My 89 Olds Custom Cruiser

I know a lot of you like before and after pics, so enjoy.

This car only had 47K miles on it when I got it. It was traded in at a local Toyota/Honda dealer, it belonged to an older lady's husband who had died and she wanted a smaller car. Traded it for a Civic or Corolla if I remember right. Had all the paperwork in the glove box and I called her about it to see if the miles were true.

The inside was nearly perfect, just needed a bath, but it had always been parked in an open carport and the passenger side of the car faced the afternoon Texas sun, so the wood on the passenger side was shot. I debated about replacing the wood...this was in 2004, but could not find any, so decided to strip it.

It took me a full week of evenings with a hair dryer, razor blades, and WD-40 to get all that wood off the car. Was a PAIN. The drivers side come off in large sections once I heated it up. But it was REALLY dry on the passenger side so there was no peeling it, even hot. It came off in little chunks, took HOURS to get it off, my fingers bled, no joke. I promised myself I'd NEVER do that again!

GM painted the car brown around the gas lid, bumper fillers, and trim on the tail lights, so I had to have those parts of the car painted white. BUT in the end I really liked it de-wooded. And unlike some wagons the chrome trim that outlined the wood before actually still looked fine on the car. It followed the body line so I left it alone.

Lots of detailing, a set of aluminum "Turbine" Buick-style wheels from the salvage yard, and some nice tires and window tint later, and I had the sharpest Custom Crusier in town. ; ) Wish I had more before pics!

Before Passeger Side

After Passenger Side

Before Rear View

After Rear View

Before Driver's Side

After Driver's Side

After a solid week of scraping off wood and cleaning:


Added the Turbine Wheels...still had White Walls....tinted windows:



Added T/A Radials:



Olds 307....a regular ball of fire...HA!

Sharp Dash and Interior!





My kiddo at the beach, Padre Island Texas....age 3!

Wally World Dad? That's right son! Roy Wally World!


It was sure a clean car when I sold it!

-Mike

 

And here is how it looked the last time I saw it. The guy I sold it too added red pin stripes to the bumpers and side chrome, blacked out the bare metal parts on the wheels, and added surfer stickers to the car....and removed my Wally World sticker. Boo. : (






It was sold at action as part of an "Olds set" with an early 70's 442. Went to an Olds collector in Kansas. I keep meaning to try to look him up.

I miss it!

-Mike

 

Nice CC, 81. I love the GM 80's box wagons. I had an 87 CC and an 88 Electra. Dropped a built 455 in the cherry Electra and it was my favorite car. By the way....you really need to learn how to post thumbnails of your pix (or give a link). The way you are posting them it is very difficult to read your last 2 posts.

 

Sorry to hear the pics are not coming up well. I just liked those to my photobucket account like I do on the other forums. Never had an issue with that.

-Mike

 

They are coming up fine....they are just HUGE and that stretches your whole post to a width that then requires readers to have to scroll left and right to read each sentence. Does it not appear that way on your puter? I'm just trying to help....as it is posted it's difficult and time consuming to read. If you supplied a link or posted the pix in thumbnail form your post would be normal width. The thumbnails would be able to be enlarged by the readers so the end result would be the same and the text more easily read.

 

Looks great it's cool how a few small changes makes a big difference.

Stripes,tint.painted wheels.

 

Weird, no it doesn't do that at all on my computer. It looks and reads normally. Odd stuff. Sorry for the issue!

-Mike

 

No problem....hey, maybe it's MY puter???

 

Man, I love the car!! My wife likes it too. Hey, maybe if I can get some $$ together, I can talk her into another longroof!!!

 

Now that is the way to display a wagon!! That looks F****** Great! I want your wheel caps. I have 2 with the Buick logo but they are black not chrome from the factory....A Buick emblen on those chrome ones would look so good on my beast.

 

Very Nice!

 

Thanks for all the comments. I do miss that car a lot!

-Mike

 

now even tho..im all about the wood...that really cleaned up nice!!!
i can see why ya miss it mike

 

At the time the only wood I could find was for kitchens, so I de-wooded it. They have vinyl wraps of all kinds now. But I don't regret it, I loved the way it came out.

That said, my current wagon sports plenty of wood!

 

The pics look great on computer, also!

Fox, do my pics on my wagon thread look similarly huge when you try to view them? If so, you may have a setting on your computer that can be changed.

By the way, I don't care for the thumbnail photos at all, but at least on this forum, one can easily go from pic to pic without closing the thumbnail window to look at the next one. Not so on my Buick forum.

David