True Barn Find: 1949 Buick Super Sedan
It’s not easy to make the determination that a car is too far gone to save: Sometimes it’s too rusty, sometimes the parts and labor required are worth ten times more than the finished product, sometimes it’s a lack of interest in the model itself. Or perhaps we simply can’t see the gem beneath the layer of dust. The seller of this ’49 Super says that it is “worth a restoration,” but maybe there’s another option. Parts car? Cheap and fun “get it running” beater? Let’s take a look.
One of the first questions a potential buyer asks is “Will it run?” In this case, it currently does not, but the engine is free. The engine itself should be a 248 cubic-inch straight eight, the “small-block” of inline Buicks. These are reliable engines with decent parts availability, and their burbling idle is one of life’s great melodies. If the ad is correct, it’s backed by Buick’s famous/infamous Dynaflow, one of the smoothest transmissions to emerge from the mid 20th century, simply because it doesn’t shift. That big, long six-volt battery will have to be replaced, but they are still available and fairly reasonably priced (as far as batteries go these days).
The seller labels this car as a Special, but it’s actually a Super. The 1949 Special was based on the older prewar bodystyle, and our feature car’s trim tag labels it as a “Model 51,” which is a Super Sedan. The one-year-only 1949 body was especially attractive, and it was the first year for Buick’s famous portholes (three per side in the case of the Super).
According to the ad, this Super is straight and has a “rust-free frame.” Unfortunately, the interior is shot and there are no pictures to prove it; I can smell the rodent damage from here, and that may be the most insurmountable barrier to a restoration. Interior parts are not readily available for ’40s and ’50s Buicks (I know – I’m having my ’53 Buick’s seats redone as I write this), so the depth of decay matters at this point. Could you get by with a cheap seat cover or are the seats reduced to bare springs?
Owning a beautiful old Buick is fun, and we all love a barn find, but you’ll need to approach this one with care. It will need brakes, tires, a battery, and probably a fuel system. And then it needs interior work. It’s currently on Craigslist in Minnesota for $2,900, but it’s been posted for 24 days, so that number is most likely a starting point. Thanks to Barn Finds reader Zappenduster for finding this one for us.
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Comments
Got one in dark green & 3 speed for $75.00 in 1954. Drove the wheels off and then resold it a couple years later for $75.00. Those were the good times.
Interesting because a friend bought a1950 like this for 75 bucks in 1977 and still has it
Wasn’t trying to outdo you, just the 75 dollar price caught my attention
Well, I bet it would a lot different cleaned up, hanging on to the metaphor “barn find”, and the ’49-’50 Packard with it. For the record, while the grille is always the elephant in the room, it was not a “toothy” grin, but called a “waterfall grille”, and Harley Earl, like the portholes, was mighty proud of it. Cars back then were identified by certain features, and Buick had the grille and portholes. It was said, Earl had lights installed on his Buick portholes wired to the distributor, but never made it to production. Sorry folks, I hope the hobby isn’t as dismal as I make it out to be. I think what WILL Happen, is stuff like this will once again be cheap again. Like above said, these cars were not very collectible, a gift from Auntie when Uncle Gus died, or merely $75 dollar beaters for the winter, some beyond. The straight 8 was the pinnacle of in-line motors, not Olds V8 stuff, just a cruiser for the open road, even the lowly “Super” was a nice car. I believe the Super was 2nd up from the Special, the cheapest, and I read, Buick sold a whopping 325,000 Buicks in 1949. At just under $1500 bucks new, I think the Super was the most popular one.
What will happen to all these cars?
I think there is still a market for these old cruisers. For instance, a young friend of mine bought one when he was a teenager because he had never seen anything like it. He lavished it with new chrome (a small fortune) and of course restored all the running gear. He wanted to move on from it in his twenties and sold it, at a significant loss, to another teenager. He said he did that because he remembered how he felt when he first saw it and wanted the kid to have it. I think many of these cars will live on due to this type of youthful enthusiasm. I think many of them don’t care about being “underwater” as the jaded members of our hobby put it. I certainly don’t.
Maybe, in the very near future, the average guy can convert them to (gasp) Electric!
Good memory on the portholes, Howard! My sources say it wasn’t Earl’s personal car with the portholes but a ’48 Buick belonging to one of his designers, Ned Nickles (the same guy who drew the ’63 Riviera, my personal favorite car). Nickles’s car was set up so the portholes flashed every time a cylinder would fire so they would look like a fighter plane’s exhausts, but as you said, that part didn’t make it to production. Too bad – that would have been awesome.
Aaron , I’m wondering if a DIY installation could have been made with 8 separate neon timing lights which had two leads: one end was inserted into the plug wire and the other end was a small alligator clip which gripped the spark plug terminal . Be the only Buick owner on your block to have one !
Peter, I think this would be the car to try it on! I never heard how Nickles wired his up, but someone somewhere MUST have done it.
Coming from a region such as this car and (no offense intended) the judgement of sellers interpretation of rust free is subjective. A person from the west coast would consider very a light rust rash alot. Some one from the salt States would look at a vehicle with no metal present as no rust. Oxymoron? You have to go see and judge for your self.
NAPA has the long batteries….the cars all there….love the grill….too many 53 car projects right now or I would buy it!
I’m not sure that there are that many under thirty folks that have any interest in these old cars. They just don’t relate like we do because we remember these cars from our youth. I do know that the young people today favor performance. This Buick is the antithesis of spirited acceleration, tight handling and plenty of whoa when you need it. I’m afraid that these old “gramps” cars are heading mostly for irrelevance once we boomers can’t drive them anymore.
At Lion’s drag strip in Long Beach, CA they had a group called “ Buicks Unlimited”. All they raced were 50’s straight eights. Quite a sight!
I don’t know about “Boomers” — I belong to the “Silent” (1924-1946) Generation. But the 1949, as with the 1939, was an especially beautiful Buick. Loved that “gun-sight” hood-ornament (where is the hood, here??). The correct name for those “holes” is “Cruiseline Ventaports” — four on the Roadmaster, three on the Century and Super. I would love to own and drive a 1949 Buick. The Borg clock was an especially fine and reliable item. But Buick radios in these years tended to fail when these cars reached about 12-years-old, for some reason. They would receive only very strong local stations, then they would receive nothing at all. Packard radios, by contrast, seemed to last forever. Dynaflow was really smooooth, but it claimed a bit of gas-mileage. Raise the left tail-lamp, and fill-up the gas-tank. I love ’49 Buicks! But I would need to find a nice well-preserved survivor, having a clean original interior, not one in this sort of decayed condition, thank you. Might make a good PARTS car.
Harrison I like your style. I own a 1949 Super Sedanette. Black with Grey pinstripe interior. My gas door ison thedriver rear fender. Wide white walls and also has the dynaflow transmission. I just spent thousands of dollars in chrome and all new factory material. There is or was no rust in this car. The downside is it draws alot of attention. But it is very show quality. I had it ceramic coated. I’m not a member but I’ll have to see what I can do. I also have a 1940 Packard Senior Super 8 black that’s very nice as well as some later model stuff.
Hello, Frog: Good Stuff!!! Not sure why drawing a lot of attention is a downside, but I’ll take your word for it. I also stand corrected: I had thought that ALL 1949 Buicks had the gas-fill under the left (driver’s side) tail-lamp, not on the fender (maybe the sedanette didn’t allow room for that?). I never was crazy about the sedanette style — but many prefer it — I’m a boring four-door sedan man, myself. But,, back when these cars were new, and into the 1950s, the sedanette seemed to be the most prevalent style for the 1950 Buick, for some reason. That body type seemed to wane rather quickly after that. The sedanette version of 1949 and 1950 Chevrolet also were numerous, as were the Pontiacs and Cadillacs of 1948-1949. Is that how you remember it? — or, weren’t you around back then? (smile). I loved the ’42s when they came out, also. I’m OLD.
Harrison, The reason I brought up about the car catching everyone’s attention is they want to the cars history and mine with the car and my history and a family member or neighbor etc had one similar and on and on…. Sometimes I just don’t have the time to chitchat for literally hours if you know what I mean.
Cadillac were noted for having the gas cap under the driver taillight lense. There was a non GM car I recalled having that setup also. I believe it was discontinued due to fire hazard. Gas fumes and sparks never got along. I am a baby boomer mid 50s product. So these era cars adorned the streets. I looked forward to watching Flash Gordon and Commando Cody and other B&W television programs and the ads for car dealers with spartan options like radio heater and white wall tires offered on cars for less than $1000.
Looks like a great deal. Easy to work on, not a rust bucket. Probably best that it is far from me, at this point. Would make a great project for somebody getting into the hobby.
Hello, Frog! Thanks for the reply! I experienced the mid-fiftoes as an adult, so I have a different perspective. But I can see where being asked intrusive questions about your car, its history, etc., or being told in great detail about someone else’s experience with that kind of car, could indeed get wearing after awhile. But people often just feel a need to “relate”, and some are clumsier at it than others. I am Autistic, and so I cannot read social cues. And I can bore people or get on their nerves without realising it. And so I try to tolerate that empathetically when someone else does it — especially since I lack the silent “signals” to cue them when I’ve had enough. Wonder if the gas-fill behind the left tail-light on the 1957 Chevrolet was a fire hazard?
Harrison I don’t think the designers of this type of set up was well though out. And it continues to be that way. I don’t mean any disrespect to a
anyone but at times I may not be feeling up to talking but I’m not rude to anyone either well I shouldn’t say that. It really depends on how they approach me especially sarcasm. No one is perfect Harrison. I like to say “if there’s nothing wrong with you, then somethings wrong with you. “
Hello, Frog! No need to sound apologetic. You certainly are entitled to your own feelings and responses, and I’m sure they are merited. The funny thing about sarcasm is, I usually can’t detect it. And irony is difficult for me. Autistic people are very direct and literal. For example, if someone says, “That’s an interesting story”, I take them at their word, literally — when they might mean, “I’m not interested; you’re boring me; can’t you TELL that?” No, I can’t. But if you TELL me that I am boring you, then I understand. But most people are either indirect or even wordless with “body-language”, when they have something uncomplimentary to communicate — and I cannot detect the intended message. Autism is a social disability which is hidden in most cases (unless it is so extreme that the Autistic person is unable to communicate verbally); we APPEAR “perfectly normal and intelligent”, and so our distinct lack of social grace is not forgiven or tolerated. That is why I felt empathetic toward those whose comments have irritated you — because it would be easy for me to make a similar mistake. Oddly now, because I look “ancient”, people are more forgiving of my mis-steps in social interactions. Women used to be disgusted with me when I was young, and I had no idea then that I was Autistic. But now they smile and call me “Honey” and “Sweetheart”. I welcome that, but I find it confusing.
Thanks Harrison for the knowledge, clarity and information. We learn something new everyday. After all green things grow and ripe things rot. An example of what I was talking about are those individuals that are quick to point out flaws on a vehicle especially unsolicited.
But that can fall under a person that is negative in general. I guess negativity and sarcasm are close siblings. From your writings I perceive you as an erudite and astute person with great communication skills. I don’t like to place labels on people or things. What is “normal?” Right handed left handed? We all have strengths and weaknesses but I don’t look at that as a disability. When a person has lived well up into elder years then they have done something right.
Thank you, Frog. When someone seeks flaws and defects in someone else’s pride-and-joy, that usually means that the “critic” who can’t seem to resist finding fault, suffers from a low value on himself and compensates by denigrating you. As for me, I only SOUND “astute”: Autistic young children can seem like “little professors” or “walking dictionaries” — but that hyper-ability with words conceals a severe handicap presenting massive deficits in other areas. I was reading and writing before age three, and the things I wrote persuaded some adults that I should be groomed to be a author. But Autism covers a combination of flashes in genius with profound disabilities which often come unexpected — especially when the Autism is undiagnosed. I was regarded as “gifted” when I was little, but also as an idiot. And my parents believed that the stupidity I displayed at times was a malicious pretence, and not real. But it was totally real — I was that dense. Autistic people can excel in highly limited and narrow ways (the three-year-old who knows every train schedule — or, in my case, every make, model, and year, of every car on the road). The Autistic child appears utterly self-absorbed and socially-aloof, obsessed with one or two unusual interests — inclined to line toys up exactly in a neat row, instead of playing with them. And the Autistic toddler usually will resist interacting with others and might scream in distress if touched or hugged. I always knew that there was something odd about me, and that I suffered from disabilities no-one else could see. I felt isolated and hated everywhere I went, no matter how nice I tried to be. It was only AFTER I was diagnosed, that I was able to process how and why I irritated people. And I was enabled to surrender the bitterness I had felt over the decades of abuse, and become set free by forgiving everyone, because it wasn’t their fault. But it wasn’t mine, either. I am so grateful that now Autistic children are identified and receive intensive social therapy to help them more effectively interact with others. I HATED being told that I was my own worst enemy (although I now see that was true). And, “Look me in the EYE when I am speaking to you!” was the most oppressive of all: it is intensely painful for an Autistic person to look someone in the eye — but someone who isn’t Autistic has no way to know that. I hope this doesn’t bore you. Thanks again, Frog, for your kind words.
By the way, I am left-handed also. My other comment seems to have vanished!
Harrison thank you for enlightening me more about autism. No you aren’t boring me and I hope other readers are profiting from your writings as well. A friend’s grandson has autism. He’s a savant as well. I used to take care of him as a small child. He’s graduating next year from high-school. I was going to buy him a car but he has no interest in driving. We live to learn then we learn to live.
Brief summation on why I am known as the frog and it’s symbolic meaning. Frogs symbolize fertility meaning they don’t and won’t colonize on polluted toxic or contaminated land or water. Conversely I add people to this category as well. I am a sigma male and unlike alphas I don’t crave attention I’m not a follower nor a leader. I think outside of the box and color outside of the lines. They are masters at hiding in plain sight. I’ve been labeled as strange but I welcome and embrace that. I prefer solitude but mix well socially in the right crowd. I have a passion for vehicles older ones especially which is my attraction to this site.
Although it attracts many with varied interests ideas opinions it’s good connecting with those who share some common things.
I should probably clear the air about the boredom comment. When I am out in one of my vehicles traveling to a destination on a time compliance schedule sometimes I don’t have much time to talk in detail about the vehicle and sometimes the crowds start to grow. So it may appear to others that I am being rude or bored. I just don’t have the time to talk in length but I thank them just the same for the compliments and interest.
I hope this clears things up. And thank you for sharing your valued background on autism.
Thank you, Frog. I think I understand better now. In some ways, you sound like me (THAT might be scary for you — smiles and grins). I was not truly a savant, though I could read at age 2-1/2 and could write soon after. I began repairing watches and clocks at age five, and developed a system for repairing phonograph records back then, which I still use to this day. Sadly, I’ve been unsuccessful at teaching it to anyone: when they try it, they invariably destroy the record they mean to repair. I am a watchmaker by trade (small surprise there!). My daughter, however, who is NOT on the Autism spectrum, beat me handily on both reading and writing. Like her mother, but not like me, she was an early talker. “Hi” and “bye” (appropriately used) came at five months. By six months, she said each of our names and other single words (and she would copy the last parts of things said to her or around her). Seven months brought simple sentences, to tell us what she needed or wanted, or to just express something. By nine months, you could hold a lucid conversation with her on the ‘phone (as long as someone held the receiver). She never used “baby-talk”, though she had a sing-songy way, sometimes, with things she said; I thought it was cute, and I would repeat her words just as she said them. However, at 11 months, she said, “Stop copying me!” She loved being read to. And at 15 months, she asked me why I always said the same words on the same pictures. When I explained to her the process of reading, and that the words were right there on each page, she allowed as how SHE wanted to do that. And when I told her that she would learn how later-on, she said, “YOU know how: TEACH me… NOW.” And she MEANT it. So I did, and she learned very fast. By age 19 months, she could read most anything you handed to her, or she picked up to read for herself. I also taught her to write. So, at age 23 months, at McDonald’s, she would write something to me on a napkin, and I would write back. She loved doing this back-and-forth. Other patrons would watch in disbelief. At age 2, she couldn’t be bothered with television — she liked reading better. It is astounding, though, when an infant can talk, how much you discover that they know, and how many nuances they are aware of! WATCH what you SAY around a baby — they pick up on most of it!
Harrison according to society, we are not the “norm.” When I was a child I used to roam the alleyways and find discarded electronics radios clocks electric razors and small appliances and bring them home and dismantle them curious how they worked. Before that I took a fingernail file and opened up my parents electric clock on their dresser curious what made those hands move. I got in big trouble over that.
I didn’t do the normal things as a kid. Didn’t hang out at the park playing ball. Age 9 I would hang out at the library used my money to to buy science magazines, readers digest and had a strong fascination with outerspace. (Still do). At 12 I also started hanging out at the service station watching the mechanics work and curse at cars. I learned quite the vocabulary too=).
I have a son who after his first step never walked, he RAN from one piece of furniture to the next. He would scream if confined to a high chair or crib. Never liked being held when he was a baby either until a few years older. But only if you was holding something that captured his interest. He was diagnosed with ADHD and put on meds which was a fight to make him take it. He would put them under his tongue and spit them out when I wasn’t looking. He never studied read or looked at something once and had it memorized. Never showed his work formulas in mathematics and they wanted to fail him because of it. His mind was always racing too fast and he got bored with the slow pace of the class and the medication was like a chain on his brain.
He was a straight A student all the way through college and is an engineer now. So society wants to place labels on advanced souls by calling it handicapped or disabilities because it’s not the “normal.” I’m glad I don’t fit in and I’m not normal.
I forgot to add my son also plays piano, guitar, clarinet alto and baritone saxophones and drums. At age 13 he was playing well enough to travel with the college band but didn’t want to. He kept dad broke and tired.
Frog: Your son sounds like someone on the Autism spectrum, and you might be “on the border” of it, yourself. I also worked on radios as a child. And I had ZERO attraction to playing in sports or using cap-pistols to act out shooting other boys. I did enjoy rooting for the Boston Braves, and I continued when they moved to Milwaukee (1953, as I recall). But when they took the Dodgers out of Brooklyn, then formed the Mets, sent the Braves to Atlanta, and made players free agents, all of that ruined it for me. Back “in the day”, a team were a TEAM, and you loyally rooted for the same players every year — they were not traded-off to other teams. And each team had a strong identity with the City where they were located. But the Athletics left Philadelphia, and the whole thing just became a mess in my mind. The thing that caught my attention in your comments was that rebellion against “SHOW YOUR WORK!” in mathematics: I had the same problem and was failed for the same reason. You see, they had FORMULAE for solving everything, which were snail-slow and ran counter to my mind. You showed me the problem, and I instantly had the answer, without going THROUGH all of that. When asked to EXPLAIN how I got it, I found that difficult, because the process happened so fast that it was very hard to isolate each step. I was accused of having a “cheat-sheet” with the answers. Finally, one day, the principal made up his own set of math problems and placed them in front of me while he watched. And I simply wrote the answers and was done in less than a minute with the entire page. Since his problems had not come from a book, he had no answer-sheet, and he had to figure out each one to see if I was right (and I was). He said he’d never seen a child DO that before. But I was SOOOO backward in so many other areas!!! Autistic people tend to be relentless and persevering, the fabled “single-track mind”; whereas, “neuro-typical” people (those who are not Autistic) are more inclined to go from this to that, sampling various aspects of knowledge. If you are dealing with someone who can skip meals and forego sleep in pursuit of something, oblivious to the deprivations, you just MIGHT be encountering an Autistic person. And if they totally don’t “get” tact and many jokes, that is further confirmation. There was a popular song in the 1920s, “She’s Such A Comfort To Me”, and it had one line in it to which I especially related:
If I tell a joke on Monday,
She won’t leave me in the lurch:
Six days later on a Sunday,
She laughs out loud in church”
If someone doesn’t become lonely in their own company and seems socially “clueless”, that is more of the picture. If they don’t like to join with others in a project, but feel comfortable working alone — if they get anxious around GROUPS of people, as opposed to just one other person, that is more evidence. If going to a party is their idea of hell on earth, then you might have an Autistic person.
Some further thoughts, Frog: looking at something once, and having it memorised, also sounds like an Autist. But perhaps the biggest indicator is the raft of severe social problems. The Autistic child is hated and bullied, for one thing. They have no ability to tell when it is their turn to talk, and they can get on ONE SUBJECT, giving you a verbal BOOK about every aspect of it. They either are extraordinarily shy and quiet, so you almost don’t know they’re there; or else they NEVER SHUT UP!” The latter was my problem: I was accused of having been vaccinated with a Victrola needle. And I had no appreciation for the reality that, simply because something interested ME (“ad nauseum”, as my mother used to say), this did NOT mean that OTHERS would find it fascinating. Autism is a social disability which is profound. Complicating matters, we cannot “read” silent signals or intuit sarcasm. We are VERBAL, only, very literal and direct: subtlety is NOT our forte! Our default is honesty, which can be refreshing… or, NOT. “TELL, me, Harrison; do you think I look fat in this dress?” “Yes you do, Mrs. Nolan.” “Oh, dear! — I’d better put on a DIFFERENT one, then.” “WHY? — you look fat in ALL your clothes — you ARE CORPULANT, Mrs. Nolan.” Yes, I actually responded that way, much to my shame now. But you see, for me, “fat” is neither a negative nor a positive — it is simply a candid observation — I intended no insult; I was just answering her question. You see NOW how an Autistic person can get into social trouble really fast? It took fifteen years of adult therapy to teach me how to get on with people — and I’m still dreadfully clumsy at it, especially “on the fly” with no chance to pre-plan a response. I’m a “work in progress”.
Harrison I’m sure you have seen the movie “Rain man.” That introduced me to extraordinary people with gifts others WISHED they had but then again it can be a curse in the wrong hands. Notice here how I elude the words “handicap and disability.”
I am predominantly left handed and at a very early age (preschool) was told it was wrong and I had to use and do things with my right hand.
Semantically speaking society has conjured up this rule book where you don’t color outside of the lines. You don’t think outside of the box. In other words you have to fit in to get in. And if you deviate away from the rules you are labeled an outcast, deviant, martyr etc. I may be autistic and if so I am proud to be different and not fit in with the sheep and lemur. And you should be also. We were born way ahead of our time. Advanced souls trying to adapt to an archaic way of life. Only to be persecuted, disparaged and silenced by an egotistical society. I’ve taught my son that he doesn’t have to seek or gain acceptance or approval from anyone. True knowledge is powerful. Love yourself. People envy that. Bullies hate that because they cannot and are not happy or love themselves. Imagine how much further we would be if this world was ran by “disabled or handicapped ” people. Yes I know I only used those words for illustration.
Hello, Frog! Yes, I saw, “Rain Man” (LOVED that ’49 Buick!). That movie brought Autism out into the open of public consciousness — a needed thing — but unfortunately, it also perpetuated and reinforced some unhappy stereotypes on how Autistic people are. But it was a pioneering film, important for us — it made us visible. Autistic people have “boxes”, too — the difference is, ours are outside of theirs. So, we seem to be “outside the box”. I do not see us as being “ahead-of-our-time”, though. When one reads the words of long-gone forebears, it is sobering to see how much we can learn from what they realised. It’s all one human experience, after all. And the “mainstream” in every age seems to be the inverse of creativity and advances in philosophy: those who moved humanity forward always seemed to be reviled in their own time as “out-liers” by the “concensus” or (what we now call) “the narrative”.