across was not originally yellow and black. As I recall it was polar mist with red interior originally.

[Buicksrule]

John,

 

Thanks for the reply.  If the car had a yellow and black interior, that's probably why it was NOT easy to sell.  No such interior available on a 58 Roadmaster 75.  Yellow and white yes.  Yellow and black--not a chance.  Per the 58 Buick Color Trim book.  It's possible that Eddie owned the car first and sold it to Shearer.   Between the cost of the leather and the complexity of the interior, having the incorrect interior is a pretty high dollar thing to correct.

 

Sorry about the quick ending of the other post.   Call came in that I had to handle.

 

John or someone made a comment earlier about attrition rate of 50's cars/convertibles and trying to use that to predict the number surviving.  Not a bad idea.  It's actually been done by a guy that wrote a book about convertibles/woodies and other special post war cars in the middle/late seventies.  At that time it was still possible to get information from state licensing bureaus.  I did take a quick look at his book and frankly his estimated numbers remaining are probably way off.   He predicted 40 53 Skylarks around in the late seventies.   There are way more than that.  But here are some numbers we can look at.

 

I checked production figures from two sources for 58 Buicks.  They did not agree so I took the numbers from the source I believe is more likely to be correct.

 

Total production 58 Buicks was 241,628 cars per this source, if my addition was correct.

 

Of those cars, 21,562 or  8.92 % were Roadmaster 75's or Limiteds of ALL body styles.

 

If we include the Super series which did not offer a convertible in 58, there were 64119 big series cars produced roughly 26.5% of production.  This is why when we see 58 Buicks, we most often see Specials or Century-the B body cars.     58.9% of the 58 Buicks produced were Specials.  And, 73.5 % of the 58 Buicks produced were Specials or Centurys.

 

Roadmaster 75 Convertibles were 1181/241628 or 0.489%--roughly FIVE TENTHS of a percent of production.

 

Limited Convertibles were 839/241628 or 0.347%--roughly THREE TENTHS of a percent of production.

 

If we assume that all 58 Buicks survived proportional to their production, these numbers indicate in any gathering of 100 58 Buicks, we could expect to see 0 58 Roadmaster 75 Convertibles.  The math shows an expected value of less than half of a car.   In a gathering of 500 58 Buicks we could expect to see 2.4 Roadmaster 75 Convertibles.  In a gathering of 1000 58 Buicks we could expect to see between 4 and 5 Roadmaster Convertibles.

 

The assumption that all 58 Buicks survived proportionally to their popularity when new is not a particularly valid claim.  Even though convertibles tend to be more popular with many restorers and may tend to be saved more often than other body styles, the number produced was low and the the Limited being the prestige series that year sent a lot of people saving Limiteds and ignoring Supers and Roadmaster's.

 

So--is the correct number of survivors 14--probably not.  There are probably a few more out there.  Are there 100 surviving Roadmaster 75 Convertibles.  NOPE--is a pretty safe answer.

 

Are there 50?  Since that's almost four times the number of known cars, that seems pretty unlikely as well.

 

What about 25--that seems within reason based on the fact that the sum of what we know here is around 15 cars.    Maybe that number is a few short/maybe it's a few high.   I've contacted a couple of 58 gurus who may have knowledge of some additional cars.  If I hear anything back, I will post it.

 

Some things that we discovered when I surveyed the owners of known 58 Roadmaster 75 Convertibles quite awhile ago.   The surviving cars were assembled in at least three or four different assembly plants.   It is likely that they were assembled at all plants, however I recall Terry D being very interested in the way the car builds were spread across the country.    However, ALL convertible bodies were built in Flint.  Because Convertible bodies involved special stampings/tooling/assembly jigs, Buick only tooled up ONE plant to put the body together.  The Flint body plant.   The body was then shipped to assembly plants closer to the point of delivery to be turned into a car.  YES--convertible frames are special but that's ONE part, a part that shipped in large quantities to assembly plants all the time.   This was something that Buick Historian and good friend Terry Dunham discovered when I shared with him the serial number and body tag information that owners shared with me.  Buick put a special symbol on the body tags of convertibles to signify this Flint built body.  Buick convertibles were built this way for quite a few years, but I do not remember the first and last year this was done.    Terry D had locked down that data but unfortunately he's not around to weigh in on this discussion.

 

So, at this point, we have concrete evidence of 14 to 15 viable 58 Roadmaster 75 Convertibles surviving to become hobby cars.  How many are out there to be discovered, probably a few, but not many.  A few years ago, a previously unknown Duesenberg was discovered.  Duesenbergs have been tracked MUCH more carefully than any Buick. But, if I remember the article correctly, the car was KNOWN about but there were issues actually finding it.   It's also possible that I am merging two situations--one where the car was known about  but there were issues actually finding it and the owner and one that had literally dropped off everyone's radar.

 

Since we have some 58 folks on here, particularly Dei who has been into them for years and also is in Canada, there is one piece of rumored documentation about 58 big series cars that would be a big deal if it were found.   Buick records indicate that Roadmaster's and Limiteds were only built with the Flite Pitch Dynaflow Transmission.     Surviving cars OFTEN have the incorrect according to factory documentation Variable Pitch Transmission.   This is NOT an easy change.  There are a lot of bits and pieces involved in making this change.

 

Years ago, a Buick service manager told me that Buick did a factory authorized retrofit for Flite Pitch cars that had transmission issues.  I have all 58 Service bulletins.  No mention of this retro fit anywhere.   Later some people higher up in the Buick food chain told me that in this era of 90 day or 3000 mile warrantees, prior to the feds getting involved, the zone office ( most likely ) or dealers may have received a letter telling them how to obtain factory support/parts/bill Buick to make this change if a customer's Flite Pitch car could not be fixed to the customer's satisfaction, especially if it occurred during warranty repair period.  This could have been a situation where dealers were told to call the zone office for transmission issues and then the zone handled it quietly which means written documentation is even more scarce than if this sort of under the table recall was announced very publicly to all dealers.     People have been looking for this documentation since the seventies or eighties.  If anyone has this documentation, please either post it or send it to the Buick Club Office or BCA Chief Judge.  

 

The 58's drive beautifully with Flite Pitch.  It's a very different transmission than the Variable Pitch Dynaflow.  It performs much better.  BUT--NEVER, NEVER put the car into G-, unless you are about to slam into a brick wall and have no brakes.   On the Flite Pitch, G is a transmission brake.  It's designed to PREVENT all acceleration and slow the car down on a down grade.  If you put the car in G and then accelerate, you are pouring power into the front of the transmission, G causes the fluid flow to be essentially reversed to try to slow the car/engine down.    This is over simplified but basically the engine is pouring power into one part of the torque converter.  Another part of the torque converter is sending fluid back trying to STOP the first part from moving.  Liquids don't compress.  You just broke the transmission.

 

In the early 50's with first generation Dynaflow, drivers used to put the car in low, floor it and then shift to drive to try to get better performance.  Starting with the 53 Dynaflow, this really wasn't needed as they added more turbines to the transmission.  In 55 or 56 they added the Variable Pitch Stator blades which made the whole start in low and shift manually pretty silly.  But people still did it.  Variable pitch Dynaflows will tolerate this treatment.  Flite Pitch Dynaflows will break if treated this way, possibly even the first time.

 

So--it's 1958.   You just bought your Roadmaster 75 or Limited.   You've been playing the start in low game and you decide to take your brand new, expensive car out and impress someone with it's acceleration.  A few minutes later your brand new Buick is making very expensive and unpleasant noises as it sits stationary on the side of the road.  The owners manual clearly states do NOT put the car in G and accelerate.  But who reads those.   The salesman might have told you but you didn't listen.  Second and third owners are even less likely to have gotten the word so even if the first owner didn't break the Flite Pitch, later owners may not have been so lucky.  After the car was a few years old, transmission issues often meant a short trip to the junk yard.

 

Another fun fact from someone at Buick.   I was told by someone who would know that the SON of the Flight Pitch Dynaflow was the Super Turbine 400 from 65-67.  The one with the variable pitch stator which remains one of the best transmissions Buick/GM ever Built.  BUICK was responsible for the torque converter.  That's probably where the high quality came from.

 

Other than the ST 400 shifts, the Flite Pitch and the ST 400 have a very similar drive feel.  A well sorted out Flite Pitch car will get off the line faster than a Variable Pitch car.   My dad always said when his 58 was new, it could do 0 to 100 in one lunge.  Don't know about 100, but we have 75 mph speed limit and the flite pitch cars are perfectly happy to do 0 to 75 in one lunge , and surprisingly rapidly for such a large and heavy car.

 

Sorry this is long.  Hope some of it is interesting or useful.

[John_S_in_Penna]

What ever happened to Gene Reynolds (if I'm recalling

his name correctly) of Newville, Penna.?  He was a

specialist in 1958 Buicks.

[Buicksrule]

John,

 

I've known Gene for 30 years or so.   He's one of the people I've asked to comment on this issue.   As I recall, he doesn't check email that often so it may be awhile before he responds.  I think he has retired to a warmer climate.

[Smartin]

Gene is in SC I believe.  I still see him at national meets.  He's active on Facebook on many of the Buick pages there.

 

Hank's blue car...I remember him showing me photos of the car as he bought it.  The color was a much darker blue.  Unfortunately, I don't have a photo or documentation of the body tag.

[dei]

I fired up my old computer today and looked through my Buick files.

I found this Roadmaster dated for sale in 2012 in Redwood City, Ca - Charlie was the seller contact name.

Anyone recognise if this is one already spoken about since it says it was listed on the BCA Forums For Sale site?

 

Edited December 22, 2018 by dei (see edit history)

[dei]

January 2012

 

Reply from a listing 1958 Roadmaster For Sale on the BCA Forum site.

 

Emailed pictures and info:

 

 

solid new mexico car..orig white w/red leather

 

rebuilt engine+txmn,not installed,but can be set in car for txpt
have all trim,convertible,interior parts

another 58 coupe included for xtra parts
$21,000
charlie
415 2971226
redwood city,calif

[Smartin]

Charlie Marshall

[BUICK RACER]

Limited at Mecum in Kissimmee January 10