1925 Buick roadster pickup

[Tim b]

I have a buick roadster pickup does anyone any information on these - vin look up, production, value, ect...

[auburnseeker]

Nothing to add other than that looks like alot of fun.  You selling? 

[Tim b]

nope just added to collection, can't seem to any others from 1925

I was told it was prototype year only 46 made but no proof. Looking

for any info I can find. 

[Terry Bond]

Home made wood box on a cut down touring car is my guess. It was commonly done on a lot of cars. More closeup pics of the rear of the metal body would help confirm.

Terry

[dibarlaw]

On the Buick Pre-war forum it was determined that the car/truck started it's life as a 1925-25A Enclosed Touring. Buick's version of a California Top.

6 bows and instead of the 4 a folding top would have.

 

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by dibarlaw
spelling (see edit history)

[Mark Shaw]

On 7/19/2022 at 3:29 PM, auburnseeker said:

Nothing to add other than that looks like alot of fun.  You selling? 

Mine is for sale....  PM me for photos and description.

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Mark Shaw (see edit history)

[Lahti35]

Oh man, be still my heart! I love pickup conversions... maybe I should do my Nash up into one. j/k!

 

You can clearly see the the body line for the old rear door at the back of the cab, a cut down for sure. Wartime pickup for more gas rations?

[Marty Roth]

Mark's looks dramatically better, and I wish it could be mine, but am unfortunately out of space

Edited July 22, 2022 by Marty Roth (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

Buick did build trucks in the earlier years of the automobile. Even light delivery trucks in the two cylinder era (1911ish and earlier?). I don't know if Buick continued with two cylinder in light trucks after they dropped them for cars or not? Reo I believe built two cylinder trucks for a couple years after they went to four cylinder in all cars, and Autocar built two cylinder trucks for several years after they stopped building cars. Buick stopped building trucks after "the Great War" had ended.

I have never heard of Buick building prototype pickups during the 1920s, at least not under the Buick name. They were involved with GMC to some minor extent for General Motors. And General Motors also built trucks under a few other names, both for USA and foreign sales. Buick parts were used on some of those, however they were marketed under those other names.

If Buick had built prototype pickups, or even a small special run of them? I do not believe that it would have so obviously had the details of a half a touring body, and what appears to be a sedan/touring car rear fender. The crude wooden box is suspect also, although many commercial bodies that late weren't much better.

Regardless. It is a great looking vehicle! It would be a perfect pickup to drive and enjoy, run to the hardware store, get the annual Christmas tree?

Have fun with it!

[28 Chrysler]

Look at the top of the rear fenders. These were made for a sedan or touring car.

[Dandy Dave]

Cool. I like old trucks. I have a 1915 Buick C-37 Touring car in the wings that was also converted to a pick up. Got an old touring car? Got a farm? Old horse drawn farm wagon body? Lets mate them. Yup, Sure nuff need a truck round the farm. Someone got a roundtuit and nearly used this one up. But there's hopes yet.

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by Dandy Dave (see edit history)

[auburnseeker]

I appreciate the offer but really like the look of the Op's Car/ truck. 

[J.H.Boland]

This carefully crafted '21 Chevy roadster-pickup also started life off as a touring car. A fire charred all the body wood when it was still quite new. Conversion included sawing off the body tub around the rear fenders, leaving them as aprons. Originally, someone shaped a pair of rounded wooden fillers to hide the rear door hinges. I didn't replace them since the new wood didn't include the hinges. A complete roadster top finishes it off nicely. I expect the box was locally made. I added the box side extensions from an IHC high-wheeler to bring the box height more in line with the rest of the truck.

Period conversions ,be they pickups, tow trucks or fire engines have always appealed to me.

[wayne sheldon]

A lot of hobbyists insist that ALL restorations MUST be back to how the vehicle rolled out the factory doors! I have never agreed with that philosophy. I love era correct speedsters! Note, in all due honesty, I am not a fan of a lot of the non era correct fancy or beater creations people make out of inappropriate cars.

I also like and appreciate decent era looking pickup creations! I spend a lot of time looking at era photographs, and have literally thousands of them on my computer. Usually, pickup conversions were a few years old when they were cut down. Sometimes wrecked or damaged cars would be converted when they were nearly new! Mostly, era photographs do not provide an exact date, but sometimes there are clues to the vehicle's age at the time of the photo. Sometimes news accounts provide timelines for pictured vehicles. I have looked at dozens of pictures of cutdown pickups taken between 1910 and the late 1920s.

The pickups and speedsters are as much a real part of automotive history as any other Buick, Chevrolet, or model T of the era!

I love J.H.B's Chevrolet!

[Larry Schramm]

4 hours ago, wayne sheldon said:

Buick did build trucks in the earlier years of the automobile. Even light delivery trucks in the two cylinder era (1911ish and earlier?). I don't know if Buick continued with two cylinder in light trucks after they dropped them for cars or not? Reo I believe built two cylinder trucks for a couple years after they went to four cylinder in all cars, and Autocar built two cylinder trucks for several years after they stopped building cars. Buick stopped building trucks after "the Great War" had ended.

I have never heard of Buick building prototype pickups during the 1920s, at least not under the Buick name. They were involved with GMC to some minor extent for General Motors. And General Motors also built trucks under a few other names, both for USA and foreign sales. Buick parts were used on some of those, however they were marketed under those other names.

If Buick had built prototype pickups, or even a small special run of them? I do not believe that it would have so obviously had the details of a half a touring body, and what appears to be a sedan/touring car rear fender. The crude wooden box is suspect also, although many commercial bodies that late weren't much better.

Regardless. It is a great looking vehicle! It would be a perfect pickup to drive and enjoy, run to the hardware store, get the annual Christmas tree?

Have fun with it!

 

Here is the skinny on Buick trucks.

 

Buick never made a truck of the year of your car.  Buick made trucks on and off from about 1908 - 1923.  All Buick trucks were 2 cylinder 1908-1912, and 4 cylinder models 1911-1923, no 6 cylinder models.

 

Specifically, Buick made a delivery car for 1908.  In 1910, 1911, & 1912 Buick made their first "truck" which was a model 2A.  These were all 2 cylinder models put on the 2 cylinder Model F & G chassis. 

 

From 1913-1915 Buick made 4 cylinder trucks.  These were model 3 or 4 in 1913 & 1914.  In 1915 the truck was a C-4 and 1916 it was a D-4.  These two years were 3/4 ton trucks.  A truck was made in 1918 called a E-4, but it was built on the E-4 small car chassis and was classified as a 1/2 ton truck. 

 

The last trucks that Buick made in that era was in 1922 & 1923.  They were light delivery vehicles with a model designation of a 4SD.

 

Now with that said, I believe that GMC picked up a lot of the truck parts from Buick after the 1916 model year as many of the parts of the GMC trucks after 1916 have many of the same parts as the earlier Buick trucks.

 

If you need any other information on Buick trucks, just let me know.

 

Piece of trivia, all Buick trucks had balloon tires. The never had solid tires. And other than the early trucks, all the rest were 4 cylinder.  If you ever see a 6 cylinder truck EXCEPT the engineering truck which was made by Buick Engineering in 1940 of which 5 or 6 were made to deliver parts etc.. on the Buick complex in Flint which only one survives it is not a Buick factory built truck, and the 1940 was not a factory built truck.  It was an engineering design exercise.

 

Remember that a lot of cars were converted into "trucks" during WWII so they could get more rations.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Larry Schramm (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

Larry S,

I knew that you would know!

Thank you for the information!

[Larry Schramm]

6 minutes ago, wayne sheldon said:

Larry S,

I knew that you would know!

Thank you for the information!

 

Since I have 3 real Buick trucks, I guess so.