1953 Buick Super Estate Woody Station Wagon in Yellow & Ride on My Car Story with Lou Costabile

Hi, I'm Lou with another episode of My Car Story. Today I'm in Yuma, Arizona at midnight at the Oasis and I'm at Alex. Alex, your last name? Rude. And he has a great car. What year, make, and model is this one? It's a 1953 Buick Super Estate Wagon. And even the birds like this Buick. Let's take a look at our featured attraction. We'll come right down here. And well, it is a super. And well, as you can see, it clearly is super. Alex, how long have you had this car? I've had this car now for three months. Three months. So how did you acquire this car? Well, I was trying to sell my 71 Pontiac Grand Prix and I found the ad in Facebook. And the guy on the Facebook ad asked for a trade for a 1970s car. Mine was a 71 Pontiac. He fell in love with it and I fell in love with the Buick. So we traded. That's it. That's a great trade. Come on back. I just want to show that bumper. And I want to stand right back. Let's move back just a second. I want to give people that shot right there. Wow. So your first car that is a Woody. The very first car, yes. How did you feel getting yourself a car like this? Absolutely ecstatic. I couldn't wait to take the car home. This is amazing, too. I see we've got the three portholes there. That's a super feature. The more expensive ones have the four ports. Gotcha. But I'm not sure we're going to see many with four ports. And take a look at the wood on this car. Just fantastic. Wow. Well, that's just great. We're going to turn it around for you, but let's take one more walk back before we go under the hood. I want to just feature that chrome there. You can see that chrome does that kind of waterfall drop off there. That's kind of a Buick trademark. Right. It just looks fantastic. With the antenna up on the front, let's pop the hood, shall we? Okay. We've got the curved glass. Apparently no wipers needed. We'll have to get you some wipers someday. Well, I've got the wipers for it, but this is Arizona. Yeah, we don't need wipers in Arizona. There you go. Lots of sun. Now I know someone right off the bat is going to say that's a Cadillac air intake. You are correct. However, you can see that this is the Fireball V8. 322 cubic inches. 322. Very first year of that motor. Got it. And we've got our VIN tag there. As you can see, we have our oil filler there. Now it was probably a six volt. No, this is actually a 12 volt. Oh really? Yeah, this is the very first year of the 12 volts. Is that right? Yeah. That's good to know. I would have thought that would have been right at that time frame in that as well. Wow, it looks great. And that helps too, being a 12 volt, right? Starts right up. Oh yes. Let's do just that. Let's fire it up, shall we? Okay. Smooth. Let me have you stand there for just a second. Okay. I'm going to listen to the exhaust. Can you step on the brakes for a moment? There's our brake lights. Here's our exhaust. Wow. Is that quiet? Alex, give it a rev. One more time. Nice. You can see the grass, little fire breathing dragon. And we're going to turn that one around. So as we look at the back end of this one, well, there's lots to take in there. First of all, you could see all of the great wood. And as we get a little bit closer, you have this big chrome piece here with your reverse lights, that Buick eight with the super listed and all the beautiful woodworking with the rocket and like tail lights. Let's open this up, shall we? We'll show them how this works. Turn the handle. It latches there. You can see how this mechanism pulls there. You grab your two handles here and you get the beautiful wood paneling down here. And clearly you can see where the tire this lifts up and your tires there. So we've got two rows of seats. All right. And we'll close that. Nice. How it even has like those chrome pieces, just like, so we'll step back from it and give him this beautiful shot here. That's just fantastic. Obviously the gas goes in right here. I like how this door's got a lot going on. You've got the sculpting here, this here. May I open it? Yes. Thank you. And as we go for this door handle here, we open up the wood. You can see this has the time period, correct child seat at the time. There's your wood from the inside with the hinges, the hood liner, nice solid Buick sound, the Iona body there, manufacturer. You've got your green interior with your yellow. People can tell us what color yellow it is. Let me just do this for just a second. Let people kind of take that in. Now this is an automatic, correct? Yes it is. Yeah. So that's just the parking brake there, or the release of the parking brake. Yes. Got it. And then this is your hood latch? Yes. Got it. Wipers, cold and hot. What's the red button for the brake when it's on? That's yeah, when the brake is on, the red light comes on. The big banjo steering wheel with the power steering listed there. Notice your park, neutral, drive, low, reverse, all the way to the right. And there's your speedometer. We have the Buick radio, some ashtrays on each side, clearly marked the heater, the lights, the air vents, the lighter, the defrost. And over here, your gas gauge, your on off, the clock, and the optional tissue box. And then you have this heater control as well. It's really neat how you have the push buttons at the Buick. And that's for your antenna, just like so, with the wood even that comes around here. That's great. Well, Alex, I think we need to take this thing for a ride. Okay, let's do that. The 1953 Buick Super Estate Wagon. Alex, how's it feel driving it? It's nice. It's like driving a big, comfortable couch. Let me show people a little bit of the couch. Oh my gosh, it takes us right back to 1953, doesn't it? Yes, it does. Holy cow. Now, what was your wife's name is Fawn. What was her reaction when she saw the car? When I put it in the garage, she looked at it, she said, shoot. That's when I knew I had a winner. That's when you got a winner. Take a look at the nice California mountains in the background. And as we drive right down here, what a beautiful little stretch of road we have for this car. Now, have you put many miles on? Probably about three, four hundred miles on it. Okay. In the three months that I've owned it. And just to get used to the car, find out what it needs. And so it's been, it's really been a very bulletproof car. Tell me about Iona, correct? Yeah, Iona. Yeah, that's apparently what happened was when the Buick was built, it was, it was probably very laborious for the, to do the wood. Yeah, to do the wood and everything else. And so consequently, they farmed the car out like Mercedes does to their AMG cars. Right. And so they did the same thing with Iona. They're the ones that actually put the cars together. Well, I'll tell you, this is a great car. I just want to keep showing people how's this, a little ride in the desert for you. In 1953, it would have looked just like this. What a great cruiser. Show people a little bit of the countryside, a little bit of the mountains out there. What a fun car. What a fun time. Alex, thanks so much for being on my car story. Oh, listen, it's my pleasure. Absolutely my pleasure. Thank you. I'm glad to share this car with the world. My pleasure too.