Neat old truck. Here's a link to some info on Buick Trucks: http://www.prewarbuick.com/features/buick_trucks Also found these images of Buick trucks. Maybe some help if you decide to restore it:
Finally got it home today... been so rainy couldn't get a tow truck in the field and risk getting it stuck... pictures incoming
Just ran across this thread and would add some information. Interesting vehicle, but not a Buick built truck. It is a converted car. Probably done in the late 30's to obtain more fuel during rationing. The Buick Truck Gruru
This is what my copy of the book "STANDARD CATALOG OF AMERICAN LIGHT DUTY TRUCKS" says about Buick trucks:
And this is what they tell someone with a 1925 Buick truck at the AACA Forums: Click screenshot to view the post at the AACA Forums Also:
Duo drives 1925 Buick pickup from Peking to Paris Jul 29, 2007 They finished a race together. Now they finish each other's sentences. Californians Bill Erickson, a mechanic, and Steve Dole, a retired airline pilot, pulled over the finish line of the Peking to Paris Motor Challenge on a recent Saturday in Paris' historic Place Vendome. After spending 35 days and almost 8,000 miles together in a two-seat 1925 Buick Roadster pickup, they have even developed their own sign language. After a good night's sleep, they sat down in the lobby of the Intercontinental Grand Hotel in Paris and shared some of their experiences of the countries they visited. Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia, for instance. "It was a big, stinky, smoggy city," said Dole, of Pacific Grove, Calif. "The only city in the whole country," Erickson continued. "I think there was one other — 28,000 people," Dole said. "I think more English was spoken in Mongolia than in China," Erickson noted. "We had our first lesson in sign language." As if on cue, both men grinned and started swiping their hands lazily through the air, pointing up, down and sideways. "There was one other finger that is used, too," Dole said. Erickson's wife, Teal Rowe, 46, and Dole's daughter, Jen Dole, 38, broke into peals of laughter as they listened to the men. The women had flown in to greet the racing team as they arrived in Paris. The nonverbal language that evolved during their adventure was actually born of necessity, Dole said, due to the constant noise the car made, rattling that grew even louder after the punishing dirt washboard roads in Mongolia. Their adventure began almost a year ago — last August, when Erickson got word there was a spot open in the historic car race for a vehicle built before 1941 — in the vintage category, or "vintageant" as the British race organizers refer to it. Contestants from all over the world were on a years-long waiting list to get into this rally, which was the 100th anniversary of the first Peking to Paris race in 1907. Built long before "Peking" became "Beijing," these race cars would need some work. So Dole moved in with Erickson and Rowe, who live in Ventura, Calif., and the pair spent nine months getting their car race-ready. In April, they shipped the car to China and, in May, the two flew to Beijing. On May 27, they joined 133 other cars at the starting line bordering the Great Wall of China. One of the most memorable parts of China was the hanging monastery of Datong, which Erickson ascended hundreds of steps to reach. The edifice was chiseled into the side of a cliff, about 200 feet up. He walked up narrow stairs into the mouth of a cement dragon hugging the side of the cliff. "The climb up was daunting so I stayed at the bottom eating local cuisine from which I am still suffering, thank you," said, Dole, who arrived in Paris 10 pounds lighter than when he left Beijing. The gastrointestinal challenges foreshadowed the hardships to come after the racers crossed into Mongolia. Two days out of Ulaan Bataar, a wheel caught in one of thousands of deep ruts the teams navigated. "The sand grabbed that wheel and ripped from there to the back of the car; the drive shaft fell out," Erickson said. "We're dead in the water." With help from a young Mongolian man driving a rented car for the team doctor, Erickson used a borrowed drill and bolted the car together — in one of the many "MacGyver" fixes, as he calls them, that would ultimately nurse their car to Paris. The Mongolian people were friendly and helpful, Erickson and Dole said — and a study in contrasts. "The average annual income is $150 — yet every gas-station pump jockey would step out of a doorway and, with a camera cell phone, take pictures," Dole said. Shepherds on horseback had cell phones, too, and many of the yurts had satellite dishes outside. In one of the most desolate spots in Mongolia, Dole tried to ford a river with the Buick (there was no choice) and the silty bottom grabbed the tire and stopped the motor. Erickson climbed out on the running board and, gesturing, was able to get a family from the lone yurt nearby to help pull them from the stream. The grandfather, son-in-law and two elementary-school-aged children were dressed in the traditional Mongolian shepherd's robes. Erickson could think of no way to reward them, so he videotaped them and offered the kids packaged cookies. Seeing themselves in the video-camera screen for the first time enchanted them as they huddled, cheek to cheek to cheek, to see themselves. "It was like they were being re-created in front of their own eyes," Erickson said. Beyond the race, Russia struck Erickson and Dole, almost above all else, as a country of intense alcohol consumption. "We got to the hotel and the security guard showed up drunk," Dole said. "The (young adults) who met us were drunk. That was our first impression of Russia and it was pretty much lasting." "Every person was walking around with open containers in this town. Seriously," Erickson said of their first stop, Bijsk. "Knee-knocking drunk." To compound their impression, Erickson said he was charged the equivalent of $250 in a mechanic's shop for the privilege of working on his own car. He said the mechanic did nothing but take his money. "In the next city, Yekaterinburg, everybody's experience was positive," Erickson said. "They worked on the cars like crazy and would take no money." The art collection in St. Petersburg's Hermitage State Museum — the location of the former Winter Palace — was a wonder. But their experience was tainted by a rash of pickpocketing. "We had four pickpocketing experiences," Dole said. Moscow impressed neither of them, and both had the sense that they were not welcome. It was a huge relief, they said, to cross into the Baltic region of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The difference was like "night and day," Dole said. "All at once the people are out painting their houses and fences," Dole said. "Instead of weeds, there was grass." The houses in Russia appeared sad and neglected, as if they were melting into the ground from despair, the pair said. In Estonia, even the people seemed different. "The composition of their faces changed," Dole said. "They had rosy cheeks and they're mostly blond. They look like they're from Scandinavia." One of the most charming aspects of the trip was the summer solstice festival in Lithuania in which the unmarried women wore wreaths of leaves and tiny blossoms on their heads. At midnight, they would go down to the river and toss the wreaths in. "The dream was it would float down and be pulled out by the man of their dreams," Dole said. By the time the racers crossed into Poland, most all the stragglers had managed to catch up. Repairs were getting made and there was lots of good food and hot showers. "The closer you got to Paris, the more the mood elevated," Dole said. "Poland was beautiful — like rural Pennsylvania." The castles and shimmering rivers of Germany also were a treat for the weary racers. The pair opted out of the time trials because they didn't want to stress the car anymore, so they knew they would get the lowest-tier medal, a bronze. Everyone who finished got either a top-rated gold, second-rated silver or third-rated bronze. Dole and Erickson, who called themselves Team Yakity Yak, were simply happy to be finishing the race with the Buick in one piece. By the time the group reached Reims, France, the mood among the racers was ebullient. They drank champagne and swapped war stories. Tomorrow was a short drive to Paris. Asked if they would do it all again, Erickson responded: "If I could afford it financially, you bet." He shelled out $35,000 of his own money to enter the race and there was no cash prize. It was all about the adventure. "I would not do it again, simply because of Russia," Dole said. One thing the race changed for both of them is their perspective. They realize how lucky they are to live as they do, and where they do. "You need to experience the other to appreciate how nice we really do have it," Erickson said. "We're never going to complain about traffic ever again," he said.
