Australian pre war buicks - Buick Car Club of Australia Inc. (Qld.)

V O L U M E
B U I C K
P R E
C A R
W A R
3 ,
C L U B
O F
I S S U E
7
Australian pre war buicks
J U L Y
2 0 1 5
A U S T R A L I A
D I V I S I O N
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“Ooh, let's go ridin'
Cruisin' down the open road
We can put the top down
BUICK CAR CLUB OF
AUSTRALIA
PRE WAR DIVISION
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Listen to the radio
Big ol' Buick
And a big ol' sky
Wheels on fire
And I'll tell you why
I got a hot rod heart” ..
John Fogarty
PAGE
2
Editor’s Comment
Laurene and I have pondered
the other side of pre-war
Buicks for a number of years
and indeed we have the makings of a non-traditional car
scattered around our sheds at
this time.
A lot of discussion ensues
when restorers and hot-rod
enthusiasts get together and
discuss the best way to preserve our heritage.
Our Intrepid Editor
“There may be no
winner to this
argument . .”
Whilst restorers may argue
that if we aren’t bringing cars
back to their near original
state we are basically destroying our heritage. The
reality may well be that if hotrodders don’t use up our
surplus old cars then they
may well end up on a scape
heap and lost to everybody.
There may be no winner to
this argument and here in
Queensland the debate raises
its head from time to time,
although never with any malice intended I am sure.
The result is that a number of
very fine pre-war Buicks have
been saved from potential
destruction and put back on
the road in a form that their
original designers may never
have considered.
Although, I feel if you had
asked Harley Earl what he
thought about lowered, over
powered, modified Buicks he
probably would have pointed
you at the Y Job and smiled.
With this theory in my mind
we have set out to highlight a
couple of pre-War Buicks
that would make Harley
smile!
Three Buicks feature, and
with three different approaches, so I trust you enjoy
at least one of them and
hopefully all of them!
And to keep with the theme,
this edition we have gleaned
information about modified
Buicks from the pre-war era.
Naturally you won’t be surprised to learn that this practice has been going on since
cars were first invented.
commercial purposes. Many
more were modified to provide assistance with the war
effort and to meet other
unique challenges.
Some of the modified cars
have long since met their
demise whilst others live on
in museums. Perhaps in the
future we will see more hot
rods end up in museums as
works of art. Some perhaps,
others not so likely.
Next edition we return to
the more conventional prewar fare of Australian Pre
War BUICKS.
Thanks for taking the time to
read this Hot Rod Heart
edition of Australian Pre War
BUICKS.
We leave you with the champion of hot rod Buicks—the
Y Job!
Many
cars,
including
Buicks,
have
been
modified for
both
personal and
On the Subject of Hot Rods . . .
Just to
test if
you may
have an
interest
in fast
cars and
hot rods
I have
attached
a clip of
AUSTRALIAN
PRE
WAR
a 1932 Buick hot rod (albeit
equipped with a high horse
powered Chevrolet motor)
doing what comes naturally to
some.
This is one very fast Buick
body at least if not an entirely
Buick vehicle.
http://
www.dailymotion.com/
B UICKS
video/xam877_1932-buickhot-rod-1991-eagletalon_auto
Sometimes you just need to
have a look at what other
people are doing!
VOLUME
3,
ISSUE
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PAGE
Modified Buicks on a Grand Scale
Hugo Young and Charles Kettering went into the business of
building professional cars and
motorbuses in 1924. The company they started was called Flxible
and their first project was a
twelve seater bus based on a Studebaker chassis.
Over time they built on other
chassis including Cadillac and REO
but ultimately settled on Buick
chassis in the main and in the
second year of production they
constructed 31 buses on Buick
chassis.
It was in their second year that
Flxible also began to manufacture
ambulances and funeral cars. It is
this area that most of us would
have first seen the Flxible name
plate used.
Flxible stretched the 128 inch
wheelbase of the then current
Buick by 40 inches to make some
of their vehicles.
Flxible continued to improve output year by year until the depression and by 1934 Flxible produced
only 6 vehicles.
The photos here represent a smattering of Flxible output up to the Depression years.
In a future edition we will
take a closer look at the
Flxible Buicks.
“Very large
Buicks as
fabricated by
Flxible”
3
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4
Graeme Blair’s 1934 Victoria
When is a two door coupe a
Victoria, when you see Graeme Blair’s incarnation of a
classic Buick.
The term was first applied in
1869 to a carriage imported
into England by the Prince of
Wales and used to describe
an elegant French carriage
that was based on a phaeton
with the addition of a coachman’s seat.
I’m not sure about the coachman’s seat in this 1934 Victoria but I certainly agree with
the elegant carriage description!
For the full story on this remarkable machine I cross to
Graeme’s story below:
“My first Buick was a 34 8/50
sedan which I swapped for a
35 Chev tourer in like condition. A friend of mine had
started work on it but too
many projects had seen it
pushed out of the shed to
make room for other vehicles.
Being a GM fan I fell in love
with it and did the swap for
the Chev, dragged it home
and started working on it.
I started with the chassis and
discovered that it was very
rusty in the front rails and
that it also had received a
serious hit on the left side
front at some stage during its
life which had left it a little
bent, so I cut the rails off at
the firewall and had a new
pair fabricated and fitted.
They were effectively stepped
up about 3” and boxed back
to the centre cross member.
The original front cross member was then refitted.
Series 2 XJS Jaguar front and
rear suspension was fitted
along with a 96 LT1 350 Chev
and 4L60E gearbox.
The plate says
it all!
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B UICKS
It was a long term project as
these usually are and it wasn’t
until I acquired the Victoria
body in 2006 that things
started to move along at a
faster pace.
I had been getting some body
work done on the original
sedan when I borrowed a
Buick register from my brother and began to call 34 Buick
owners from all over Australia trying to source panels and
parts, when I stumbled upon
the Victoria languishing in a
shed in Victoria.
These had always been a
favourite body style of mine
and I never thought of there
being one here in Oz. Long
story short, I purchased the
whole car and had it transported to Queensland and
did a body swap putting the
Victoria body on my original
modified chassis.
VOLUME
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34 Victoria Coupe . .
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5
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6
34 Victoria Coupe . .
The 8/50 Victoria was one of
4405 produced in Flint Michigan in 1934 and of these,
mine is one of 89 made as an
export model (RHD) so it
possibly came to Australia
new in 34 as a special order. I
am trying to find some history of the vehicle but have
been unsuccessful to date.
Body mods are, 3.25” chop,
roof filled with the turret
from a Mercedes Benz Sedan,
fuel filler relocated to the
LHS of trunk, cowl vent filled,
crank hole filled, chin on grill
shell sectioned 2” and external trunk latches removed.
It’s a Buick!
The headlights, tail lights,
horns, bumpers and 6 wheel
equipment are original items
which I retained to give it that
classy look.
“We will
continue to
drive it and
enjoy it . .”
The final 18 months of its
build was completed by Rod
Brown on the Sunshine
Coast. Terry Court was the
painter and applicator of all
the wood graining finishings
inside the car.
The front seats
are from a
Hyundai Excel
and the rear
seat is the original. All were
expertly
trimmed by
Brian and Martin of B and B
Trimming and
Upholstery
here in Ipswich.
The car is fitted with power
windows and
A/C and it is a
pleasure to
drive. My wife
and I drove it
to Newcastle
for the Australian Street Rod Nationals at
Easter this year and we came
home with the Top Tudor
Award.
It was quite an unexpected
honour as it was the entrants’
choice award and the majority of the entrants were Ford
drivers.
We will continue to drive it
and enjoy it as much as we
can because we love our
Buick.
Graeme Blair”
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VOLUME
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Graeme Blair’s 1934 Victoria Coupe
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7
PAGE
8
The Green Hornet and Friend
Perhaps
the most
well
known
example of
an early modified Buick in
Australia today is the Moal
modified 1918 Buick special
owned by Jim and Virginia
Russell.
than these
original
modified
Buicks.
This is one of possibly four,
but certainly two cars created
in California by Frenchman,
William Moal. The full story is
available on the NSW Buick
Club website.
In summary, Moal was a
trained wheelwright who
settled in Oakland, Ca and
started a business which built
custom radiators and also did
some custom coach buildings
and race car fabrication.
“This car is
known widely as
“The Green
Hornet” . .”
The car pictured was built to
the order of John Battistini
using Buicks mechanicals.
This car is knows widely as
“The Green Hornet” and
most likely because of its
paint colour. It was rediscovered in a wrecking yard
in California around 1950 and
restored by Bud Lundell using
an original Moal craftsman.
Bud later gave the car to his
daughter and son-in-law as a
wedding present. The son-inlaw was Australian and thus it
ended up out here.
The second car, the white
one, was recently for sale in
the USA and has a bit more
glitz than Jim’s car but the
origins of both are clear.
There wouldn’t be too many
hot rods in Australia currently that are more modified
AUSTRALIAN
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Modified 1912 in Arizona
Before people made hot rods they
made specials.
While there are many examples of
this including, I suggest, the very
early racing Buicks, it is appropriate that we take a look at what
the public were doing.
In Australia you would recall the
Western Australian racing 1928
Buick that featured in the December 2014 edition of Australian Pre
War BUICKS. In that instance we
uncovered at least three other
1928 Buicks that had been modi-
fied to look like the original racer
from WA.
I came across an older version
recently and it is from Arizona.
As it transpires, a chap by the
name of Martin Gold constructed
the racer from a 1912 Buick making it one of the older privately
constructed specials still in existence.
This Buick was used in a race
from Douglas to Phoenix in November, 1916. At the time roads
were near non-existent and many
of the 15 starters failed to finish.
In the end the Buick was awarded
third place behind a Paige and a
Pierce Arrow.
The winning Paige was driven by E
L Cord. I am unsure if that was
the E L Cord who went on to
Duesenberg fame, but presumably
so.
The photo depicts the racer as
seen in 1940 in the backyard of his
family home at 807 N. Seventh
Street in Phoenix.
Could this be considered a very
early hot rod?
“This Buick
was used in a
race .. in
November
1916.”
Tune Up Time for $2.50
A necessary evil of car ownership
is maintenance and tuning.
We sometimes think that tune up
equipment is a new idea and associated with computers and the
like.
The sign espouses the virtues of a
good tune up and the benefits of
having your motor correctly adjusted.
Not so as this photo shows.
The bit that we find hard to comprehend today is probably the
cost.
The 1930 car is in new condition
and so is everything else in the
shop.
$2.50 for a six and little more for
that 8 cylinder you would have
carried under your Buick bonnet.
Those were the days . . .!
Modern Tune-Up Equipment in Action
9
PAGE
10
Adrian Dearling’s 1938 Coupe
Adrian Dearling is no
stranger to the Pre War
Buick scene and has been
previously featured in this EMagazine along with his
brother and his son also.
Adrian also has an interest in
specials and this is no more
evident than with his builtfrom-scratch 1938 Coupe
Special.
Five years in the making, this
car has been on the road
since 2010 to much acclaim
from within and from outside
of the Buick community.
Ready to Fly
“This hot rod is
just that, a Hot
Rod.”
This car looks factory but is
in fact a combination of ’38
Buick parts that were destined to be, no more.
Adrian had the front
clip from a sedan that
he restored some years
previous. He was able
to obtain a chassis from
close friend and Buick
enthusiast, Col Hinxman and Adrian purchased another body
shell from John Knight.
2005 that he embarked upon
the task of creating his own
special Buick.
Starting with a standard 1938
sedan chassis, Adrian had the
running gear from a Series
Two XJ Jaguar grafted into
the chassis to ensure a
smooth ride and classic handling characteristics. This
work was undertaken by
master chassis man, Wally
Deskins of C and W Components with operates out of
the Bayside area in Brisbane.
To keep the car in the Buick
mould, Adrian engineered in a
430 ci block with a turbohydromantic three speed
gearbox. This ensured that
getting going was never going
to be an issue. Since the original installation Adrian has
recently rebuilt the motor
with aftermarket alloy heads.
Adrian advised that, whilst he
is still running it in, he can
already tell it has an abundance of power.
This hot rod is just that, a hot
rod.
With the mechanicals sorted
Adrian gave himself the challenge of a life time to design
and construct a body out of
bits and pieces.
Other bits and pieces
came from a wreck at
Kedron Brook that was
nothing more than a
rusty shell. Without the
coming together on this
hot rod they may have
been destined to become
junk yard candidates but together they have been used
to create this road going
Buick that has attracted a
new breed of enthusiast to
the Buick brand.
Adrian’s Buick affair has been
going on since the Buick Car
Club Qld inception forty
years ago but it was only in
The Pipes are calling . .
AUSTRALIAN
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Adrian Dearling’s 38 Coupe
With no formal training in bodywork, he has been able to create
what many observers believe is a
factory coupe.
Not so! This car is the creation of
Adrian’s mind.
The rear end is where most of the
body magic happens. I’ll let Adrian
tell the story:
“The boot lid was made up of 2
sedan boot lids plus part of a turret
from a 38 body that I cut up (a very
rusty body). The rear guards are also
38 sedan, widened 2 inches to make
it look right.
The rear quarters were made up
from 38 Buick front guards, very
rusty ones I might add, which I also
cut up to create the right look.
I realised that the radius or curve of
the front guards was the same as the
back curve on my convertible coupe
so I just thought, why not use front
guards on the back? Any way it came
out better than I had ever hoped it
would.
Nice Cluster
I also lengthened the front doors by
cutting up 2 doors and welding them
together which made them the same
size as the factory coupe doors.
There was a lot of work in the body
as I also did a 2 inch top chop. This
necessitated the re-forming of all the
interior garnish moulds as well as
many other problems that I created
in the process.
Finally, the body is fully seam welded
so feels very solid on the road.”
The end result is this apparently
factory coupe that is full of subtle
nuances that perhaps only the
true Buick aficionado will ever
realise.
430 ci
Firewall mods to suit the Jaguar brake set up
Subtle rolled lip harks back to the ’36 model
“Junior Buick
Enthusiast and
other Admirers
with the 38
Special”
11
PAGE
12
Musselman Airwheel
eliminating the need for
shock absorbers.
Perhaps one of the most
famous and most obvious on
the road modified Buicks
would have to be this 1929
extended chassis bus built by
Flxible and used by the Goodyear Tire Company to advertise its, then newly developed,
Airwheel.
“The Airwheel
was a low
pressure balloon
tyre for
aircraft.”
Inflated to just 3 lb of pressure they paraded an Airwheel around the USA towed
behind modified Buick-based
Flexible coaches. The Airwheel stood twelve feet high
(3.6 m) and four feet wide
(1.2 m).
Initially one vehicle was used
and it towed the Airwheel
around half of the USA from
1929 and with the addition of
a second Buick and wheel
they continued to tour the
continental USA through the
early thirties.
The Airwheel was
developed by Alvin J.
Musselman and was
referred to as the
Musselman Airwheel.
The Airwheel was a
low pressure balloon
tyre used for aircraft.
It used a small rim
and a large section
tyre that was capable
of carrying the heavy
load of a plane with
the advantage of
The Two
Display
Buicks
AUSTRALIAN
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B UICKS
In 1930 Goodyear announced
that the Airwheel would be
available for use on Fords and
Chevrolets and this smaller
variation can be seen attached to the larger wheel in
the photos.
In the depression years, the
cost to discard the original
vehicle wheel and tyre combinations proved too great and
the concept never caught on.
These days they are talking
about tyres that have no air
in them at all so I expect that
2-3 pounds of pressure in
1929 was ahead of its time!
VOLUME
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PAGE
Pre War Garages 2
The Koo-Wee-Rup Garage was
another one of the many garages
that sprang up after World War I
albeit this one looks a little more
substantial than some of the other
light weight one seen at the time.
Sadly the top photo shows that its heyday has past and that the building
is showing its age. Whilst still a garage, of sorts, it no longer bears the
hallmark of a thriving central meeting point that a garage would have
filled in the pre-war era.
Originally Mills and Davey’s garage
in Station Street, the building was
constructed in 1923.
Koo-Wee-Rup is about 60 km
(direct path) south-east of Melbourne. This was far enough away
for the town to flourish in the
farming environment and the garage became the agent for a range
of automotive equipment including
Barnet Glass tyres, Golden Fleece
oils and Dodge motor cars.
It appears that one of the other
services offered included arranging
motor trips. The sign in the front
window mentions picnic parties. It
is not uncommon to find photos
of groups who have ventured into
the Australian bush in motor cars
to enjoy the great outdoors and
this may well be how they got
there, chauffeured in this instance.
The future of this endeavour is no
doubt the self-drive hire car businesses that exist today.
Very Early Hot Rod?
From Oklahoma in the USA, we
see pictured, perhaps, the original
hot rod Buick.
Stripped down and ready to go,
this is not unlike the machine used
by Walter Marr to demonstrate
the utility of the Buick car in company with David Buick’s son way
back at the start of the twentieth
century.
“It appears
that one of
the other
services
offered
included
arranging
motor trips.”
13
PAGE
14
Rob Lee’s 1937 Sedan
Rob Lee had wanted a hot
rod for some time but didn’t
want to fall into the same old
same old, he wanted something a little different.
When he saw the 1937 Buick
sedan back in 2004 he was
pretty sure that he had found
his dream car. He liked the
look of the Buick and more
than that, he liked it and it
wasn’t a Chev and it wasn’t a
Ford.
Still an Eight, but a
little bit bent!
“.. he was pretty
sure he had found
his dream car.”
Perhaps just as importantly,
the car was local to him, just
down the road in Springfield
and it was the right price.
Rob has now owned the
Buick for 11 years and although you can see the great
changes that he has wrought
on the original car, what you
can’t see is the work involved
in building the car, not once,
but twice.
The first iteration of this car
saw it chopped as you see it
but running all original mechanicals, right down to widened original artillery pattern
Buick rims.
Subtle nuances like the extended running boards to
eliminate the large gaps between boards and guards are
gone and in their place a
smooth continuous flow of
shape is created.
This created a somewhat
unique hot rod, however
over time Rob has decided to
update the mechanicals and
the 37 now sports a Jaguar
front end and Commodore
rear axle combined with a
naturally aspirated small block
Chev and auto transmission.
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1937 Sedan
If you need mechanical parts for
your 37, Rob advises that he is
selling off the original motor,
transmission and rear axle, all of
which were in perfect working
order prior to removal. You can
contact Rob on 0402 028 082 if
you are interested.
It is interesting that the end product of Rob’s chopping the top is
that it is now remarkably like the
artist’s impressions of this same
car from the brochures of the day.
Clearly, Buick thought that this is
what the car should have looked
like but in the interest of practicality the roof had to be higher.
The interior upholstery design
remains in many ways true to the
original and this makes for a stylish and practical hot rod.
Rob admits that this is his first
Buick and probably his last, he
likes the car so much he is unlikely to part with it!
“.. after the
chop and
before the
upholstery.”
“he likes the
car so much
he is unlikely
to part with
it.”
15
PAGE
16
Rob Lee’s 1937 Sedan
Gap removal . .
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PAGE
17
Rob Lee’s 1937 Sedan
“It is
remarkably
like the artist’s
impression of
this same car
from the
brochures of
the day.”
PAGE
Hot Rodding in the USA
18
During the Portland Buick
National Meet in 2014 a
number of modified Buicks
were in attendance.
The late Brian Hall captured just a couple of
those that were in attendance during the display
and judging day and they
are presented here for
your enjoyment.
Hot Rodding in the USA
1928 Street Rod owned by Keith Bingham from Covington WA
It’s a trend that
started in the
earliest days of
motoring and
continues to
1931 Modified Racer owned by the Pat Brothers from Bridal Veil OR
this day.
Hot
R
AUSTRALIAN
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od 1
936,
no
WAR
o wn
er d
etai
ls
B UICKS
prov
ided
VOLUME
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PAGE
Marine Modification (not Pre War but
worth a look)
being returned to Cuba.
If I can dive out of pre-war modified Buicks for just a second to
demonstrate ingenuity in the extreme, let’s look at what the Cubans were up to in 2004.
Reported widely, eleven Cubans
set sail in a 1959 Buick sedan suitably modified for the
trip with the addition
of a prow and the
welding, to watertight standards, the
bottom sections of
the body and off they
went.
The shortest distance
between Cuba and
the USA is about 90
miles so when the
were intercepted by
the US Coastguard
only 30 miles off
shore they had done
pretty well.
Sadly, this was as far
as they got and the
eleven were interred
with some of the
group, but not all,
From SA 1934
This photo from South Australia
depicts a 1934 ambulance conversion and includes ambulance driver Mr C. W. Pratt. The car is new
and would no doubt make a great
rod these days, if it survived!
What happened to the Buick, the
Coastguard sank it, possibly as a
demonstration of what will happen
to others if they try the same
stunt.
A number of other cars have been
used in similar attempts but of
course with the new US-Cuban
agreement this may no longer be
necessary and it may be possible
to jump a flight to the States.
Does it qualify as a hot rod, maybe
not but certainly as a modified
Buick it makes it!
19
PAGE
20
Streamliner Buick
Possibly the most famous of
the hot rod Buicks is not a
Buick at all.
Norman Timbs created a
home built sport custom vehicle that was powered by a
post war 1948 Buick motor
complete with dual carburettors and rear mounted in a
custom tubular chassis.
The debut magazine
cover from 1949
This vehicle was constructed
over three years after WW2
and debuted on the cover of
the second edition of Motor
Trend magazine in October
1949. It must have been a
sensation in its day!
Timbs was an automotive
engineer and worked with
Preston Tucker on the revolutionary Tucker automobile.
This would prove an exceptional training ground for his
radical special design and
construction.
“the engine and
gear box really
was the end of
the Buick
connection.”
His work also included the
creation of wooden scale
models prior to the construction of a timber frame upon
which he hand fabricated the
all aluminium body.
Overall the car is 17 ½ feet
long sitting on a 117 inch
wheelbase and weighing in at
around 2500 pounds. On this
basis the straight eight Buick
engine would have had little
trouble shifting this car along
at a rapid pace.
But the engine and gear box
really was the end of the
Buick connection. The mechanicals including the brakes
and suspension were, in the
main, Ford Mercury. The
chassis and framing were hand
constructed from aircraft
grade tubing and as stated the
body was hand crafted to his
own design.
The rear section of the car
raised on hydraulic struts to
give access to the engine and
rear end. The front housed a
AUSTRALIAN
PRE
WAR
luggage compartment.
The car was a two-seateronly affair and was reported
to have cost $10,000 to construct in 1949.
$17,600. Purchased by a collector the car finally emerged
from its cocoon to be the star
of the Amelia Island concours
d ’elegance in Florid in 2012.
By 2000 it was basically abandoned until it resurfaced in a
Nicolas Cage movie and then
auctioned by Barret Jackson
with a final selling price of
Presented here as a hot rod
Buick of some distinction!
B UICKS
VOLUME
3,
ISSUE
7
PAGE
Streamliner Buick
“Then and
now”
What Next in the E-Magazine
Next edition we return to the
more normalized world of prewar Buicks with a look at some
remarkable factory photos from
the twenties.
probably isn’t too far off what we
expect these days.
major GM factory of the
time.
We reveal if he was anywhere
near the mark.
Finally, we look at the
man who was
“responsible for more
damage to Earth’s atmosphere than any other single organism that
has ever lived”.
Peter Stone passed these on recently and they were taken by
Dan Bowers in Flint.
An interesting read about the
origins of the car radio which may
or may not be the correct story,
but makes for a good read.
What is the expected life of a new
car? In 1936 one intrepid reporter
put a time frame around it and it
We provide a link to the past with
a video clip from 1938 that takes
us along the production line of a
You be the judge.
21
This e-magazine is produced under the auspices of the Buick Car Club of Australia Qld
Inc. to cater for the needs of car enthusiasts
with an interest in Pre War Buicks.
The Buick Car Club of Australia Qld Inc.
It is a medium created for the exchange of
stories and ideas. Its aim is to support enthusiasts in the preservation and use of the
Buick Automobiles built between 1903 and
the end of 1941.
E-mail: buickcarclubaustralia.com
The editors welcome contributions at
[email protected]
The editors reserve the right to include sub-
When Better Automobiles Are Built
Buick Will Build Them
mitted articles or not at their discretion.
The Last Word is Factory Hot Rod
Whilst the purist may object, Buick
could be the rodders saviour when
it comes to affordable street rods
with credibility thrown in for free.
Many rodders are surprised by the
street rod potential which it seems
all early Buicks have. While the 3738 Buicks are already well established in the area the potential runs
much deeper.
It is almost forgotten that Buicks
had a reputation for being some of
the fastest cars on the road in the
pre-war days, certainly in their price
bracket.
Buick invented the muscle car when
the stuffed their biggest available
engine into their smaller available
body and came up with the Century. When Pontiac did the same thing
some 30 years later they were cred-
ited with inventing the
muscle car – the Pontiac GTO. But we
know better in the
Buick world!
The term factory hot
rod arrived with the
first Buick Century in
1936.