I've been a good boy, Santa.... honest!

Cars / Motoring / Insurance
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Christmas is coming & I have had a busy but virtually entertainment free year. My OH is stuck in the UK caring for aged & unwell relations with no computer skills so I have been left to my own devices.
The house has turned into a bit of a man (& dog) cave with car parts everywhere. I hope I have plenty of notice of her return.
Fortunately my VR headset has provided me with lots of entertainment & although the virtual world provides some amazing experiences as yet it cannot beat the real thing.
So with that in mind & inspired by a trip to the Angouleme “Circuit des Remparts” for the first time for a while I decided to treat myself to something that you don’t see often in Europe. I wanted something big, old & with a nice sounding engine. And not too expensive.
This meant something American so I started - idly at first, then with a bit more enthusiasm - checking out the U.S. based web sites. Eventually I came across something I really liked enough to actually answer the advert.

Pontiac 2
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The car, in Arizona, was very nice but the reply from the seller was abrupt & assumed that I was a scammer as I did say I was based in France & offered to phone at my expense to answer questions. At the same time, now I had a name, I googled the seller to check if I was being scammed - after all, I would be sending money first! To my surprise the search came up with far too much information that I would have been comfortable with. The seller was an older lady who used to be a school Principal, bought her house in 2003, had an income of more than $35000, drove a 2011 Dodge, VIN no xxxx & gave her address, phone number, date of birth etc. She had recently lost her husband & was probably very suspicious of technology. Although I now had her phone number I think to use it might have frightened her. The car was really nice but it was really more than I wanted to spend so let it go.
Continuing my search I thought that it would be sensible to risk less money which meant more time in front of the computer.
Still wanting a pre-war rather than a post war vehicle my search continued & one day this appeared -
buick5
Although it would want a respray everything else looked good so once again I answered the advert.
Again, the response was not promising - “Most interest in these cars from overseas does not work.
If you are a real person please tell me how you plan on shipping this vehicle from Colorado to France.”
What is it with Americans?? Don’t they export anything other than wars?
In the end I did get to talk & a deal was done but then other issues started to crop up.
The buyer wanted the payment to be made from a U.S. bank. Suddenly there was a time limit too, & a short one. The seller did not know what an IBAN number was & did not seem to want to ask his bank.
To date the transfer has been made & has arrived in the seller’s account & I have arranged shipping so it is now up to the shippers to collect.
I doubt the car will be at Chez Rimmer until late January if things go smoothly but to be fair Santa’s sack might not have room for a 1941 Buick straight 8 Special sedan so it has to go by container.
Let’s see what Douanes make of it!

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If I was your wife I would be hiring a carer and heading home to lock up the garage before anything else gets ordered!

(But it does look classy)

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How much to convert it to electric (west coast conversions) before you ship it?

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Apart from taking away the joy, it would be impossible (or at least prohibitively expensive) to get it registered here. The FFVE require that applicants for an attestation for a vehicule de collection sign a form which says, among other things, that “it has never transformed or had transformed the characteristics of the said land motor vehicle in terms of chassis/frame, engine, gearbox, axle, bodywork, suspensions”.
It was hard enough to find one that had not been messed with which is rare. In fact, the seller was going to customise this but found a Mercury which he preferred.
Customising a classic which is still in good shape seems a waste although you have to admire the skills.
Here is a 2 door version of mine which has had a few mods.

buick custom
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Prefer the original
.that has no class! Far too bling for me.

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Apart from losing the character, there is a matter of cost - The UGLY Truth Behind Electric Vehicle Conversions - YouTube

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I couldn’t agree more Mark, why would you replace the sound of that engine with the sound of a 1/2 seized whining diff.
Love the car :sunglasses::sunglasses:

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Me too!

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This little video makes it plain why an electric conversion would take away rather than add although it might work with today’s roller skates. Same engine which is in mine - 1941 Buick Limited final tune - YouTube

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I rather prefer the first one, it is a Packard, isn’t it? :slightly_smiling_face:

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Pontiac 603 straight 8 ?

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Apart from being glad for you and your new acquisition, your post sent my thoughts speeding in several directions at once.

Firstly (the second might follow) I’m always eager to know more from real, knowlegeableafficinados about the contemporary appeal of car styling from previous decades. So, if you don’t mind me asking, given there’s many different US V8s from so many different decades, what made you want one from that period? Without being intrusive, I’d love to read in your words the basis of its appeal (even though you might think that’s so self-evident!).

I absolutely understand your comment, but I’m not sure it’s always ‘a waste’ to chop an old car. I’d suggest that sometimes what began as a fairly ordinary, or even better an originally ugly vehicle, particularly one that’s still fairly easily available, can be transformed into something extraordinary.

For instance, I wonder if the Mercury you mentioned in passing was going to converted into a Lead Sled (the photo below’s just for other readers’ benefit). For me that would be an amazing visual improvement, that transformed an ugly lumpy vehicle, into an automotive equivalent of a shark or a barracuda, some muscular marine predator that looks fast even when parked and is the epitome of streamlining.

image

When I worked in Boston, thirty or so years ago, I used to see a couple of Mercury Sleds usually rolling along slowly in packed lanes of morning commuter traffic on the Inner Beltway (the highway in Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers’ Roadrunner’). You’d see all sorts of interestingly customised cars and other drivers would wind down their windows and shout things like, " Love your wheels, man!" What was cool ,was that it was a sort of collective celebration of driving rather than crazy overtaking and macho one up-manship

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Second train of thought, the centrality of cars in US popular culture - it’s not just through Springsteen and the Beach Boys, mention of specific cars has permeated American music and film for sixty years or more , whereas in music at least, the UK has had little more than occasional refererences to Ford Transits and Tom Robinson and a few others singing about Cortinas. Even the most “iconic” (hate the word) UK car movie, The Italian Job begins with the (very upsetting for some!) destruction of an Italian Lamborghini (or was that a deep symbolic message about the intended triumph - no pun intended - of British Leyland.

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Having just got back from Chicago, it’s no surprise the car is so central. Life without motorised transport is almost unthinkable, never mind the impracticality, and you can drive before you can drink.

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Correct. Car Pontiac 1934 for sale - PreWarCar

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I wanted an eight cylinder (both the Pontiac & the Buick run straight 8s rather than V8s) partly because an 8 cylinder is not that common in Europe except for the more exotic offerings, particularly this era, & partly because an 8 cylinder makes a particular exhaust sound, even at tickover, that just appeals. Buick straight eight running 1941 - YouTube
I am used to working on this era of engine & they tend to be quite simple to work on because this engine was used for so many years parts are not hard to find.
The choice to limit myself to this date stems from my many years as a military vehicle collector. It means that I could still attend military vehicle gatherings but with more comfort. Not all military Buicks were green though.

1941-buick-super-8-army-od-2-star-general-staffcar-1
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So a foot in both camps.

With regard to customising, there is no doubting the skill & time put into some of these cars & 30 years ago many of these cars were not yet classics, just old.
Take this Rolls Royce. What would this be worth today if it had not been modified?

Rolls Royce tow truck
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As these cars get more scarce it seems a shame to choose a roadworthy original example to chop rather than a shell. It does make the survivors less common. I would prefer customisers to select their donor vehicles carefully.
I came across quite a few '41 Buicks that looked original but had modern running gear. Easier to drive but they would not meet FFVE requirements thus making registration in France almost impossible.

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I bow to your superior knowledge, it is just that I have owned both, a Ponti and a Packard of the 38/39 era (never remember which was which) and I thought I recognised the V shape of the grill and could almost discern the flat ledge along the side of the bonnet.

My Pontiac was normal, a straight 8, but the Packard had been ‘improved’. The 8 had been swapped for a Perkins P6 diesel by the Nottingham bus driver I bought it from (after pursuing him all over town to his home :rofl:). It suited me, I wasn’t a purist and, as a lorry driver, was well used to the diesel (which did originate in a written off 6 wheel tipper). The engine didn’t work well with the 3 speed + overdrive gearbox though. It finally met its end in France, in a forest near Troyes, when the back end seized up. :frowning_face:

BTW, when I first saw that Mercury I thought it was a Hudson, but there you go. :roll_eyes:

30 years ago many of these cars were not yet classics, just old.

Are you sure? It must have been 1960 something that I took my Packard to a Classic American Car Club rally at Woburn where the secretary welcomed us with open arms. He was less impressed when I said I wasn’t looking for an engine though. I liked the comparative economy. :wink: :rofl:

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Thanks very much for your detailed reply, I really appreciated it ,both for the clarity of your explanation and because I occasionalIy write academic papers on car styling and forget about the very different appeal of what’s happening under the bonnet (sorry, I meant ‘hood’).

However, I do wonder, that even though you’ve worked out all the shipping and import costs, have you allowed for the ‘compensation fĂ©minine’ which could be considerable?

For example, on a very minor scale compared to your serious treat, on Black Friday I bought online an essential Le Creuset fish frying pan from Galerie Lafayette.
OH response, “How much did you say it cost?”
Obiviously, I avoided discussion of the actual price, instead countering, “But I thought you wanted us to eat more fish.”

Nevertheless, retribution was swift

Apparently,there’d been a longstanding, albeit previously unspoken need for an alpaca sweater.
Thought it inadvisable to point out that OH already has about five million sweaters (please don’t lecture me on hyperbole!)

Fortunately sweater has now arrived and fish pan is a much appreciated addition to notre batterie de cuisine.

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Is that an American thing (I always thought it was): appreciation of other people’s good fortune/success rather than envy?

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It always struck me as being part of a community of driving commuters, whereas in the UK or France it’s much more competitive.

For me commuting in Massachusetts was where America (or at least southern New England) came together through shared experience, everyone regardless of what they were driving, was stuck in traffic and so people tried to enjoy the journey into work through their shared frustration, rather than striving to get to the destination before the car in front. It was very laid back compared to my experience of commuting in Europe.

Incidentally, Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers Roadrunner was about driving on that highway (albeit when empty at at night).

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