1961 Buick LeSabre
Estate Wagon
If you are a true car guy like I am, sometimes you stumble upon cars that just become part of the family. I wasn't looking for a 1961 Buick LeSabre Wagon, and I can honestly say that I had never seen one before, but it happens that I own one, and I just have this thing for it. I don't know why. Oh, and by the way, if you don't know me, then you don't know of my serious station wagon illness. Something about them, I just love them. I don't know if it is childhood memories or just that fact that you can pile in all your friends, and the dogs and all your gear and head off somewhere. Put a 1957 Chevy Bel-Air FI convertible next to semi-beat up 1957 Nomad, and I'll take the Nomad every time. It is the same reason I love the Land Rover Defender 110, load it up... go anywhere. To me there is nothing better.
Back to the story... Flashback to a summer day in the mid 1980s. I had this horrible Chevy Malibu Wagon, a pretty new one, a 1982 or something I think, blue with blue interior (barf). It was just a terrible car with no style or character. In a moment of being "practical" about getting back and forth to school safely I bought it, and I never should have. It was my first and last, what I call "mini-van moment". A lapse in judgement where the car didn't matter, it was just transportation. F-that! The car is the point, and if you don't get it, you missed the point. The motor on the Malibu was on the way out and I had just sold it for next to nothing. Mid-1980s American cars where bascially crap in my opinion, and I love Amercia cars (but only old ones). I needed a car that was simple to work on and that I could repair myself, and one that would last. Keep in mind at this stage in my life I'm a college student (read that as "no money") and I have to find a car before I head back to school. A couple of days later I'm driving another car on my lunch break and I pull into a driveway in Camden to turn around. I look up and I see the back of this Buick wagon sitting there with a hand written "For Sale" sign sitting in the back window. I had to get back to work so I asked my father to go check it out as it was only a couple of blocks from the house. Turns out its the original owners selling the car and they just are too old to drive it anymore. He knew it was the car for me so he gave them a deposit to hold the car and a few hours and about 2000 bucks later I bought the car and I've had it ever since. One owner, about 60,000 miles, no winter use, bought new in Florida and truly little old lady driven. All the paperwork right down to a notebook with each tank of gas recorded, miles for that tank and notes on tire pressure adjustments. Its unreal the paperwork that came with the car, even the original sales brochure and option brochure with the options the car has checked off in it.
I found out a few days later that a lot of people where on the hunt for the car and I just got it by a few hours. A number of the other local "car guys" were scrambling for money to get this car as well.
Here are the details:
1961 Buick LeSabre Estate Wagon.
Style: 4435
Body: 4303
Trim: 435
Paint: T-T
It is all original other than items like the surf board rack and radial tires. Paint is original, engine, etc. It is the 2 seat version.
It has the following factory and dealer installed options:
Power steering
Power brakes
6 way Power front seat
Power rear window
Compass
Parking brake warning lamp
Glare proof "Day/Night"rear view mirror
Litter basket
Courtesy lights
Side rear view mirror
Dor-gards (no I didn't spell that wrong, that is how it is listed in the factory accessory manual)
Buick undercoating
Plus a factory device, called the "guidematic power headlight control" that automatically dims the hi-beams for on coming traffic (seen above)
Over the years I have added a few things, like windsheild washers and the larger 2 speed (overlap) wiper set up (factory parts used). I also installed an aftermarket radio in a factory dash (you gotta have tunes).
It has a 250HP 364 V8 that has never been apart and needed very little over the years.
The Wagon and I have been through a lot. It was my primary car during college (back and forth from Maine to upstate New York) and has taken me from Maine to the Florida Keys and back many times. On trips back and forth to Florida this wagon has hauled all my personal gear, my 3 surfboards, 2 dive tanks, all my dive gear and my jet ski, all all that inside the car... yes, I said inside the car. They just don't build them like this anymore, and even though it no longer fits any of my transportation needs, its been more than 20 years now. My Wagon does everything well, or at least it used to before it went into hibernation. It is only really the interior that is showing its age. So to make a long story not so long, as I own a vintage auto restoration shop, I have decided to preserve this piece of Buick history (my history too) and bring it back to as close to showroom new as possible. Everyone I know drives a Mustang or a '57 Chevy, and as totally cool as those are (I have a 1966 Mustang convertible as well) there is something about the rarity of the 1961 Buick that I like. Its easy to restore a '57 Chevy, there are hundreds of parts suppliers. Try finding mail order parts for your '61 Buick... Wagon!! So I'm up for the challenge, if I can find the parts. This web page will be updated as work goes along. Right now some of the pages are basic, and they serve as a place for suppliers to see photos of things I need to locate.
Any questions, or if you are a fellow 1961 Buick Wagon nut, email me. Hell, if you've ever seen a 1961 Buick Wagon, or have a picture of one, email me. To date I have only seen 2 in the flesh, mine and my parts car. I did see a 1962 Buick Wagon in Ft. Lauderdale back in the early 1990s, but that is as close as I have come. Enjoy the pages that follow.
My how things change in a flash. Last spring I was gushing about my Buick wagon and now I am without her. After seeing this page on line a nice gent, also named Mike, from out west sent me some email stories about his memories of big Buick wagons as a kid. After talking for a bit he told me to keep him in mind if I ever wanted to sell the wagon. I stewed on that for a number of months as I watched winter start to approach with the wagon sitting outside, and no more room left in my garage at home. In the end I called Mike and we made a deal. The wagons then left on a transporter to their new home where they now reside. I took this last shot just before it was loaded on the transport.
In the end I just have too many cars, not enough space and not enough time. I had to thin the herd a little bit and from the sounds of it, the wagon will be put to much better use and see more action with Mike than if I still owned her. It was hard to let go, but in the long run its better to have the wagons out still making memories for someone else, rather than sitting in a storage garage while I work on other projects.
See the links below for more images and other stuff:
PHASE 1: On the road again
INTERIOR IMAGES: For fabric matching purposes and some general shots
DONOR WAGON: The newly aquired parts LeSabre Wagon
ECR.
21 Tolman Road
Warren, ME 04864
207-594-8086
fax: 207-594-8120
email: ecrover@midcoast.com