I've owned this car for 13 years, since I was 17 years old. I ended up with this car as a high schooler after my first car (pictured), that I got as a hand me down from my grandfather got totaled while it was parked on the street by a guy who fell asleep in his f-150. A friend of my father had told him about a 66 buick that was in decent shape and ran, and we made the half hour drive and ended up buying it for $4,200. The paint was faded and the seats in rough shape but overall it was pretty solid. It drove fine the way home and despite sitting for years in the garage we took it from (which also housed a 66 convertible that this car was going to be gutted for), and it did not need anything major to make it road worthy. These are some of the earlier photos I found of it from 2003/2004. Being in high school and only working part time (and needing a winter vehicle), progress in the beginning was slow going. After saving through my first winter as much as I could while the car was in storage, I did some upgrades in the form of upgrading to a edelbrock 4 barrel (after searching months to find an original 340 4 barrel intake manifold). Also upgraded to a bigger cam, new air filter, long tube headers for a 340 skylark that took a lot of convincing to clear everything, qtp electric exhaust cutouts, and flowmaster dual exhaust. Also at this time we put in a front end suspension kit from kanter auto to replace some aged and dry rotted things up front. After this the car stayed this way for quite a while when I went off to college, only being driven in the summer and sometimes not at all when money was tighter. No matter how long it sat in the garage it was always ready to come out, always firing up in the exact same pattern regardless of how long it had been since its last start. Occasionally some repairs had to be done, some very tough such as finding a center link for it (which took me a year or two). Also had to replace the radiator and brakes but never needed anything major or anything very often.
It wasnt until 2011 when the car finally got its next upgrade, it was a summer that I had been forced to daily drive it for the second consecutive summer when I lived in downtown Syracuse as a result of being between having a daily driver after I had destroyed a nice wrangler I had. It needed new tires, and the cragars that were on it were getting rough. I got a good deal on some rims I really liked the looks of in a 18x8.
The following Spring in 2012 I moved back to my home town and got a decent job. By this point the seats had become very rough in the front and obviously on the drivers side. Thanks to the help of this forum I found the original material and color for the car from sms auto and found a local guy with a good reputation to take on the project. In addition to recovering front and back seats he basically rebuilt my drivers side springs and made the seat very firm and supportive. This was a big one for me, as since day 1 the things that bothered me most about the car was the interior and the rusting peeling front bumper.
Following a couple years of decent progess followed a few years of no progess and eventually very limited use which led to some deterioration. Although through these years it still offered plenty of good photo opps. Getting caught by the google street car In the spring of 2013 we made a trip with it to Hoboken NJ for our high school friends ufc fight (Jon Jones). Its hard to make out but in this photo you can see the new world trade center in the distance while it was still under construction. My "Co-pilots" fell asleep about 5 minutes into the ride home the next day.
And that brings us to this year, when it was finally time to pull the trigger on years of planning and saving for a big overhaul for its 50th birthday. The timing seemed right and after years of nothing happening other than saving I finally had enough money and friends and family to help bring her back to glory. The inspiration started after using a product called plasti dip on my daily driver (2011 ram) to replace all the fake chrome with orange. I was impressed with the look and durability and decided to do the whole car in it to provide a better look for hopefully the next 5 years til the real bodywork and paint could be done. After seeing this audi done with a combination of the plasti dip along with a top coat mixed with gold pearl we decided this was what we wanted to do. Knowing that the car would have a seriously different look I knew some other things had to be cleaned up as well. I found a chromer in Cleveland and dropped the front bumper off in January on a trip to Indiana we took. The weatherstripping in the windows and trunk were very dry rotted and terrible looking so I got a kit for the whole car. And then at this point winter became a time to research everything I had wanted to do to this car for a long time and things that just needed to be done. The list is as follows: Plasti dip air filter front end rebuild kit (same kit from 2004 to replace dry rotted components) oil from classic car motor oil a 100 amp alternator optima redtop battery carb rebuild kit and switched to a 600 cfm edelbrock weatherstrip kit dash pad (actively looking for replacement top of dash) 2 kicker 12" subs/enclosure/amp 4 6x9 kicker speakers USA-230 am/fm radio w/ buick faceplate and aux input Amber halo hid kit Random gaskets 2 Cherry bomb extreme mufflers QTP exhaust cutout repair kit (one of the cutout motors had died several years earlier) red lug nuts Vinyl material from sms auto for rear deck lid New wipers New gauges from glowshift This project did not start smoothly, we had such a mild winter here (maybe 10" total snow all winter). Yet the weekend I needed to start the project called for snow Saturday and Sunday night. The first phase was to get it to my cousins shop to get the carb switched and get it running reliably again as the years of limited or no driving had resulted in it running pretty rough and misfiring a bit. It was crucial to get the car to his shop this weekend because the following week he was going on vacation which meant this project would not get started til the third week of April if he didn't have it for Monday morning. Also adding to the stress at this time was trying to get classic car insurance for it, being denied by hagerty (after approving a quote and taking payment) because the car did not have lo jack and I refused to install it. After putting normal insurance on it just to get it on the road, we had the window on Saturday morning to go to the dmv to get the plates and registration. This dmv is the only one open in our county on Saturday mornings, and it was packed when we got there. I had just finished filling out the registration form when a worker had announced their computers had gone down and no transactions could be done. This was extremely deflating since it was going to snow that night and the next day, meaning our roads would be salty for at least that week so I needed to get the car to his shop that morning or not for weeks. Also the bumper was still at the chromer (which I picked up the next day), so I was forced to drive the car with insurance, but no plates or registration or bumper, to avoid the delay or driving the car on dirty roads for the first time in my ownership. We got the car there: And by Monday, sure enough it had seen its first snow since Ive owned it, but at least no salt: Next we got the bumper back on and got it aligned after the front end kit was in, and then off to exhaust to get the cutouts working again and new mufflers and pipes installed.
Next up was starting the audio project. For nearly 13 years I basically could not have music while the car was running due to the original speakers having no life in them. This was one of the two speakers we took out, obviously in bad shape. The rear deck lid was also looking bad at this point. Removal of the rear deck lid started with an illustration to the bodys in the trunk jokes often told about the car: Took out the original spare to make room for the sub woofers and enclosure. Rear seats came out for the removal: And then the reconstruction began with new materials, and was finished off with the same vinyl material as the seats which was also ordered from sms auto fabrics. A friend of mine who did the rear deck rebuild did a great job and was a great improvement to the look of the back area of the interior. After the new deck and subs were installed, I finally had music no matter how loud the car could get, making up for over a decade of lost time.
Next on the list was to upgrade the headlights to Hids. You may be able to tell from my truck that I enjoy being able to see things excessively: so the old stock headlights had to go. The Amber Halo's were wired as running lights as well as all four being turn signals
Next up was doing some minor body work to prep for the dip. The front fenders were basically shot at this point and when and if I can find ones in better shape I will be buying them for the future when the car really gets painted. Since this was the case, we used bondo to make them look nice and did some wet sanding.
At this point it was 2 days away from our planned date to dip the car (5/14). This was a very busy day as it was, but the gauges needed to go in and it needed to be washed so it could dry out for a day or two prior to dipping. Another friend chipped in to install the gauges that evening. The new gauges replaced the old mechanical water temp/voltage/oil pressure ones that were put in almost 13 years earlier. The new glow shift gauges I went with show the water temperature and oil pressure in a digital readout, and the rpm gauge features a color changing ability in a traditional readout. We lost sunlight at this point and had to do the wash in the "moonlight" before putting it in the garage to dry out.
And then it happened, at long last it was dip day. The day I waited for since day 1. Another friend who has a car dealership with a paint booth was nice enough to let us spray the car there, and my friend who did the bodywork also did all the taping off and spraying and did a great job. The car went from green to gunmetal gray to red, and then finally had the top coats mixed with the komodo pearl to finish it off. At this point several friends came out to help and witness the transformation: And then it was time for the magic...
Maybe my favorite picture from the whole process.. All that's left to do at this point is the wheels which will hopefully be done tomorrow. We are using the same gloss coat with pearl but applying it over a black base coat rather than red.
Gidday from Australia. AWESOME story and pix, that last one almost brought a tear to the eye here at work because I have a lovely black lab puppy and a killer '60s Buick just like you! Your car looks even more bad-ass now and is cooler than every other vehicle in all those pictures. And clearly, your mates know this too. Thanks for a great read. :beer
Thanks! I like the looks of your car as well and would have to agree black labs are great. I appreciate the compliments, I love the way it came out and am thankful so many people were able to help out with the project.
Just an update, sprayed the wheels last week. Originally did black with the pearl top coat but it didnt really look right so we went back to black.
I like that you have the balls to do whatever you want. ha. I'd talk myself out of it and go the conservative route.
