Just found this site doing a search. I just bought a 1959 Invicta. It runs (rough), has all the chrome (dinged and dingy) interior intact (stained and smelly) and a 2 year old bad paint job (surface rust). I hope to find a lot of help here as I plan to do most of the work myself. I'll try to attach a pic or two. I am looking for side mirrors as it has none. Any tips???
It's all there and no football sized rust holes in the quarter panels like most everthing here in the NE. Just some cleaning and cruising with the window open wide:TU: and your good to go.
Not bad for a compact. Couldn't you find anything bigger? Jk:laugh: . Cool car, welcome to the boat yard.
I friggin love those old Invictas! :TU: Brings back memories of the Go Go's driving down the road singing "Our Lips are Sealed". p Gotta love the dual "straws" comin' out the back. :grin: First thing I'd do is let 'er breathe a little better. Good luck, it's a great looking car. How many 45 degree headlights do you see around these days!?....Buick, "dare to be different" I always say!
comments...thanks! Thanks for all the comments. As you can see it needs some help. The previous owner put dual "cherry bombs" on it and those straight pipes. Anybody know what muffler and pipes came stock on it and where to get it?
Not sure about your plans, but that car has loads of custom potential. Drop it down, shave it some, tuck and roll interior, cool pinstriping, and have fun. Big drawback is the dynaslow trans and the torque tube drive. The 364 engine is fine, although the bigger 401 or 425 will help all that weight move around, not sure what you have. Keep the current dual exhaust, but shorten those pipes and put chrome pencil tips about 2 inches past the bottom of the bumper. Or run Smithy's mufflers for that original 60's sound. A car that big HAS to be lowered to emphasize the length even more. Those curved windshield cars are very hard to chop, so I would leave that alone. I would not keep it stock, it just has too much custom potential.
whatever happened to this guy? Says Sarasota. Im in Venice. and what happened with the car? Anyone make friends with him and stay in contact all these years? He just buys a 59 and then leaves.
Well I just found out that that 59 Buick was a rust pile even then in 2003. He had to get rid of it because of code enforcement or something like that and it just sat and sat and he sold it to a friend who let it sit and sit and the floors rusted out, trunk, hood. I found it on craigslist yesterday. http://sarasota.craigslist.org/pts/5597206740.html and I talked to the guy who has since sold it and he told me the whold sad story. thats why we never saw him again after he realized how bad it was. He totally got taken to the cleaners according to his friend. Good news is the guy who bought it now is fully aware of the condition and has full intentions of restoring it to its full original glory. So it will be saved.
That sucks on all accounts, except that one where the new owner is restoring it. Too bad it sat out in the elements and declined so badly before the right person found it.
Wow! Amazing what 13 years will do. :error: I hope it can be saved. It is one maybe 2 years tops from being lawn art.
That is a sad story. But then again, the 59 was probably one of the worst cars Buick ever built for rust. They rusted like shipwrecks. That's why there are so few of them around today and why they want serious money for those that still do exist. Those cars are pretty much "cut them off at the base of the doors and replace the entire underside sort of jobs. The 60, which is equally as beautiful, was only marginally better. Man, could those cars rust!
did not know that. but ... had a feeling. Still if its a southern or western car, it shouldnt be a problem. A solid 59 will find me while I am still young and I will be ready.
From the way I read it, the 59 was a totally new body and frame. Harley Earl retired in 1958, and the president of GM was totally enamored with the Chrysler "forward look" introduced in 1957 for the first time. So he wanted nothing to do with Earl's stodgy knock-offs of the 58 model, he wanted something entirely new. The 58 model was a disaster; an old warmed over design coming in time for a recession. The 59s were going to be a clean sweep; they got rid of all the old design ideas like ventiports, sweepspears, bombsights, etc. and went with a "space-age" look. The 59 Caddie and the 59 Olds were designed off of a Buick door. Production was down, most people didn't really like the radical new look, they thought it was too science fiction. Buick warmed the design over in 60, but it still didn't sell. The total redesign in 61 finally perked things up for them again. The biggest issue with the cars is that they never got to fully test out the body. It was all radically new technology, and they were using thinner high tensile strength steel. Rust proofing was in it's infancy, and with the long low design, Buick never realised that they had inadvertently built in a rust trap. Things got better as the steel technology and the designs improved through the 60s, but those original 59s almost came from the factory with rust. I wish you luck in your quest to find one; - I just had another dream dashed away in that there is no way I'm going to be able to import a car up here unless I spend a ton of money. I haven't seen one yet that isn't either badly restored, totally rusted out or just crap in general. The really good ones are very expensive and tend not to last very long on the market. I was hoping that the generation that really appreciated them would die out, driving the prices down (it worked for me with my 46 Super), but I don't think that's going to happen to the 59 or 60 model. I think they'll continue to appreciate, and cars like mine will continue to depreciate. No one likes the big Electras or the full size Buicks anymore.
Are you saying the steel they used in the 59s was like the high strength steel of the 80s, the stuff that doesnt weld very nice? Was it prone to rust as well or just the body panel shapes that caused the rust? What part of Canada are you from? I see quite a few of the rust free ones coming from Oregon and pacifica northwest? Are you on that side? I mean someone has to find them in barns for 1500 before they enter the market and start changing hands in increments of 20K each flip. Why cant it be you that gets it first? and/or me? I like the Electras and Full Sizers but its true, not many in real life get excited about them, never see them at car shows around here in Florida. Maybe thats part of the allure for me? Its not that they arent good looking machines, its just that they dont get much promotion. Put one in a major motion picture and everyone will want an old full size Buick. Since your last post about the steering and suspension and torque tube Ive thought about giving up on the 59 and staying with the nice and familiar 71 and 73 where things make sense and parts (that few people want) still exist somewhere. But recently I bought a mint shop manual from 59 and My Golly!, that thing is a work of art! (the car, not the manual). Holding that ancient manual in my hands is like touching the past, going back in time, and the smell, oh the old smell of America in those pages in that ancient tome. Then of course I wonder if its even healthy to let my mind wander to that level, I dont want to live in the past, but I like the past so much better than the present. I better stop now.
