1972 Buick Estate Wagon

1972 Buick Electra Estate wagon Estate wagon Wagon - cars & trucks -... (craigslist.org)

 

What a lovely car. Our neighbor had this car, only hers had the black carpet and components. Same rally wheels, and lamps, but hers was that pumpkin orange with a white vinyl top that was a great compliment to that interior. Loved those’72 Buick’s. We had nice ‘72 red/red Colony Park the same year which was downright subdued next to Mrs Browns Orange Buick. Would sure love both of those cars today.

 

https://www.liusedcars.com/for-sale/1972-buick-electra-estate-wagon-estate-wagon-26528

$14,883

 

That’s really reasonable, as it appears. It shows car gone, so it probably got snapped up.

 

Agree. Seems well bought.

 

That was a good year for the Buick Wagon. Nice looking.

 

I did a complete paint job on one of those around 1988 ... white with woodgrain ... local school principal owned it ... I knew it would be a big job and charged accordingly.

Endless task removing all the bumpers , chrome trim , moldings around the woodgrain .... had to remove interior trim to get at the fasteners , including door panels ... power windows of course .....I still have scars on my hands from reaching deep inside those panels. Fasteners for the roof rack were spinning so I had to remove the head liner.

Razor blades to scrape off the old wood grain ... not bad on the flat spots ... horrible on the curves. Remaining glue was a pain , thinners would not remove it ... sandpaper gummed up immediately ... ended up using 36 grit discs and going to bare metal.

Typical for a white car , lots of surface rust but no penetration , body was straight with only a bit of minor parking lot damage. Had to paint the whole car before woodgrain .... most folks do not know the woodgrain is semi-transparent and GM only supplies one standard shade .... they get the variations in color from the underlying paint.

Each roll of woodgrain comes in a kit .... quite wide and long but never enough to do two panels .... so I had to order 9 individual kits to do everything including the tailgate (expensive) ... and look at how narrow it is on the front fender .... 60% of the piece is trimmed off and dis-guarded. Horrible to install , cannot let it touch or bond the new paint outside the woodgrain areas .... must be trimmed exactly .... 1/4 inch extra on the ends to wrap around door and fender edges ... all while holding the whole large sheet at the same time ... working around curves and wheel openings is hard and must be done perfectly with no wrinkles.

Myself and two of my best employees spent two whole days replacing all the chrome and trim pieces ... the last screw went in the last taillight 10 minutes before the customer arrived to pick it up.

He was happy . paid the bill and drove off .... reality is the car looked much the same as when it drove in minus the surface rust.

Would I ever do another ????? .... absolutely never again .... haaaa .... the above picture looks like a nice restoration and probably worth every penny if they went through what I did.

 

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Trivia nobody asked for but I will tell it anyway .... haaaa

In my above post I mentioned all the surface rust on the white Buick estate wagon.

I am often asked why white cars rust more than dark colors.

Here is why ...... on the hottest humid day the surface of a white car remains cool and the humidity wants to condense there .

On the coldest winter day a black car can be warm to the touch (solar heat) and any moisture will evaporate.

That is the basic science with all the variations in between . But there is more ... a white car without chrome trim and no nicks or scratches , in theory will never rust because the paint seals out oxygen and water.

So here is the issue and cause of surface rust in cars .... the factory paints the car .... they do a good job , but when they install the chrome and trim the clips and fasteners often remove or scrape away a tiny bit of paint , the steel is exposed , and corrosion begins immediately.

May take a few years to work out beyond the trim for the owner to see.

The Buick estate wagon I painted was an example ... every piece of trim had surface rust creeping out on the white paint and under the woodgrain , thus the repaint , the car was in good condition with low mileage and worth preserving.