Scott B 1930

03 1930 BUICK SO FAR

It was the 16th March 2002 that I purchased a 1930 Buick Sedan 40 – 47, from Neville Cullenane in Perth. Prior to that I had visited Les Woodruff’s collection on five occasions over as many years with the Neerigin Brook Rotary Club, this got my interest started in Buick Cars. The 1934 Sedan caught my eye and after several conversations with Les, we looked at a 1934 Buick Sedan, that had been cut into a ute. As sad as it looked, I started to look for a sedan body to fit on it, chasing all over Australia. One lead took me to a local club member, Peter Nicholson. However I found that all his spare parts and bodies had been sold on, but at this point Peter had put me onto a 1930 sedan in Perth. I then contacted the owner to arrange a look at the car in Neville’s garage under his house. He rolled the doors up but I could not see a car in there. As we made our way past spare building material we found it perched up on axle stands and covered in house doors and other hardwares. We inspected it as best as possible. Another phone call to Peter to ask specific details on 1930 Buicks followed by a visit to view his just restored 1930, to see what one looks like fully restored. Out in the open, it looked fantastic, shining in the sunlight.

After more looking in Neville’s garage we purchased the car. After one week of shifting building material we rolled the car out in the sunlight after eighteen years onto a car trailer and towed it away to its new home, my workshop. On the way it got a quick pressure clean to remove the eighteen years of dust.

The first job on it was the Buick badge bar, which now sits in a glass cabinet. The next twelve months was taken up setting up the workshop, research on the car, for parts missing and getting information and books to guide in its restoration. Some work was done to the car and parts were purchased from eBay (a good source for used and
NOS parts), Bob Sheppard, Bob’s Automobilia in California for new reproduction parts, and club members in Australia.

The next two years have seen good progress and some frustrations. The restoration procedure I have adopted is to refurbish and restore the pieces as they are removed form the car as it is stripped down. The parts are packed away and notes made as to their location in the workshop, house or where ever else I have hidden them. So far some panel work has been done, mechanical and suspension and electrical parts in converting the generator to 12v and making up left and right hand tail light assemblies with built in flashers, front and rear seats, dash and trims parts just to list a few.

Young Luke’s racer gets some maintenance while dad strips the 1930 behind.

I have found some interesting objects in the car – like a 1922 one penny, which was used as core plug in the front shockie, and a quarter inch spanner still attached to a nut holding the bonnet latch down and a ticket to the 1963 Commonwealth Games in Perth found in the rear ash tray!

So far it’s going well, sometimes it seems slow going between work and family but the end result will be worth waiting for.

As far as some records have it, this car had belonged to a mechanic at the Randwick Bus and Tram Co. And in 1938 he sold it to Harold Lander. It has been driven across the Nullarbor where it dropped into a wombat hole, and eventually ended up in Perth. I have spoken to the last person to drive it in approximately 1968. It was parked at the Dizzy Lamb Museum in Wanneroo, before being sold to Neville and then to myself. Anyhow writing this is not getting the Buick done so I had better get out there and into it.

Scott Barker and Family (WA Buicks). 02a

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