Lido Lavendar '58 Buick Roadmaster Convertible

[electra225]

A friend sent me this video. He knew I was a sucker for Lido Lavendar, even if it was on a horrible '58 Buick. In fairness, this is one of the rarest '58's built, with just 1181 examples built. The video must have been taken at an all-Buick show. There is a brief shot of a '58 Limited in dark blue metallic. I couldn't resist sharing this with you guys......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBEyZm4yjLI

[William]

That's one huge car. I have never seen a Buick, or any car for that matter, that color in my neck of the woods.

Bill

[electra225]

Lido Lavendar is my all-time favorite Buick color. I really prefer it two-toned with Raven Black. Seafoam Green would be second best. I like pastels on the big Buicks. This would have been better had it been a '57 with black under the sweepspear.

[Firedome]

Love it. Olds also had similar colors. I love all the GM '58s, so over-the-top gaudy that they're cool, yet not as far-out as the crazy '59 Cad. I was going to paint my '58 Olds this lilac purple but ended up selling it as I couldn't handle no PS and the conversion was more that I wanted to deal with. To me a '50s car begs to be in lilac, salmon pink, or some other wild pastel never found in any other era, preferably one-tone or just the roof 2 tone like this Olds, as all the chrome combined with a wild color is enough for me. Here's one of my favorite Lincolns, a '56 Premiere converitble in "Wisteria". This is one of my favorite '50s cars, and has the best rear end (with the '57/58 DeSoto) of any, while the '58 Olds had my favorite front...just massive! Just looking at this makes me want another one! lol

[TC Chris]

That huge car reminded me that they all came with bumper jacks. When you jacked them up, the bumper supports flexed and the bumper ran into the bodywork, trim, etc. It was an insane system. One big advantage of modern bumpers is that the companies had to provide a variety of frame jacks.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Nobody in their right mind used a bumper jack, not even back in the day. They were never safe by any description of the word. Dad would pull off the hubcap on the offending wheel, then just "drive'er" into town. The tire would be junk, but it was anyways if it went flat.

[TC Chris]

After a few bumper jack episodes I learned to carry a scissors jack in the trunk. But geez, they sold those wretched devices with the cars and intended that they be used. Maybe it was so the bodywork would get messed up and the car would look dowdy and you'd buy a new one.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Grandpa always warned me not to use a bumper jack. If I was out and needed to get home, I'd pull the hubcap, then drive slowly. The tire was already junk if it was flat and you could get another rim out of a junkyard for almost nothing. I'd drive slow enough so as not to bang up the body with the floppy flat tire. I only did that once that I remember, on grandpa's car. He had a '31 Buick that a tree had fallen on and ruined the body. Not to worry, grandpa turned it into a truck. One bucket seat and a flatbed, no windshield, but it did have twin sidemounts and a big Straight 8. He used it for a service vehicle. I was out in it for some reason and had a flat.

[19&41]

I remember a letter in Tom McCahill's column where someone asked why they used $1.25 jacks in cars of the day. He Replied "Because they ran out of $1.00 jacks."

[electra225]

The world was a better place for having Tom McCahill in it. He said a '65 Wildcat was "hotter than a flame-eater's moustache".

[19&41]

[Firedome]

Ya I loved those Uncle Tom-isms, he was the most entertaining auto writer ever, for sure.

[electra225]

Tom hated the 1948 to 1950 Packards. "Looks like it was meant to be driven by a dowager in a Queen Mary hat"......

[Firedome]

The "pregnant elephants". As a cost saving they modernized-streamlined the old '41 Clipper body that was partly/mostly designed by "Dutch" Darrin, a classy timeless design, by filling out the sides and lowering the hood, and it ended up just looking ponderous. Then the John Reinhart "high-pockets" 1951s were also out of date the moment they were introduced, a dowdy conservative look, and like the '48, also best suited for Grandma, hardly an improvement. That and the lack of a modern V8 was a major factor in Packard's decline, a subject endlessly debated by Packardistas. It wasn't until the re-make of the '51 body by Dick Teague in '55 that they looked decently modern. He did it on a shoestring and it was amazingly successful for what he had to work with. My now gone '56 Clipper was one of the finest looking non-flashy (pre-fin era) '50s cars that I've owned imo, along with the '56 Buick and Lincoln, neither of which I've owned but would like to.