Does Buick have an image problem in the antique hobby?

[Dave@Moon]

What do you think?

[Dave@Moon]

The car's for sale on eBay, just don't try and find it under the correct spelling of Flxible. And no, it doesn't have a Chevy motor, still has the 401.

[Guest John Chapman]

Interesting car....

I wonder, though, if it isn't really a flower car. It sure looks too nice to have been a hearse chop off.

This would have to be a very rare car if it is a flower car. As a hearse, it would only be rare.

JMC

[Dave@Moon]

It's a converted hearse, John. It's also quite reasonably priced, based on what I can see in the posting. Still, if it were mine that rear window wouldn't make it home, at least not twice! <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

[NTX5467]

One of our customers recently acquired a 1959 Pontiac Catalina that was supposed to have been a companion to the Chevy ElCamino that year. Story goes, it was too expensive so GM cancelled that model after a few had been built. All it says anywhere on the body, other than Pontiac, is Catalina on the instrument panel.

The "work" where the rear window from the ElCamino (I suspect) was grafted was on the rough side, even for "back then" standards. That might explain the padding in the rear window area on the pictured car. But that bowtie? Maybe a Tri-Shield was too complicated? Even just an oval (as long as it didn't have "Ford" in it) would have been better.

I rather doubt anyone would doubt that vehicle was a Buick. If they did, they deserve what they "get".

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Dave@Moon]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> I rather doubt anyone would doubt that vehicle was a Buick. </div></div>

I've probably been asked 3 or 4 times each year since I bought my '60 LeSabre "What year Chevy is that?" And my car still says "BUICK" on the front and rear (not to mention the YOM plates that make the question even stupider!)

The 1950's and earlier cars seem to have a strong identity, and people relate to them as Buicks. But from 1960 on there seems to be a blending of all GM cars into Chevy adjuncts of diminished interest. That's not entirely bad, I'm glad I didn't have to pay Impala money for my LeSabre.

I don't know if there's much we can do as a club to promote our cars that we're not already doing. I just find it frustrating that these days "Buick" just doesn't mean what it should. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

[Guest my3buicks]

I can honestly say in 25 years of owning Classic Buicks I have never once had anyone ask me what year Chevy I had. My 69 Electra gets called a Caddy now and again, and people didn't have a clue what my 61 Skylark was. My 53, 55 and 57's and 67's all proudly wore their portholes that all but the weakest minds knew where Buicks. I don't think identity issues came until much later in Buick's heritage, certainly well out of the 60's.

[NTX5467]

When I was attending weekend cruises a lot about 10 years ago, it was very common for people to come up (to a Dodge Challenger, for example) and say "My Buddy had one just like that, except it was a 4-door" or "My Buddy's car was like that, but it had one of those 440 Six-Pack HEMIs in it." Similar things happened with other muscle cars too. Therefore, I don't think you could take people thinking a Buick was a Chevy as an identity crisis issue per se. I suspect what it amounts to is people presuming that all old cars are Chevys as they made so many of them, or similar. Their lack of exposure to non-Chevy or non-Ford old cars is more of an issue, I suspect, plus their apparent lack of reading and comprehension skills (and NO apparent desire to increase them!).

Back in the late 1970s time frame, a customer brought in a 1961 Chevy Corvair sedan for some minor maintenance. It was a really nice 4-door sedan, but nothing special. One of our young techs-in-training looked at it and didn't know what it was (even though it had Chevrolet and Corvair nameplates on it). He finally commented that "They did a real good job of putting that Delco radio in there." He thought it was some kind of kit car or home-built vehicle. Our shop foreman laughed and said that Chevrolet built it that way.

The young tech was shocked. Then it dawned on the shop foreman that this young guy was born about the time the car was built. By the time he got old enough to pay attention to the popular cars of the later 1960s, Corvairs were gone and were not on his short list of cars he knew about. That put things into a different persective.

Keep the faith . . . some people CAN read "B U I C K".

NTX5467

[rocketraider]

NTX- reminds me of the time around 1990 I took the blue Starfire in for state inspection and the 21 year old tech pulling it into the bay couldn't find reverse! He hollers "how do you get this car to back up?" I said "Put it in R" "Where's R? All I can find is N!"

He had never seen a real PNDSLR HydraMatic. I can only imagine what a 1957 vintage Turboglide would have done to him.

[Guest imported_NikeAjax]

From what I've been able to glean from my years of old cars is that most people could only afford the lower end cars like the plebian Fords and Chevys, so when they want to feel nostalgic, i.e., thinking about mom and pop's old car, they get the that car, the cheap car that anyone could have. It's not a wonder that people think such marquees as, GULP, a Pierce Arrow get mistaken for these lowly machines. It's not that they are bad cars mind you, it's just that they're SOOOOO common.

I have a 1956 Buick Century and a 1959 Rambler American, and when I'm in the Rambler I get someone that inevitably asks, "Hey Buddy, is that a Ford or a Chevy?" Some guy on a fake Harley, a Yamaha of all things, had the nerve to pull up along side and tell me, "That ain't no Studebaker!" My brother looks at me and says, "And that surely is no Harley!" This ultra common car for its time, has become something more and more out of the ordinary. Both of my cars never fail to get attention, because someone has a need to know just what exactly they are looking at.

Most people only know what's common, and begrudge those of us who have something out of the ordinary; even something from GM can be now days! Like not being popular in high school, it's something I'd just as soon not have: no one wants to steal my Buick or my Rambler, but if I had an old Chevy or Ford, I would find it a necessity to install some sort of anti-theft-device. It's the more esoteric autos that make me notice them!

[NTX5467]

As far as "identity crisis" goes, what about the owner of one an Olds Intrigue? For the first couple years of production, the ONLY Olds "nameplate" was cast into the passenger side reverse light lens in the tail lamp assembly! Kind of like they wanted people to get closer to see what it was, and then hid the identity from them. Only the last couple of years of production had anything resembling a real Olds nameplate on it. Guess it was a victim of the brand management orientation that made the car the brand instead of the GM division that built it being the umbrella brand?

If any of those cars are left in 20 years, people will probably ask it it's some oriental brand -- YIKES! Then you tell them "It's an Oldsmobile with a Buick motor" (the Northstar V-6 was in the later ones) and then watch their eyes roll back in their heads from the informational overload.

Later . . .

NTX5467

[GMPARTSMAN]

I think that was about the time that GM started to "de-Oldsmobile" Oldsmobile,

to make it NOT the car your father drove. Remember the emphasis on the name

Aurora, and the new Oldsmobile logo? Seems the de-emphasized the brand real well,maybe too well! Still a shame what happened to Oldsmobile, maybe a valuable

lesson to other GM divisions to be watchful of their markets!

[BUICK RACER]

WE joke constantly about our GS' being Chevelle's happens all the time, and the GN's being Monte Carlo's. A couple of years ago we were cruising Woodward Avenue during the Dream Cruise in a '68 Skylark convertible, talking to all the GN folks and they didn't even know that we were in a Buick, so we started telling them 'Nice Monte Carlo' when we went by, didn't phase them. I think some Buick owners don't realize the heritage of the marque, let alone sometimes even know what they are driving. That's why we have to stick together as a group and participate in all Buick shows, races, displays, etc.

Someday we will be recognized, and I hope it's not when the do the same as they did to Oldsmobile!

[Guest AWBE]

Everyone knows my 1955 76-R is a Buick Roadmaster 4-Holer. No one has ever asked what it was----just how much it's worth. <img src="http://www.aaca.org/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[NTX5467]

Sometimes it's a great inside joke to lead the unknowing (who think they know something anyway) on about some things. When some of my Mopar associates started taking their Hemi cars to weekend cruise-in shows, people would walk up and ask what kind of motor it was (it said "426 HEMI" on the shaker bubble too!). As they obviously didn't know, we started telling them it was a "Canadian 318". They could see it had dual carbs and such, but had no idea it was a 426 Hemi. They'd still walk off saying "WOW! Neat!!" and go about their merry way. This was about 16 years ago. If we'd told them what it was, we'd have had to do more 'splaining to them anyway (and that would have taken a while, usually).

Another guy I ran across at Mopar Nats had a '79 St. Regis that he'd upgraded to a 440 from the 360HO it came with (really a quite easy upgrade!). He put a 340 pie pan nameplate on the air cleaner. Fooled a majority of the Chevy guys too. It was a genuine police spec car to start with.

As there are lots of stories of "experimental" this and that from the middle to late 1950s, I thought it would be neat to take a '58 Cadillac Eldorado 2x4bbl V-8 and put it in a '58 Impala (might need the HydraMatic too). The Cadillac motor looks similar to a what a larger Chevy 283 might look like and the 283s could be had with dual 4bbls too, but it would not be the 283. If anyone asked about it, it would be "An experimental engine built for a Chevy executive . . ."

I know, it's not nice to fool those spectators, but sometimes it's great fun -- especially when they later find out they've been had. Sometimes it's more trouble to tell them the truth than something they want to hear (that doesn't seem to mess with their head nearly as much either).

Enjoy!

NTX5467