yet another boattailor from Germany

Hay there !

Just recently found this lovely buick-only forum and would like to say "Grgott!". I'm living in the southwest of Germany, close to Stuttgart Untertrkheim.

Since about 8 weeks I'm proud owner of a '72 Buick Riviera Boattail (VIN: 4Y87U2H903318). And as the car needs a lot of work, I'm looking for informations, sources for parts and of course other like-minded people sharing the interest for 'buickful' cars. ;-) Maybe even some Germans roam around here, would be nice to know. :beer

The Buick is my second car (beside a M1009 ex-army Chevy Blazer with the 6.2 Diesel Engine which I use as a daylie). My main poblem really is: "getting parts", as Rivs are seldomly found here in Germany. For the chevy parts can literally found on the street, as it is quite popular (for an american car) and some traders specialized on those trucks (eble, morlock, van miltenburg, etc.).
I'm at the point to pay 20% on top of the price for some center hubs or weather stripes. *winkwinknudgenudge* ;-) (at the moment I'm trying to get some parts from the cannibal, found the link here in the forum)

I guess (and hope), I saved this car from beeing reduced to a pile of rust in the next few years... :ball:
Almost every part of the car which has no paint on it, is covered with a thin layer of rust. Nothing that can't be handled (I'm using a half-legal rust converter from the "Deutsche Bundesbahn" with alot of "Phosphorure" ;-), but a lot of work anyway.

A few more words about the special situation here in Germany, for your amusement only:
To keep a car like the Riv on the road here in Germany, it has to be older than 30 years (ok, no problem so far with the boats), only then it will get a so-called "H-Zulassung" (the "H" stands for "historical").
Problem is: authorities plan to increase the barrier to get/keep the H-Zulassung, which means plugging an Edelbrock or EFI on the 455 will (theoretically) result in the loss of the "H", and increase the yearly tax from 191 Euros to something about 2000 Euro. (As if 1,50$ per liter of smooth Super Plus insn't enough...) :blast:

Anyway, I'm hoping for a warm wellcome and some nice chatting.


greez!
T0Mi

P.S. "I may post attachments", well then... I got some pictures for you.

 

Hi Tomi and welcome to V8Buick. :TU: It seems that you quite a decent boattail - please post more pics. Looks like you have as small parking spaces as we do here in Sweden. :laugh:

 

Hi Tomi, Welcome to V8Buick.
You might try The Riviera Owners Association; http://www.rivowners.org/

or

The Buick club of America; http://www.buickclub.org/

 

Guten Tagg, Tomi. Welcome! Congratulations on the "new" Riv. Glad you're here and have fun! :TU:

 

more pics? here you are.

thanks alot for your welcome! :beer

I' ve taken a few more polished shiny happy floating boattail pictures.

As always, pictures don't tell the truth, that's why I'll also post some before-after pics of the 'restoration' work I've done so far.

Will post a reply for every pic, so you won't have to extra click... I hope this isn't against the board rulez here.

so... on with the shining stuff: (sponsored by Sonax ;-)

 

more shining:

 

ok, enough of that.

Reality as I got this car was like that:
(on every of the 4 corners around the rear tires):

 

then "Mr. Filler" was my best friend for quite some time:

 

as time passes by... the buick began to at least look like it would get a second chance to roam the streets without leaving trails of rusty flakes.

 

some hard work for the Dremel (Proxxon):

 

still needs a lot of work, but at least the brown plague won't be spread any more:

 

ok, some more shockers from the inside:

34 years of burning sun left a dashboard in Grand Canyon Design (and some nice 'valleys' in which some former owner has burried his speaker cables... ou: )

 

after stripping the interieur I found more of that brown stuff... luckily more or less just on the surface.
(except a few thiny 'brownthroughs' of course... would have been boring without them. :spank: )

 

heh, i can only imagine what kind of looks you get from your fellow Deutschlanders. :TU:

Rammstein rocks! :bglasses:

 

The Buick is ok for the 'Deutschlnders' ("Schwabenlnders" is more fitting), they like it.

But as I got my chevy 3 years ago, some neigbours were... eh... kinda 'upset' to say the least... I found nice stickers under my windscreen wipers: "Please get yourself a other car - your truck ruines the neighborhood" was nice, "Do you think the people will crouch below you and your military vehicle? Remove it from the street!" wasn't. :rant:
Things ran hot, as I forgot a can rim spray under my car and found the chevy partly repainted the next day. Luckily the chevy is "mattschwarz". :grin:

greez!
T0Mi