Planes, Trains and Automobiles was hands down a great flick. Contrastingly, today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe 6.2 Diesel-converted Roadmaster is kind of plain, sounds like a train, and upon close examination, appears to be an automobile. But is its price all that and a bag of popcorn?
Baby got back - Squareback that is - and along with a non-jaw dropping price made for a lot of likey-likey from the commenters, and a 77% Nice Price win for yesterday's 1966 VW Type 3. That love shown was despite the fact that the Vee-Dubb was old, slow and noisy.
In contrast, today's 1991 Buick Roadmaster is, well, old, slow and noisy. But at least it's ginormous, smelly and uncouth, sort of like John Candy's character in PT&A. Despite what some of you ‘youngin's' might think, the Roadmaster is not an ass-kicking horror film about a deranged lunatic plying deserted highways in search of randy teens to murder in clever and grotesque ways, and who ends up being revealed to have been the undisclosed deformed brother of the highway patrolman who finally takes him down. Or does he?
In fact, Buick decided in 1936 to replace all their model numbers with names, and the 80 became the Roadmaster. Non-celibate teens had nothing to fear from the baroque beasts, and in 1958, the name was put out to pasture. Having not gone too far a field, it was resurrected in 1991 for Buick's B-body wagon. At 218 inches long, and nearly 80 inches wide, it's hard to imagine that the '91 Roadmaster was representational of the down-sized B-bodies from GM. Of course back then the SUV hadn't killed of the station wagon like it was some kind of fornicating teens that had chosen unwisely the location of their booty call.
This one used to have wood on the sides, but at some point that got effed up and so off it came. It also used to be painted white, but like the vinyl trees, that's but a memory. But the biggest change that has happened to this Roadmaster is under the hood, where, instead of Chevy's LO3 5.0 V8, you'll find a Detroit Diesel 6.2. Dah, dah, dahhh.
The current owner and seller of this loco-locomotive didn't undertake the conversion to compression ignition, but does handily provide a link to the longroof forum were the builder details the work involved. It took more than just popping out the gas engine, and dropping in the clackity-clacker, as required were significant modifications to the oil pan, relocation of the ABS pump, and a diesel torque converter for the transmission to account for the change in the power curve.
A four-row radiator, and a bunch of other mods made the diesel not only fit, but run and get pretty good MPGs in the Enterprise Class Buick. And then for some reason it sat for a good long time. The current owner says he picked it up, threw a couple of new batteries in it (yeah, two - this engine runs 22:1 compression) and got it back on the road again. A Christmas miracle didn't occur leaving he and his diesel soot-coated wife stranded, and the edict was issued that the car had to go.
So now here it is offered up on Canada's socialist version of Craig's List - Everybody's List. Actually it's listed on UsedOttowa.com which is a perfect place if you're Canadian to list a used auto, eh? Along with the new batteries, it has springs claimed out of a 442, and a recent, and aggressively-geared 700r4 transmission. It also still rocks the Detroit Diesel smoker and you can marvel at its cold weather starting ability in the seller's YouTube video:
All that clattering will either drive you nuts or make you pine for a resurgence of Trucker's Caps and CB radios. You won't be listening to the radio because only the back speakers work, according to the ad, and you might want to invest in some POR as the fender below the fuel filler has the big C.
Other than that, there's not much to say about it other than it's big enough to live in, and the seller says he gets 30+mpg Canadian, which is like, around 25 U.S., I think. Also, it costs $2,000.
What's your take on two grand for a massively obese smoker that's loud and not the least politically correct - and isn't Rush Limbaugh? Is that a price that should have this rattling in some new owner's driveway right away? Or, would you have to be loco to pay that much for this locomotive?
You decide!
UsedOttowa.com or go here if the ad disappears. Thanks to Jake and the Fat Car for the tip!
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