Like many of you guys, I have always had a thing for classic cars. The early ones were the $300 to $500 rot-box daily drivers that l had back in the 80's when in High School; I had a whole bunch of early bugs, several muscle cars and a few 914's. Even though some of these early ones were rusty, cheap transportation, I always fixed them up and took care of them.
Back in 1995 I was living in California and got the itch for a new toy. I looked for a rust free late 60's vintage car to take back East and found a 1968 Buick Skylark Custom convertible. It was a base model car that needed a new top but it was an Arizona car with an absolutely mint body and interior. The Buick was yellow with a white interior, tons of chrome, skirts on the rear fenders and whitewall tires on factory rally rims. It looked like a car someone’s grampa should be driving. It was exactly what I was looking for, so I bought it and I shipped it back East. When I got back home I found a matching convertible 1968 Skylark GS-400 rot-box that had a 430 big block in it, completely rebuilt the engine & drivetrain and combined the two cars into one. She was a tank, handled like shit but was a big, comfortable ride and the ultimate sleeper; it was insane how fast this car was. It was also a great tow vehicle as it had tons of power. I would constantly drag my boat up to the lakes in New Hampshire in the summer.
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I had more fun driving this road that led out to the beach that was a popular hangout. The road was nothing but a series of closely spaced stoplights. I constantly had kids pulling up beside me wanting to race, and the Skylark would blow the doors off everything; newer Mustangs, IROC's and all the ricer BS. I would have guys pulling over at the beach asking to see what I had in it for an engine, and they couldn’t believe it when I would open the hood and a completely stock looking engine was sitting in there. Ahhh, nothing like a big block.
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I had lots of fun with the car and have a ton of good memories but for whatever reason I got tired of it and decided to sell her. I sold it back in 2002 to a guy who lives somewhat local to me. I found out where he lived one day when I drove by & saw the Skylark in his driveway. I stopped in and talked with him for a while and politely gave him grief when I realized that the car had been living outside uncovered since I sold it to him
(like I should care, I don’t own it anymore). He claimed that he was planning on building a shop but was going to get one of those temporary garages for it until then. That was eight years ago. I drove by a few times over the years, and it would always be covered with a cheap blue tarp.It had been a long time since I had seen the car. I saw it last summer driving on the highway and was horrified when I saw how rotted the rear fenders were; the damage was so bad that it no longer had the fender skirts in place
. This car was rust free when he bought it. I was taking my 4 year old daughter to her cousin’s birthday party this afternoon in New Hampshire so I took a slight detour out of curiosity to drive by his house. I could see that my old car was sitting out in the middle of the guy’s back yard, on the lawn buried in the snow, the blue tarp covering it was all torn up and half hanging off the car. A frozen pile of snow/ iceberg was sitting directly on the top. It's not like I really miss owning the Buick, but it really bothered me seeing it today. Why would someone buy such a clean car and just let it deteriorate? Like he couldn't of bought at least a proper car cover or something for it? I truely wish I had sold the Skylark to anyone else than this clown, I can’t believe how poorly he has treated my old car.
Some people are just so clueless!
Thinking hard about selling a couple of my future projects now, probably will regret that eventually, but I can't build but so many in my time 
