1932 Buick Series 80

This would be a typical basket case for Mid-Southern Restoration. The 1932 Buick series 80 was totally disassembled in Cookeville, Tennessee years ago to be restored. The frame was cleaned and painted, but then the owner passed away. His son has since decided to get this large classic put back together. Intimidating at first, we hauled all the mechanical parts over to the shop. No one knew the condition of the motor, so it was decided to put together and try to test start. The clutch was rebuilt and the motor was set in the frame. Not an easy task because this motor tips the scale at over 1000 LBS. Once the motor was in place, it was discovered that the updraft carburetor was broken and could not be used. Parts for this car are almost nonexistent. Using our mechanical knowledge, we decided to flip the intake over and fabricate an adapter. Then, we were able to install a new two-barrel Holley. This worked out perfect as the old Straight 8 roared back to life and is really responsive thanks to the induction system. With the main chassis complete for now, the body was brought over after a Soda blast job to remove old paint. The old body was in nearly perfect condition with very minimal rust.

The Big Buick is complete now and is awesome. To top off a nice project the owner agreed to purchase a NOS 32 Buick Flying Lady radiator cap. This project was time consuming and a hard car to find parts as it is rare. This was an expensive car at the height of “he Great Depression”. Not many were built and it seems like in the old days the cars were reengineered yearly so interchangeability is low. Here at MidSouthern Restoration we have many connections for finding old rare parts.