pre war division volume 2, edition 1 february 2014 3 x ‘36...

it’s performance whilst his 1936 sloper is in the process of resto-ration.

Laurene’s 1936 was acquired in 1987 from a noted Nash/Rambler/Studebaker collector in Ipswich. Apparently it was out-side of his normal field of inter-est but was too good not to purchase and then move it on to an enthusiast to restore.

Laurene was able to do so over the following ten years and the photos give the final report.

This Edition of Australian Pre War Buicks features three Buicks from 1936.

John King in Maleny, Doug Haw-kins in Tambourine Village and Laurene Forster from Ipswich have each made their cars avail-able for this edition for which I thank them.

Each has a different story to tell and in each case an interesting car to review.

Doug’s hearse will be of particu-lar interest to those who might

be planning a novel send off at some future time although he assures me that only his par-

ents have taken the ride in the rear since he acquired the vehi-cle many years ago from the Wellington area in NSW.

John’s car also has an interesting story attached. He has two 1936 Buicks!

His sedan was a regular in the Rockhampton district for many years and he continues to tweak

3 x ‘36 Equals Some Fine Iron

I N S I D E

T H I S I S S U E :

Editorial 2

1936– A

Quick Look 4

Laurene’s

Cybil 6

Down From

Maleny 8

Wellington

Connection 10

Cadillac 33-

370 14

A Century and a Half

12

B U I C K C A R C L U B O F

A U S T R A L I A

P R E W A R D I V I S I O N

Austrlian Pre War BUICKS F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 4 V O L U M E 2 , E D I T I O N 1

Laurene getting the low down from John King at the cave.

P A G E 2

“Fast forward to

2013 when I

decided we

needed to get Cyb

out more.”

By the Numbers

Editor’s Comment Of those members who know me you will be aware that I can talk to be heard but prob-ably not aware that I don't write much, but here goes.

You have heard the story about how we got Cybil in 1987 but not how she became mine. We were married De-cember 1976 and we were at our favourite Restaurant De-cember 1996 celebrating our 20th anniversary when John said "I didn't get you anything this year so you can have this. It was the key to Cybil and he said his present to me was his half of her". Our family was quite taken with his present and the kids have always said she is mine.

When Cybil was new to our family Tamara and Michael were quite young and we would often go for drives on Sundays. The kids thought it was good they didn't have to put seatbelts on and the looks and waves we would get from people.

As most are aware the pro-cess of restoration can be long and once we decided to restore her it seemed like forever to get her back on the road. I can remember one time when I told John - he was not to open the garage door unless it was to work on Cyb (as we affectionately call her), sometimes we women have to put our foot down.

When we only had the one car she was used regularly, but as we started collecting more cars she started spend-ing more and more lonely time parked in the shed. One of Cyb's highlights was in 2007 when she was Tamara's wed-ding car, but there was more than one debate because I wanted to drive OUR daugh-ter in MY car to HER wed-ding. Eventually it was decided the 'mother of the bride' could not drive her and that our friend would drive John and Tamara to the ceremony in Cybil. I didn't miss out as I got to drive the newest addi-tion our rebuilt 1974 HQ Sandman Van. I think the guests were shocked but im-pressed that at least I partially got my way.

Fast-forward to 2013 when I said we needed to get Cyb out more. John has told you about the wonderful weekend away we had with other Pre-War owners. Now about the fateful 17th November rally. On 12th November my mum came home from dialysis with an invite to go on a bus trip to Abbey of the Roses in Warwick. I told her she had to go because it is beautiful place. Not wanting to go by herself she originally said no but would go if I went too. Because I am her carer I was allowed to go (we did have a lovely day). While enjoying

morning tea I received a text from Vicki (visiting family in Sydney) saying- are you both OK, what a scary ride!!! - thinking I was with John.

After a quick talk and finding out what happened I phoned John who asked "How did you find out?" It goes to show I will always find out very quickly what John is up too. Luckily for John and Sandra they were not hurt, can't say the same for Cybil. Anyway she is at the car surgeon who says they can fix her so that is why we planning a quick trip to Inverell wreckers to get a couple of parts and hopefully have her back on the road in a couple of months.

Hope I haven't bored you too much with my story about our wonderful Cybil. I want to thank John for getting the idea of starting a pre-war Australi-an division, as it has opened most of us up to others who have this era of cars. I would like to thank all the people who have sent or sending stories for future editions of this mag and thanks for the great comments we have received. I hope in the future we will be able to meet up with those of you we don't know except for names on a page.

Yours in motoring, Pre War style . . Laurene

eral’s scheme of things when planning forward models.

Even more remarkable when you consider that it was only twelve years and a world war later that the General provid-ed the necessary impetus for the local body builder Holden to manufacture a complete car here that was exclusive to this country—albeit a hand

Of the more than 168,000 Buicks sold in 1936 only 1,669 ended up in Australia.

That is about 1% of total annual produc-tion.

Little wonder that we didn’t figure too highly in the Gen-

me down Chevrolet design from before the war!

Today the tables are reversed somewhat.

Of a total worldwide produc-tion of 82,601 Buicks in July only 16,393 were made in the USA.

Most now come out of China!

A U S T R L I A N P R E W A R B U I C K S

1936 was a

pivotal year

at Buick

Madam Editor

Takes the Controls

for this 1936 focused

Edition

Just Give Me The Facts—With Pictures Please! P A G E 3 V O L U M E 2 , E D I T I O N 1

Any industry that creates turno-ver on the scale of the auto indus-try is going to spend a percentage of their income on advertising. Before the advent of television and other forms of mass media,

car compa-nies relied upon bro-chures to advertise their mod-els. Today dealers

rely more upon the web to provide information but to

many the car brochure is to be cherished and collected by enthu-siasts. Brochures don’t take up that much room so if you haven’t got an unlimited amount of garage

space and cash then car brochures will let you have as many cars as you want and at your fingertips. In addition they create a link with history. There are many collectors in the market and a quick look at EBay for example will confirm that there is a steady market for this piece of automobile history. Additionally, brochures and other period material may be seen to complete the restoration process. The display of period material with your restoration is always a point of interest for the public and enthusiast alike.

The brochure cars below and on the following pages are from the USA edition. See how fast these can be made to go later in this edition.

To balance the magazine this month we also have included some Cadillac (still GM) news.

Thank you to all of our contribu-tors for this edition.

This edition we have a feast of local 1936 Buicks and detail for you to savour.

The 1936 cars are now becoming scarce with few turning up on recent runs.

Holden’s produced both 8/40 Specials and 8/60 Century models in Australia based on imported chassis complete with front clips.

The current Buick Car Club register notes a total of 19 local production cars still known out of a total produc-tion of 1669 and a few fully imported as completed cars to give a total of 25 in the register currently

I am unaware of any recent imports from the USA but if there are any out there we would welcome some detail and photos to include in a future edition of the Australi-an Pre War BUICKS.

Brochure

collecting

has always

been popular

The Inside Story This Edition

“Today

dealers rely

more upon

the web . .”

P A G E 4

“The Century

sported a

streamlined

design and was

the first Buick to

reach 100 mph.”

One of the more

unusual bonnet mas-

cots in 1936!

Buick for 1936—A ‘Quick’ Look After 33 years in the business Buick was about to set a new benchmark in performance that has been a recurring theme from that time for-ward.

Most recently a Buick Regal GS topped out at 162 mph at the Nevada Open Road Chal-lenge in 2012 but it all started in 1936!

After just over three decades of engineering progress, the first production Buick topped 100 mph. It was the appropri-ately named 1936 Buick Cen-tury.

The 1936 Buick Century showed President Harlow Curtice’s revolutionary vision for the brand. The Century sported a streamlined design and was the first Buick to reach 100 mph.

It is believed that the name Century came back from England with a Buick execu-tive who noted that the Eng-lish referred to do “the cen-tury” when they were able to reach 100 mph and the name was found to be agreeable to Buick management who adopted it for their new mod-el 60.

The Century may have been the start of the “biggest mo-tor into the smallest body” syndrome that seemed most prevalent in the muscle car era of the sixties.

Sales trebled in 1936 to 168,596, up from 53,249 in production year 1935. Lifting Buick from eighth to seventh in the ranking for most autos produced that year.

1936 also saw the introduc-tion of other name plates that lived on for many years. The switch from numbered mod-els to Roadmaster, Century and Special was pivotal in

Buicks plan for modernisation of one of the industries oldest marques (although numbers were still referred to in their literature).

Strangely enough and despite the Century being the hottest ride in town in 1936 it was not the choice as pace car for one now very famous racing event.

The first Daytona Beach Race held in 1936 had a then cur-rent model Buick Special convertible coupe as the pace car.

This may be an indication of the speed of the entire 1936 Buick range.

Just for the record and com-parison purposes the land speed record in 1936 was set by George Eyston, an engi-neer and retired British Army captain He set the record at 311.42 mph. This is 3.1 times the Buick top speed.

A modern fast production car will top out at around 140 mph and the current world land speed record is 763 mph. This is 5.4 times the road car speed and clearly demonstrates how fast the Buick was in its day.

If you are interested in Buick performance achievements in the Pre War years I recom-mend the September-October 2002 copy of Auto-mobile Quarterly. Vol. 66 No 5.

Terry B Dunham a noted and respected authority on Buicks does an excellent write up covering these early years of

Buick racing and perfor-mance .

Pretty girls seem to have been a part of racing forever!

In Australia Buicks were avail-able both as fully imported autos and as chassis to re-ceive Holden bodies.

Norm Darwin’s excellent Australian based book, the History of Holden Since 1917, notes that of the 1669 Buicks Holden produced for the 1936 model year 344 were Century type 8/60 Mod-els. This was the highest pro-duction year since 1927 when 2621 cars were built.

The table below for world-wide production reveals the entire story of Buicks success.


Produc on Figures for 1936

Ford 930,778

Chevrolet 918,278

Plymouth 520,025

Dodge 263,647

Oldsmobile 200,546

Pon ac 176,270

Buick 168,596

Hudson/Terraplane

123,266

P A G E 5 V O L U M E 2 , E D I T I O N 1

“From the

Deluxe

Colour

Brochure for

Buick 1936”

P A G E 6

“I expected he

was softening

me up for the

shock ahead.”

The Restorer's

Guide — 1936 Style

Laurene’s Cybil—36 8/40 It may have seemed like a

silly idea at the me but

a er years of wan ng to

have modern up to date

cars we realised that what

we really wanted was an

older car.

It was much the same with

houses. John wanted a

new house and I wanted

an old house.

Eventually I won and we

live in a house built in

1926. Touches of Australi‐

anised Art Deco abound.

We love it and we love

Cybil, our 1936 8/40 Buick.

John found her through a

friend and mechanic who

connected us to the owner

in 1987.

He was an avid collector of

cars from the Nash‐

Hudson‐Rambler line.

Luckily for us Cybil fell out‐

side of his field in interest.

He told us he bought her

because she was too good

to leave behind to deterio‐

rate and eventually die.

We thank him for that.

John described Cybil to me

as shabby but structurally

sound when we went to

look at her. I expected he

was so ening me up for

the shock ahead.

I thought she was great. I

could see through the

paintwork and the state of

the car to her inner beau‐

ty.

John enthused about the

straight eight, I just liked

her look. We agreed to

buy her on the spot and

arranged to pick her up

that Friday evening and

get her home.

It was near on sunset

when we could get to the

sellers place of work in

Ipswich and by the me

we did the deal and

cha ed for a while it was

dark.

In we piled for the short

drive home and John put

the lights on and then just

as quickly asked me to hop

out and see if they were

on. They were!

So we soon found out that

6 volts and good lights are

not necessarily things that

should be used in the one

sentence.

A U S T R L I A N P R E W A R B U I C K S Yes Sir, That’s My Babies—Both of Them!


Cybil is s ll 6 volts and we’ve

learned how to deal with it

even though I have to say the

lights are be er than on that

first night.

I could go into the technical

side of things now and regale

you (as John would say) with

the near ten year process of

restora on but to be honest,

and in retrospect, it now

seems that it went by quickly

and without too much fuss and

we now have been cruising

around in our Cybil for over

fi een years.

I think that Cybil looks as nice

as the first day a er the resto‐

ra on and we both enjoyed

our recent Pre‐War weekend

away as it gave us the impetus

to get her out of the shed and

onto the road.

I don’t nag but it did take

some work to get John to get

on board and get her out but

now that he has I think the

nagging is over.

I hope you all enjoy your Pre‐

War car as much as we enjoy

driving around in Cybil.

“I don’t nag

but it did take

some work to

get John to get

on board and

get her out . .”

After the dirt comes the reward!

Cybil on Tour with her Mistress

8/40 Dash

Factory Radio

Optional “Air”

P A G E 8

“Driving to local

rallies keeps

sorting out

problems and

follies.”

John King in the pad-

dock . . .

Down from Melany It was fantas c to catch up with John and Mary King one warm day in October last year.

John and Mary run an inter‐es ng business crea ng liq‐uors and other items from na ve bush foods and from an idyllic se ng in the hinter‐land of the Sunshine Coast.

John met Laurene and I on one side of his personal creek and with his trusty and robust 1936 8/40 sedan we forded the creek and on to his house in paradise.

John assured us that the '36 handled the rough stuff be er than his four wheel drive. I believe him in this regard.

We were treated to bush raspberry muffins and morn‐ing tea. I could fill a magazine with his tales regarding his business, his exploits and his travels but it is the Buicks that we have come for so having consumed more than our fair share we set off in the '36 to his shed located else‐where on the property.

John has supplied a great story to go with the pictures but before we get to that I have to say that his shed is a wonderland, a virtual Alad‐din's cave if you will of pre‐war stories, parts and memo‐ries.

John has more than Buicks with the local 1920's Hudson hearse now residing in his cave as well as a 1920's Inter‐na onal one tone truck. Both original local vehicles! Both good for a story on their own at some me.

John and Mary seem to be single handedly preserving the automo ve history of the local area.

At least two local clubs have had the pleasure of a tour and a taste of the fruits of his

labours and so we can see what generous enthusiasts John and Mary are.

So here is what John had to say about his 1936 8/40 Aus‐tralian bodied sedan.

"I was reading a Restored Cars mag when I noticed an add for a 1936 Buick sedan. It seemed a reasonable price so I drove up to Rockhamp-ton from Maleny to have a look.

The gentleman that owned it was 93 and had decided that he should not drive it any-more. He originally did the car up many years ago. As he owned an outback Taxi Com-pany he painted it Black to use for wedding car hire.

1936 Buicks only came in Black by special order and the body trim tag would say BLACK instead of having a letter code, the body trim tag is missing from this car.

The 1936 coupe I am working on still has its BLACK trim tag intact. The sedan is BODY NUMBER 1194 for 1936.

A mate and I drove my Ute and trailer up to Rockhamp-ton and back to bring the car home. We got up there, started the car up and drove it on to the trailer.

The fun then started once I got it home. Working out what I needed to do to get it roadworthy. It had been off of the road for 3 years by then in 2010.

First were tires and wheels. I had the wheels sandblasted and powder coated and fitted a new set of whitewall radials.

The brakes were pulling to one side so I removed the front wheels to check the brakes. The shoes were all right but when I removed a wheel cylinder boot it was full of red clay and brake fluid mix.

Not a good sight so off with its wheel cylinders and mas-ter cylinder and down to Caboolture Brakes for re-sleeving of wheel and master cylinders, and new brake hoses.

What a difference that made to the braking.

There was too much play in the steering for the local mechanic to pass it for road-worthy so it was off with the steering column and a clean and adjust.

The next thing was the idler arm bearing. When I finally had it out of the car (you have to jack up the motor to get it out) it had been cob-bled up out of various bearing parts, so off to the bearing store for two new bearings still in their original boxes. Saving one for my Coupe, the other went in to the sedan.

The jacking up of the motor to replace the bearing caused the sump gasket to leak, so off to Strathpine for a sheet of cork to cut as many motor gaskets as I could get out of the one small sheet, creative cutting done.

Off back to the Garage to get a new muffler fitted and the roadworthy signed, and down to get it registered with club pa-pers in hand on the 27-7-2012.

Driving to local rallies keeps sorting out prob-lems and follies.

The radiator had a small leak so I added some Bars leak, that fixed the prob-lem for a while but it start-ed again but I could only get Wynns stop leak - it turned the motor into a steam engine when the two mixed.



plete unit, tested it in a sauce-pan and it worked just fine. The brass thermostat bypass valve had been removed and replaced with a copper disk, so back to the shed to scavenge the parts to fix that.

Eventually with everything all back together and new radia-tor filled, I took it for a short run. With a 180 degree F thermostat it ran - at exactly 180 degrees. Yaaa, the 70 odd year old temperature gauge still worked.

The next job was carbie leaks and being unable to get it to

cold idle. On comparing vari-ous bits in the shed I found that the heat coil cold idle cam had been removed, so I pulled an old one out of the parts bin and that fixed the cold idle problem, and I cut new gaskets for the leaks.

I am taking it up the mountain tomorrow for a long climb out of the Mary Valley for a local static rally just so that I can see what I need to fix next, the joy of breaking in an old and well loved new old car.

Cheers, John King"

As an interesting aside, when the motor overheats it causes the fuel pump to vapour lock and shut down until everything cools off. The fuel line does not come near anything hot so I do not know how it manages that trick. So radiator out and off to the shop and new hoses, and new thermostat ordered.

The temperature gauge never worked so when I removed the probe I found that the line had been cut and pushed in to the bulb. They will not work on air so I dug through my parts pile and found a com-

“I am taking it

up the

mountain

tomorrow ..

just so I can

see what I

need to fix

next . .”

8/40 sedan details plus the coupe . .

P A G E 1 0

“Doug uncovered

his hearse in the

NSW country

town of

Dubbo . . “

Definitely The Last

Ride

The Wellington Connection

Doug Hawkins may have been the youngest Buick Car Club of Australia member when he first joined but he’s aged a little since then.

His desire for Buicks has not waned however and he re-mains one of the true believ-ers.

His earlier years were spent in search of Buick gold around Canberra and surrounding districts with his father who was as keen as Doug has be-come.

Doug retains a fine restored 1927 27/54 X master sports roadster from an earlier life down south and also his near original 1936 8/60 based hearse.

Doug un-covered his hearse in the NSW country town of Dubbo after it was uncovered sitting in a shed in Wellington n pieces after a lifetime of town and country services to

that district.

Apparently the local under-takers property was acquired by the neighbouring hotel publican un-inspected at the time in any detail.

When the local mayor a chap bny the name of Hoffmann asked for a look through the place the publican agreed and for the first time discovered that the shed contained not only this hearse but a 1936 morning car as well.

The mayor acquired the hearse and drove it as his daily driver for some years.

Hot rodders then bought the hearse and moved it to Dub-bo where it was partially stripped in preparation for a chop job.

Before they could do this one of the two brothers who then owned the hearse died and they returned to New Zea-land.

Doug purchased the hearse which was advertised in the Buick magazine in the late eighties.

The body was in Dubbo as was the front end sheet met-al. The side glass was some

sixty miles away but still avail-able.

Doug has rebuilt the car and kept it original with only mi-nor work done to the engine, brakes and the usual mechani-cal upgrades, new tyres and away she goes.

The ‘36 still retains the accou-trements of its service life much to the amazement of the passing public with a coffin on board for most of its trav-els.

The wreath ornamentations seen through the side glass was finally acquired after he moved to Queensland from the original owners daughters who was living in Beenleigh at the time.

The hearse was originally owned by C.J. Shakespeare and Sons a firm that operated out of Parkes and Dubbo as well as from Wellington in 1936.

The firm remains operational in Dubbo only and the Wel-lington branch has now passed into history (or at least changed name) however their 1936 hearse lives on at Tambourine Village in Queensland.


Wherefore Art Thou Buick Hearse? P A G E 1 1 V O L U M E 2 , E D I T I O N 1

For those who study Shakespeare the question is clearly why are you a hearse not where are you hearse.

The answer to the question is: because if you have to go you might as well go in style!

“if you have to go you might as

well go in style!”

Only Used Occasionally—All Original Miles Body is by W S Grice of Summer Hill, \Sydney

P A G E 1 2

“We then took it out

again and ran 154.2

mph . .”

The proof of the

pudding I guess . .!!

1936 Century . . . and A Half !! New on the Team Buick website we have a fantastic report of a dedicated team of Buick nuts lead by Bryan Blake and using his father’s original street car well modified to attack the salt lakes at Bonneville. Here’s Bryan’s story from the website:

“Well after a couple years of off and on working on our 1936 Buick Century Coupe (not my yellow hot rod/drag car but one Iden-tical to it), we got a chance to go to Bonneville. This car was my dad’s first car, and took his driver’s test in this car. We built every-thing on the car and en-gine in our small little ma-chine shop here in Phoe-nix, AZ. We built the roll cage out of 4130, fully tig welded, and bent in our shop. In the class we ran, we had to have all of the stock body panels, tail lights, etc. all in stock configura-tion. The car runs in XXO/PRO class. We have a 3.687 bore, with the stock 4.312 stroke, puts us about

369 CI, and the class max is 375 CI, if running a stock configuration cylin-der head as we were. We have our custom rocker arms, custom see-through valve cover and see through push rod cover. Many think it’s a waste of time to have clear covers on our motor, but we can spot a bent push rod, bro-ken lifter, cracked retainer, etc. in a heartbeat.

We run a 9" Ford rear end, with a 3.0 gear, 28" tall tire and stock Buick top shift 3 speed. We shift it at 63 MPH in first gear, 101 MPH in third gear and max out at about 155 MPH in direct drive, 3rd gear. The intake manifold is one that my grandfather had run in his straight 8 Buick drag rail in the 50's with 4 AA2 Stromberg Carbs. Completely tuned 1.750" primary tube head-

ers. Fully insulated cool box for the carbs and in-take. We made billet ve-locity stacks that protrude thru the hood also. The record that was standing since 1997 was from a Hudson powered car at 134 MPH. We set the first record on a two run average at 142.8 MPH We did a compression check and had a couple low cylinders, so we popped the head, re-lapped the valves and had good compression. We then took it out again and ran 154.2 MPH, then im-pounded the car. The next morning we ran 144.3 MPH as we were lean with the colder, denser air. So that put the official record at 149.7 MPH.”

Go to the Team Buick web site for many more pho-tos and details.


The Team Photo, L-R: Wings, Jim Atherton, Bryan Blake, David Blake, Nicky Flores

P A G E 1 3 V O L U M E 2 , E D I T I O N 1

make them. A quick look at the 1910 versions that might reset your thinking on commercial vehi-cles.

Peter Stone travels to the Nanua Picnic Race Day south west of Broken Hill and close to the SA border to experience the thrill of driving in the dusty outback and of course the thrill of winning.

But what did he win?

Commencing next edition we look at some of the Super Hero cars from the Pre War era. We start with the most famous of them all—the Batmobile!

Hood ornaments, bonnet mascots call them what you will. We take a quick look at the style changes and a few local samples.

Buick trucks don’t usually come up in normal club chat but they did

What Next in the E-Magazine

What is Batman doing in the Pre

War Magazine? Check out the next

exciting issue!

“The view

most other

cars will see of

the ‘36

Century . .”

P A G E 1 4

Nice!


L-R: Brian Hall, Jeff Bidstrup, John Hoerlein and the John Forster preparing to inspect the Cadillac . . .

Cadillac 33-370 Nestled on the Downs P A G E 1 5 V O L U M E 2 , E D I T I O N 1

Here’s a shot from the things past gallery of Brian Hall and myself enjoying the luxury that Cadillac can provide—legroom galore!

While not a Buick I have to con-cede that it was very comfortable as you might expect from Buick’s senior partner division.

The car was purchased by Jeff and Marilyn Bidstrup, who live out on the Darling Downs, back in 2011.

Jeff has a number of rare and de-sirable cars in his collection and we where privileged to enjoy a couple of them prior to attending the Dalby Club’s annual Mother’s Day event a couple of years back.

The Cadillac was in original condi-tion and it is planned to keep it as found.

The car is a 1933 Cadillac V12. The 370 denotes cu inches (V12) and C denotes third series (1933).

“It is a standard sedan and I think there were about 950 of all V12's built in 1933, and the sedan is the most common.” Jeff advised.

It has about 35000 miles which appears original.

The car was originally sold in St Paul Minnesota and would seem to have spent most of its life there. When Jeff purchased the car it was still wearing Mn plates with a low number.

“It drives and rides majestically, but not a patch on the power of a 320 Buick eight.”

Jeff has tried to contact the previ-ous owner to no avail.

“I bought it from a guy in Califor-nia who bought it off a Matt Larsen I am told. “

“Matt is very well known in Cadil-lac collector circles and he now lives in Michigan or Minnesota, up that way.”

“I have not been able to contact him although I have tried email many times, so this is all hearsay, but I do believe it to be correct.

Matt was in the Navy and posted to Long beach I think, and had the car stored in a container for some

time. “

It was then that the wool moths got into the upholstery and have damaged it irreparably. A shame really.

Thanks Jeff for sharing your car with the Pre War Buicks.

“.. Enjoying the

luxury that

Cadillac can

provide—legroom

galore!

“.. Not a patch on

the power of a 320

Buick eight.”

With a now world wide mailing list I also understand that some notices may not be of interest to some readers. Please ignore those that don’t apply to your situation and thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Peter Stone was quick out the gate last edition with the differences between the 1934 and 1935 Series cars.

Peter was able to nominate 5 differ-ences in the 50 series that might apply to the 90 series. He may not have gotten the eight but he certain-ly was well on the way.

I on the other hand didn’t fair as well!

Following on from a picture in the last edition it appears that I may be accused of an unnatural bias towards Ford.

Due to delays in edition release dates I have deleted the for sale section of the e-Magazine in favour of direct mail outs when opportuni-ties present.

This will ensure that any for sale notices that you receive through the Pre War Buick mailing list are cur-rent when you receive them.

It was because of the Falcon up in the air (a tree in fact) so this month I sought out a local landmark around my home town to delight/shock the Buick purists.

Voila! A Buick up a pole. (Luckily not a pre war version.) This auto has been there for as long as I can recall and certainly longer than 30 years.

It looked in fair condition when it went up there but has deteriorated some what since. A shame really.

Since the last edition we have lost a well loved member of the Buick family in Queensland. Kay Hawkins, wife of Doug, who is featured in this edition with his 1936 Buick, passed away suddenly in November 2013.

She always presented as a great character and her “Dougie” call will be much missed by her friends and family. Farewell Kay.

The Last Word

This e-magazine is produced under the auspi-

ces of the Buick Car Club of Australia Qld

Inc. to cater for the needs of car enthusiasts

with an interest in Pre War Buicks.

It is a medium created for the exchange of

stories and ideas. Its aim is to support enthu-

siasts in the preservation and use of the

Buick Automobiles built between 1903 and

the end of 1941.

The editors welcome contributions at

[email protected]

The editors reserve the right to include sub-

mitted articles or not at their discretion.

The Buick Car Club of Australia Qld Inc.

Web: buickcarclubaustralia.com

When Better Automobiles Are Built

Buick Will Build Them

pre war division volume 2, edition 1 february 2014 3 x ‘36...

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