I got my first car just before Christmas of 1958. I had turned 16 on Thanksgiving Day. My parents had told me that if I wanted a car, I needed to save the money to buy one so I had been selling greeting cards and Christmas cards for two or three years and saving the majority of what I made. I paid $275 cash for a 1951 Buick Special two-door sedan. As my uncle used to refer to it as a three holer. The Roadmster and the Super were four holers and I had a three holer.

It was the ugliest two-tone green you have ever seen in your whole life but it ran, had a good radio and it was MINE. It had belonged to the Chevrolet-Buick dealers son-in-law so it had been taken care of and was in nice shape. I had one of those big old long block Buick overhead valve straight eight engines. Tons of torque but was definitely not fast in short distances. It had the old two speed Dynaflow automatic transmission. It took five miles to get it rolling and then another mile to get it stopped once it got going but it was a really good riding car because it was heavy and had a longer wheelbase than the Fords and Chevys. I thought I was pretty special because I had a Buick that I bought myself and most of the rest of the kids had a Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth if they had their own car. Some of the farm kids had old pickups. Mine was the only Buick in the High School parking lot.

Back in the late fifties was when the car clubs were a big thing and we had our car club in Bayard. The "Coachmen" was the name of our club, and we had plaques made and got jackets and were right up town for a town of 1200 people. We had a local mechanic and a local body shop owner that were sort of our sponsors and we could use their shops and tools and all we had to pay for was the parts or the paint, the labor was free.

Of course like any kid back then, I had to change things so the first thing I did was split the exhaust manifold and put dual exhaust with Glass pack mufflers on it. If you have never heard a straight eight with duals and glass packs, well there is nothing that sounds remotely like it. It was cool sounding but was not real loud.

Then came getting rid of that ugly two tone green paint. I sanded it all down and removed the hood ornament and deck ornament (nosed and decked it) and paint4d it a 1956 Buick Claret Red Metallic on the top (kind of a garnet color) and 1959 Buick Glacier White on the bottom. It was a real bright white and it really looked sharp. It had 1959 Dodge Spinner hubcaps with narrow white wall tires.

Now that it looked good, we had to hop up the motor some so we bored it out .125 (1/16th of an inch) and put in a aluminum pistons and a 3/4 race cam. We added three two barrel carburetors with chrome air cleaners. Those old Buicks had the hood release on both sides and opened from the sides. If you pulled both releases you could set the hood right off on the ground and run around with the hood off where everybody could see the three carbs and the spotless engine with a big chrome valve cover. It really turned out to be a pretty neat little car. It still was not fast in the quarter mile because of the transmission and the gearing but watch out in five miles. After being bored and all it had almost 400 cubic inches. If I ever raced anybody it had to be at least five miles. It took a ways to get wound up but she had a heck of a top end.

That old Buick was my pride and joy and I have fond memories of my first car, I sometimes wish that I still had it. It would be worth a lot more today than what I had in it. It was a neat first car.

Learn more about this author, Bill Whitney.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about First car memories?
We want to hear your view. Write now!