Abandoned Buick Rescued
There was something oddly familiar about a rather dishevelled and sad-looking Buick when images of it first popped up on editor Ben Klemenzson’s phone: “I recognised it immediately as the ’66 Buick Skylark GS which had belonged to Lawrence Millet of American car dealers Bauer Millett, Manchester, who were, at the time, the only authorised GM dealers in the UK. I’d written a feature on the car back in July 1996, while I was still a rookie on the magazine, having only started six months earlier as the deputy editor.
“I remember Classic American publisher Steven Myatt and myself going out to Lawrence Millet’s house in Didsbury to collect the car and then taking it for a photoshoot. It shared a garage with a red RollsRoyce Silver Shadow convertible and a Corvette. Whether the car was his or was actually stock from his dealership I don’t recall.” How it came to be in this sorry state 28 years later doesn’t take a lot of detective work either and is a sorry tale that will be familiar to any classic car fan.
It must have been sold either before Lawrence Millett’s death in 2005 or shortly thereafter, as the scrap company (yes really!) that contacted us said: “The car was owned by an elderly man who had intentions to restore it but passed away. He had parked it on a vicarage car park to do it up and it’s been there ever since, for around 20 years. It does need a lot of work; the bodywork is in great condition, but the wings and back seats are missing. We think he took the wings off to get the engine out. We have the engine; it looks like it’s been stripped down. The distributor and the carburettor are missing. We have been given the car as the vicarage gentlemen is moving on and needs it removing.”
And there you have it. The old ‘I’m going to do it up one day’ scenario and its rather sad finale. The good news is that the car has been rescued and won’t be going to a crusher any time soon, although that’s all the owner of the vicarage thought the car was: scrap metal. Watch out for an update next month…
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