Hazel was my third car. I bought her when I was 17 and I thought I was staying in El Paso for college. Plans change and I ended up going far far away for a long time so she sat in my parents yard collecting dust for about 9 years until I bought my house. At that point I decided that she had to come home before the neighborhood kids did something like break her curved windshield or rear window (imagine how much it would suck to replace those).

So I rented a towing trailer, strapped her in and brought her home. After an interesting battle of wits and wills between her, the alley and us (picture Austin Powers, where he gets the cart stuck in a hallway....) she finally found her way into her new home, my garage :).

53buickflt.jpg - This is more or less what I want Hazel to look like when I'm done with her. I'm not sure if I'll chop her quite like that much, but I really dig the stainless steel on black look.

before-hazel.jpg - This is what Hazel looked like after about 9 years of sitting in my parents' yard. (long story to be filled in later)

hazel-home0.jpg - Hazel a few months ago when I moved her to my house (you can also see Winona in the background along with my dogs).

hazel-home1.jpg - Another Shot of Hazel in the garage

hazel-home2.jpg - One more garage shot

hazel-steer.jpg - Hazel's monster steering wheel and part of the dash, oh and as you can see she's standard (a 3 speed in fact)

hazel-speedo.jpg - Speedo and the non-OEM starter button under the dash. This model of Buick had a gas pedal ignition (meaning you tap the pedal and it starts after the key is turned to on).

hazel-radiodash.jpg - A state of the art (in 1953) Motorola AM radio which is still 100% functional.

hazel-insidedoor.jpg - An example of the door trim. All 4 doors are complete as far as the trim goes, but they will all need new upholstery of some sort. I'm planning on keeping the foo on black scheme, but I'll probably change the blue to something like grey.

hazel-reartrim.jpg - A close up view of the back trim and the poor condition of the paint. Considering that she's been sitting out in the sun for a good 10 (and probably closer to 20) years it's not too horrible. More importantly the body is in great shape with no significant rust after 51 years (the benefits of living in the southwest)

After several years of searching on eBay, in March of 2005, I finally found the last major pieces of trim that I needed (specifically her rear tail light lenses). This got me thinking about what it was going to take to finally get the restoration going and I decided to do some cleaning.

Check it out, after 53 years all it took was a little windex to shine up her windshield and her rear window. Note how easy it was to shine up her stainless steel trim. Amazingly after all those years of neglect she's still 10x more solid than any modern car. She's built to last.