Hi Buick Fans
I have been fortunate find my Skylark and this forum (maybe Loren found me), recently Tony and Chuck helped me out with some chrome parts I need for my restoration. Through our dealings Tony has asked how I came about owning a Skylark and if they were produced in Australia.
I thought I would share my answer with you all. It's not quite the lifelong story I enjoy reading about Edouard and the "Trusty Ol Billy Goat Wagon" but here goes.
I'm 49 this October, I've always had a passion for cars. Australia only had three main groups Ford, Holden (GM) and Chrysler. Ford and Holden were definitely most popular. There are also imported (some were assembled here or imported as RHD) American cars Chevy, Pontiac ect and plenty of smaller Japanese and European cars, but they didn't have V8's so didn't count in my books. Car manufacturing in Australia stopped production about 5 years ago, all our cars are imported now, this has had two considerable effects, 1 current lead time to purchase a new vehicle is around a one year wait...this is a covid hang over, 2 it made the price of existing cars very expensive.
I have good mates with beautiful 60's -80's cars, I've worked on them, however I never seemed to have the space, time or money for my own.
In 2017 I was reading an internal classified at my workplace and a coworker advertised the Skylark for sale asking $11K AUS. I had a look at it without even knowing what it was, I didn't even know it was a Buick, just a Skylark with a 310 Wildcat engine.
The front end and glass were removed I could tell it was a solid old car and more or less complete. I did a little research and found most parts were fairly easy to buy, the seller told me he had driven it into the shed where it was sitting. We negotiated the price for a while and came up with a deal if I could see the engine run I would buy it for $5K. For a comparison prior to buying I looked at Australian 60's muscle cars, at the time a 1968 Holden Monaro shell was for sale for $18K, just the shell nothing else ( this is what I mean about how expensive old cars are here, I guess we just didn't have the population or the production rates you guys did.) so I bought the Buick and started my restoration.
Since 2017 I look all the time for Buicks here, I have found a red 65 convertible Skylark from memory it was badly rusted. I've also seen a customised GS with a Chevy big block, it was far from original. I find it kind of funny doing a restoration on a car no one knows what it is.
There are plenty of things, however one thing I love about my Buick is the story behind it, when I got it home the old insurance and registration paperwork was under the front seat. The Skylark belonged to a man named Ken who lived in Petaluma CA, I wrote to Ken when I found the paperwork explaining how I had purchased the Buick. A few months later I received a letter from Kens Widow, he had passed away in 2016. She explained how Ken was a bit of a hoarder and he loved the Buick, it had broken down years ago and sat in the driveway with a tarp over it. Kens widow Cathy sent me her phone number, I call her from time to time and give updates on the restoration. From the conversations with Cathy, I learn how he was driving one time out of town to a Led Zeplin concert when "it got hot" and had to be towed home, turns out that was a blown head gasket and it sat for years under a tarpaulin in that state. She also told me how the tarp would blow off and water would get in past the perished window seals (that's how the floor rust started) and Ken drilled holes in the floor to drain the water out. Ken also used lumps of timber and old tyres to hold the tarp down, that's how the roof got dents in it.
After Kens passing Cathy held an auction to get rid of what was left around from Kens hoarding, the Skylark was sold to a man (I do have his details somewhere) who lived in San Fransisco near the Golden Gate Bridge, he put the car on Ebay and sold it to the man I bought it off. The car was driven into a shipping container (with busted head gasket and all) and shipped to my hometown here Toowoomba Queensland. I have a short video of it being loaded onto a car transporter in San Fransisco.
The guy I bought it off had grand plans to transform it into a GS however, didn't get far beyond stripping the front end off.
The rest I guess is history, and I have started a ground up, every nut and bolt restoration on it. While stripping the Skylark down I found about 20 Marlborough cigarette butts in the ash tray, I've kept them safe during the restoration and plan on putting them back when I start driving the car with the thought Ken will be on the ride with me. I also have the original CA licence plates last registered in June 2015, 50 years after it came off the production line in June 1965. Ive been told Im lucky to have those plates because you can no longer import old US plates, they get chopped up in customs.
Tony and Chuck, Thanks for your help, I hope you all enjoyed the read.
I best do some work on my restoration.
Kind Regards
Marcus
