1973 Buick Centurion convertible - prior owner info?

[Mike Neff]

Hello.  I thought someone in this forum might be able to help me.  I bought this '73 Buick Centurion in 2022 from a collector in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  That owner bought it at Auburn in 2017 (it was for sale in the car corral).  There was no documentation with the car when I got it, but I did find the ad for it in the 2017 Auburn listing.  The ad showed that it had been fully restored under previous ownership.  I'm hoping to find the prior owner that had it restored, so I can get a bit more information about the restoration, history of the car, etc.

 

Images of the Auburn listing are here (1&2) , along with some pics of it post restoration (3-9).  And then current shots of it today (10-14).  I added the 455 badges and shortened the dual exhaust pipes, otherwise, it is unchanged.

 

Appreciate any info.

 

Many thanks,

Mike

Edited December 15, 2023 by Mike Neff
typo (see edit history)

[NTX5467]

Nice looking car.  I always liked that platform series of Buicks.

 

You might contact GM Historical to see if they can provide a "kit" for the car, via VIN of the car.  At the minimum, the kit would include a window sticker and possibly some other information on the car.  You might head over to www.eatondetroitspring.com and . . . input the car's info into the menu, click, and then see a page of springs and such for the car.  On the upper horizontal menu on that page, at the rh end, is "Links" with the vehicle logo under it.  Click on the logo, if its there, to get a sales brochure file for download.

 

NTX5467

Edited December 16, 2023 by NTX5467 (see edit history)

[rocketraider]

Is the car in Canada or USA?

 

Privacy laws everywhere are going to make such a search difficult. If you have to cross borders I have no idea what you'll get into. 

 

A friend in law enforcement or a sympathetic insurance agent are your best bets. They have access to such records when no one else does. Even then depends on whether the records still exist or have been purged.

[NTX5467]

I know and understand that it is always interesting to see where a vehicle has been in its prior times before we purchased it.

 

What was possible in the 1980s has diminished in achievability in the 2020s.  After many "old records" have been purged or archived in deep, dark locations and not digitized.

 

With a "title search" string of prior owners, it could have been possible to trace the residences of a vehicle.  Then, one could send a registered letter to that prior owner and address to possibly gain some information about the vehicle's life with them.  Sometimes, these things could take months, hinging upon IF the prior owners still lived there AND if they would reply.

 

In modern times, with such a list, one could log into one of the "people search" websites and do the searches online, in a matter of minutes, hopefully.

 

ALSO, you can pay a bit of money to do a CARFAX (or similar) search by VIN.  This can lead to prior owners' locations, when the vehicle was licensed and where, plus repairs performed in shops which report their activities to CARFAX (or similar).  In some cases, a car with a clean report of no accidents or such could have been repaired by a facility which did not report to CARFAX, which can complicate some things.  Especially if the repair were paid for by the owner and not an insurance company.

 

Such reports can also indicate issues the prior owners had with the vehicle which were not completely fixed, evident from the same or similar complaint lines on the service repair order.

 

DO do your due diligence in going over the car on a lift.  With some un-interested third party people who know what they are looking at there.  Be prepared for their assessments, too.  If something needs to get fixed, do it.  If not, enjoy the car for a few years and then pass it on to somebody else to enjoy.  With pictures of the memorable times you enjoyed the car with others.

 

Happy Holidays,

NTX5467

[Mike Neff]

Thanks for the info...  am mostly interested to see if I can locate a prior owner to understand when and why they did the restoration, what shape it was in before the resto, etc.  Someone clearly loved it enough to put all that effort into it, so hoping to find out who that was.

 

Happy holidays.