Phil T 1940

 

A STORY OF ACQUISITION

PHIL TAYLOR’S BUICK 1940

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This whole event actually started because of my Mother in Law (they are useful occasionally). She likes to check out the odd garage sale or two and had bought me some outdated car magazines at one of these sales somewhere in the western suburbs of Perth.

I was scanning the classified section of an eight month expired August 2000 edition of Cars & Parts magazine, which is published in the United States, and while basically drooling over the many cars available in the U.S. at very reasonable prices, one ad caught my eye as it was in $AUD. It was for the sale of a 1940 8-40 Buick that had originated from South Australia, so out of interest I rang to try and find out what success the seller may have had through this U.S. publication. The car had not sold. So the seed was sown.30d Phil Taylor

Two years later as a matter of curiosity I rang again and the car was still available. It was described as “pale green, very original, well used and comes with a cellar full of spares. This sounded quite interesting, so after viewing a number of photos I decided to buy the car and sent a holding deposit.

As there were a number of parts to be resurrected and packed up for transport and having not been totally satisfied with the arrived condition of a car purchased previously from the East, I decided to go across myself to Adelaide to organize transport arrangements in person and fully inspect the vehicle.

Some six months later during Easter of 2004 was the selected time of departure from Perth. I was accompanied by Darryl Smirk who although not a club member, has attended a number of meets with me and is familiar to many Perth members.

We loaded up my trusty, workhorse the 1976 C20 Chev ute with supplies and headed east. It rained non stop from Norseman to Nundroo but we were fortunate to have a tail wind most of the way so two very long days and 2,750 kms later after a trouble free trip we arrived in Adelaide.

On inspection, it did live up to the photos received (- in this case – I’ve found photos don’t always show everything!). It was a very original motor car, light grey in colour, not in bad condition, but not roadworthy enough to enable diving it back to Perth as was discussed between Darryl & myself i.e. leaking water pump, brakes, tyres, etc, so decided to truck it back west with over 1 ton of spares accompanying it. 

 Now you might think we had done pretty well up to that point, but the trip started to get a bit more involved (& expensive!). To keep in good on the home front – as we all know there would have to be a trade off for such a venture – I did something completely against my nature and spent the next two days hunting around for a horse float (much cheaper over there) for my wife and daughters, which we eventually found with the help of the wife of the previous owner of the 1940 who also just happened to have a horse interest.

So with Buick en route and horse float in tow, Darryl and I headed back west. We were once again lucky to have a tailwind right across the Nullabor.

The Buick arrived a few days after we did and since then much time and TLC has been spent trying to bring the old girl back to a reasonable standard. As you can imagine after sitting unused in a shed for 20 years or so it needed a major tidy up. Most of us understand the time consumed with such a project and of course having to fit this around work/home commitments means this will be ongoing for sometime still, but it won’t be in the too distant future before WA members just might see another 40 at one of our meets.

Regards, Phil

Phil Taylor WA Buicks

(PS – the float was a very well received and has been in good use ever since!! Kerry)

1940 Buick Sedan