By Antti Kautonen
Amsterdam isn’t just a haven for old European cars. Quite the contrary, as this 1973 Buick Regal Landau shows. We saw it on our way towards the Jordaan area, after having a quick cup of coffee and a croissant at a nice little cafe on Utrechtstraat.
Judging by the Regal’s appearance, the town’s narrow streets are just a little bit too narrow for it. I tip my hat for trying, though.
Duct taped rear corners almost merit a “There, I fixed it” mention. There’s a good amount of tape under the tail lights, too.
The Landau top is always noteworthy. I do wonder what gremlins lie underneath, since the Buick isn’t totally rust free.
To sum it up: a large green boat at a canalside. And a Dutch houseboat.
[Images: Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]
RoadworkUK
Large, old American cars in Europe always make me do a double take. The streets are narrow, parking can be a chore in a small car, and gas is outrageously expensive.
They're obviously impractical but in many cases the owner might just walk to work and grocery store so the cars get driven very little.
I'm pretty sure the duct tape has replaced the long deteriorated plastic pieces that would go there, no narrow street damage.
Exactly! That 70's plastic stuff deteriorates without any physical contact, it's an early application for high stress flexible plastics and materials available at that time just weren't up to the strain of it. Cadillac didn't seem to get it straight until a bit into the 2000's, really. I still see 90's Cadillacs with shattered plastics surrounding perfectly intact components, so they clearly didn't take a big enough hit to shatter it. Just UV and oxidation wear is enough to make them fail.
I guess one would have to spray those parts with UV protectant like 303 or similar to keep them from drying out.
You would have had to protect them in the 70's, though, and even that might not be enough. I've seen some crumbled NOS parts that have been in the box for decades and never exposed to sunlight.
I bought hard fiberglass replacements for my Cadillac. They were a third the price, and barring any impact, should last a lot longer.
Those plastic filler bits were like Mercedes' bio-degradable wiring harness insulation of the mid-90's.
A truly bad idea.
That would be a 1974 Buick Century Landau. In 1973 this car was called a Buick Century Luxus. The identifying feature is the parking/turn signal lights in the front 1973s were round while the 1974 had the rectangular ones like this example. For 1975 the parking/turn signal lights were integrated with the grille.
Nice find though, I had a 1973 Century Luxus dark blue, white Landau top, white interior with console and basket handle floor shifter.
I was on the fence about whether I should call it a Century or a Regal (the first draft actually marked it down as the former), but running the plates with https://ovi.rdw.nl/ confirmed it as a Regal.
It certainly may be titled as a Regal but the "official" name was Century Regal. http://oldcarbrochures.com/new/021110/1974%20Buic… though I don't think there were any Century badges on the exterior.
Yes, that too makes perfect sense.
Yep, it's a '74, as it has 5mph bumpers front and back. I also see an old red Arizona license plate on the back, hiding under the Finnish plate. A guy that I knew in high school had a '73 Regal Luxus coupe, triple black, with the 455. That thing was a torque monster. He later had a gold '69 Riviera, with the 430.
There are lots of Colonnades in Europe.
Dead hooker hauler from the red light district.
Anyone else find it interesting that the Arizona license plate seems to be still on there, behind the current plate?
I thought that was pretty weird. Being a red plate tells me it's been over there for a long time. According to what I can find, they were last used in 1997.
Don't you have certain people in the US using German plates on their German car? It's some kind of statement I'd guess. Or you could see it as patina. This Buick was imported into the Netherlands in 2007, when it comes to what happened between 1997 and 2007 your guess is as good as mine. I'ts not even certain the Arizona plate used to belong to the car. The owner might've gotten the plate from some kind of paraphernalia shop, who knows?
Yes, you do see German plates, either real or fake, on German cars in the US. Often they will be displayed on the front of the car in states that don't require a front plate.
Yes, you do see certain EU plates (German mostly) on the front of certain cars as mentioned above. using an EU plate on the rear of the car would have you stopped in a hurry.