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[damen]

Originally Posted by Phil R

Well I didn't pay for it but...
In 1992, when I was 15, I went to see this car that was advertised at $1000 (I badly wanted a '65-'66 LeSabre or Wildcat hardtop coupe since I was a kid!) and it was sitting on wood blocks and in such a poor shape that I ended buying a '68 Wildcat 4 door hardtop in slightly better shape that I managed to drive for 8 years despite being priced much less ($630 Canadian)!
In 2003, the '65 Wildcat reappeared for sale. Someone had done some work to it but it still needed a lot! A friend of mine who also likes big cars (we both have '67 Rivieras) was laughing at me because I was driving a $500 '74 LeSabre coupe as a winter beater. Soon after, he had two other expensive problems with his 9 years old Saab 900 and he decided to get something more simple! When he told me that he saw a '65 Wildcat for sale in a small town near where I live, I told him that I had a good look at that car 11 years before and I suggested that he stays away from it as it was certainly a lot worse than my $500 beater! He didn't listen to me and I think he even paid $1600 for a car that was in really bad shape.

It was barely driveable when he got it so I fixed it, repainted it to it's original color (it was light green) and let him drive another of my old beaters for a month while I was working on making his new buy roadworthy! He got it in late January of 2004 and drove it to commute to his job in the heavy traffic in Montreal for 3 months. One day, tired of spending $200 in gas per week, he drove it in my driveway with the brake pedal to the floor, a leaking radiator and a bad water pump and he told me it was now mine! I had to fix a few more things and order fabric from SMS to have the seats and door panels redone as it was in very poor shape, there was no headliner, the dash pad was cracked, etc...
I drove it about 30,000 miles since I got it 11 years ago. I would never have thought that possible when I first saw it 22 years ago!

Here are a few pictures of it in 2003-2004 before and after I fixed and repainted it for my friend (it wasn't mine then but the ugly beige '74 LeSabre was!)... The last picture shows it years later with the two other Buicks I currently own.

I like your Buick's those are nice looking cars and you can't beat getting the wildcat for free. You did a nice job fixing it up.