History OLD photo... Wild 42 Buick

Has anymore ever seen this wild '42 Buick? I went to a swap meet and found a couple of very old pics, which appear to be from the 1940's. The guy I got them from said he bought these at an estate sale in St. Louis. I've been looking at stuff like this my whole life but I have never seen this one in any magazine or book...

I see a number of interesting things here, besides the fact that it was chopped. It also has a boat tail which appears to be kind of pointy... The doors have had the lower bulges removed, and in turn, the openings at the rear of the front fenders appear to have little grilles, from what I can see.

The sidemounts kill me... That's also what makes me think this is a very early build, at least for St. Louis....

Does anyone know anything about this car?

 

I don't know anything about it, but I'd like to.

 

Pretty cool looking early custom.

 

I can't recall ever seeing another early custom that had dual sidemounts, especially not mounted where these are. I have seen a handful of early roadsters that had them behind the doors but that trend seemed to die out sometime in the very early 20's...

I wish I had Photoshop. I'd like to see what this would look like without them...

 

The reason is clear.... it's butt ugly!! LOL

It's neat to see what someone did back then, but the missed the styling cues that were needed!!

 

The extreme shortness of the front doors and the shape of the rear quarter window makes me think this was a 4 door sedan that had the rear of the roof slid forward and the roof height was chopped at least enough to match the rear roof section's height to the taller height of the door. Then I'd bet the resulting gap in the rear was filled in with another car's hood to make the boat tail.

Not the smoothest custom ever but a lot of very difficult work went into building it and with a bit of finesse it could be really neat. The passing mirror, hood ornament and side mount tires really stick out on it but they are far from the only modifications done here, the sheetmetal work is pretty extensive. Even as-is, it's a very cool look into early custom car building, tacked-on accessories and all.

 

Sorry, but there's a reason no one has seen it. It's ugly. Even for the suspected time period. Makes me think.... "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

 

I might make a guess that it isn't a boat tail. I think it may be a box in the back, like a truck. It could have been a service car for a garage. More function than form.