By MMC member Dan Albert

The 1966 Electra sat in a field along Route 130 in New
Hampshire. The sign covering the entire windshield read
“$3800.” We had just crossed the border from Massachusetts on
the way to drop my youngest at summer camp. It was a joyful
drive with fine weather and a daughter in eager anticipation of
being with camp friends she hadn’t seen in two years. As an
added bonus, these New Hampshire roads are something of an
open air car museum: we slow down for anything older than
1978.

I’ve had a few vintage cars over the years: a ’78 Dodge
D100 pickup in two-tone Adventurer trim, ’68 Ford Country
Sedan wagon, a ’76 Buick Estate wagon, and a ’72 Beetle that I
converted to electric. But now we have teenagers, and I have
perpetual home repairs, and a small fleet of old – old, not
vintage – vehicles to look after. There’s always an oil change to
do, brake fluid to flush, or a black box trouble code that needs
diagnosing. My wife egged me on rather insistently this time
though. Later, I told her. Someday. But on the return trip, less
one camper, we decided to stop. This would be my someday.

I could convince myself that the car and I were meant
for each other. We were born the same year and, although I’ve
been promiscuous over the years, growing up our set all owned
Buicks and Oldsmobiles. It was big. I like big. I liked the faded
Arctic White over the maroon interior and the fender skirts. It
had a newish top in good shape, which would cut my losses,
worse case scenario. And between the decent top and what
looked to be replaced floorboards, I expected to be able to at
least get it on the road fairly quickly. Yes, it violated all the
rules of buying an old car, the most well known of which is
don’t buy a car sitting in a field beside the road in New
Hampshire and all the cancerous rust that implies. But I figured
I could call the number on the door and arrange to meet the
seller when we returned to pick up Rachael in several weeks.
That would give plenty of time for my ardor to cool. The guy
showed up in five minutes.

He was in the auction business and had bought the car
from a sort-of friend who had moved to Florida. The trunk was
full of parts but precisely what was in there would remain a
mystery until I found a screwdriver long enough to reach the
latch. (Fortunately, I later found the lock inside the trunk.) The
engine looked like an engine – I was ignorant of the venerated
Nailhead – minus the carburetor, which his father-in-law had
taken off and was rebuilding. That was a big selling point for
me, not because I haven’t rebuilt a carburetor, but because it
meant the car was being loved, after a fashion. I’d think about
it. I called him three days later, haggled pro forma on price, and
had the car trucked down without giving it a second look.

The hotshot showed up with my new prized possession
by the end of that week. The driver patiently and expertly
landed her in the curve of our driveway. Looking down on it
from the front steps my son said, “Oh, now I understand what
you’ve been talking about all these years about America and
cars and stuff.” Our house was built in 1968, so together, car
and house, they might have been in a magazine ad from the
Mad Men era.

I’m a historian by training, so I dove immediately into
the car’s history. The build code on the body tag read “10E,”
meaning she came off the line in the fifth week of the tenth
month of the year. Only two days fit that description in 1966:
Sunday the 30th and Monday the 31st. The car was born on
Halloween! Yes, at some point I’ll have to find out whether
Flint One ran on the Lord’s Day that week, and, if so, whether
the archives record which day unit 42,464 was built, but for
now it was built on Halloween. That’s my story and I’m sticking
to it.

There are some mysteries, at least to me, on the tag.
There’s a random W and an equally random ✩ [star: U+2730]
the manual doesn’t explain. The engine block has what looks to
be a teardrop shaped arrow pointing to some raised bumps. One
Googled source speculates that it indicates the shift number of
the men who cast the block. As a historian though I need a
second and more authoritative source.

Much as we enjoyed admiring it in front of the house,
I had made this mistake of lowering the top, which was now
stuck in the down position. The blue tarp really ruined the Mad
Men tableau when it rained. It took me a couple of days to get it
started and running just well enough to pull it into the garage. It
had no brakes so that maneuver, including a three point turn out
on the street, was accomplished by shifting between forward
and reverse, motor boat style.

It’s been two months of surprises, some amusing, some
expensive. The rearmost body mount on the driver’s side looked
odd when I pulled it out. “Made in Czechoslovakia,” it said. I
was pretty sure GM didn’t source parts from that part of the
world during the Cold War. Clearly some hockey fan had
improvised. In any event, I didn’t have a proper body mount on
hand, so back in it went. When I pulled the right rear drum, I
discovered that the backing plate was completely stripped. A
loaded backing plate from Arizona, including shipping, cost a
lot more than it would have back when u-pick local junk yards
could still be found.

In a few rare moments of weakness I wonder if I
haven’t bought a bill of goods or bitten off more than I can
chew. But no matter how my Buick saga ends, I’ll always
remember that drive to camp; it felt like we were breathing
again for the first time since the lockdowns began. I’ll always
remember when I first spied the Electra sitting in the proverbial
field. Now, as I work on my Buick, I remember that warm day
in June. That was my someday.