1938 Buick Opera Brougham sells for $275,000 at Amelia Island

[Centurion]

The June, 2004 issue of "Collectible Automobile" provides auction results for the March 13 RM Auctions event at Amelia Island.

One of the featured cars was a very interesting 1938 Buick Series 80 (Roadmaster) Opera Brougham with body by Fernandez & Darrin. I first saw this Buick in Flint in 1978, and the car has been beautifully restored during the intervening years. The car has been featured in a number of magazine articles, and I had hoped that we would see it in Flint this last year. It was not there, but you will enjoy what the magazine has to say about the car:

"Dark Blue/Blue leather, cloth rear; Estimate $150,000 - $250,000; Concours restoration, 1 condition; Hammered Sold at $250,000 plus commission of 10%; Final Price $275,000 -- Applied faux cane work to rear compartment, skirts, wide whitewalls, dual enclosed sidemounts, jump seats, speedo and clock in rear compartment, split rollup divider windows. A Fran Roxas restoration, CCCA Senior, Pebble Beach and Meadow Brook class winner. Impeccable. Only the front seat shows light evidence of use. While formal cars like this are less adaptable than their owner-driver counterparts to today's collectors, it's impossible not to be captivated by this Buick's lines and its restoration. Bought at the top of RM's estimate range, it's still a lot of car for the money."

As I have made my mental lists of the most significant and desirable Buicks over the years, this car has always ranked near the top. It's great to hear of such fine examples of our favorite marque.

[Centurion]

Wildcat65 has provided this nose shot of the '38 Opera Brougham as it is loaded into its trailer at Amelia Island.

[Guest Skyking]

Brian, grant you it is a beautiful car, but is it practical to spend that much for a trailor queen?..he'll probably never enjoy it!

[Guest my3buicks]

if you have that kind of money practicallity really doesn't matter

[Dave@Moon]

Does anybody have a picture of the cane work that they can post?

[The Old Guy]

This Buick was in the Detroit area for years. It had been redone with a front end like a Rolls and was in my opinion quite unattractive. A guy named Warshawsky ( JC Whitney) bought it and put it back to its'original state. If you have a copy of George Dammann's book " 70 years of Buick" the caning shows up quite well. It is on page 177 in the first edition.

[Barney Eaton]

The car was at Amelia Island last year (2003) but because of the rain-out, it was in the parking garage with poor lighting. I love these custom bodied vehicles.

This brings up the touchy subject of modified cars....since this was not built by Buick, is it a modified? (I only bring this up to stir the pot, I am not really a trouble maker)

[Centurion]

Barney, you raise an interesting question. Other marques with a higher percentage of classic-era cars bodied by the famed coachbuilders (like Brunn, Brewster, Murphy, Derham, Dietrich, Rollston and others) would certainly recognize these cars as the <span style="font-style: italic">creme' de la creme'</span> . I can't imagine that these cars would be excluded in formal judging, and I would love to see cars like this Opera Brougham and Chuck Bidwell's 1932 Buick 90 Murphy Town Car at some of our BCA National Meets. The 1936 and 1937 Buick Brewster Town Cars and the 1940 Buick Townmaster by Brunn would be other prime examples. The 1936 and 1939 McLaughlin-Buick limousines and parade cars built for the British monarchs are additional vehicles that should be welcomed for formal judging at our meets.

Maybe the distinction that should be made is whether the car still has its original body -- as the car was delivered to its original customer. This would allow formal, 400-pt. judging for cars like the Opera Brougham and even the Flxible hearses and ambulances. A chopped and channeled 1950 Special created by Ray's Speed Shop in 1992, in contrast, would participate as part of the Modified Class.

[Centurion]

By the way, there do not seem to be good, overall photos of the Opera Brougham on the Internet. You can, however, catch a glimpse of the rear portion of the car's body in the background of the photo of Ray Knott's 1964 Riviera at Amelia Island in the May "Bugle".