ICON Derelict: 1948 Buick Super Convertible - Jay Leno's Garage

it's a big question is will of do a Burnout I mean a 48 Bureau can the Dynaflow could never do a Burnout let's give it a try welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage tonight we're featuring a 1948 Buick super or a derelict if it's called I'll explain what that means in just a minute this is the latest trend this is like the hottest thing right now these derelict cars cars that appear to be derelict cars but have modern drive trains with very sophisticated brakes steering suspension system plus I like cars that look like my wardrobe you know this is people always complaining about what I wear Boop so you want to stand next to this I feel like I'm in a tuxedo Jonathan Ward is the guy who came up with this whole derelict thing he's been on our website a few times probably as much as anybody and this is his latest creation lets me know John come on in how are you good to see you too Jay I love what you're doing at you know it's just so funny to me because you have a classic car that you can do this and you don't have to polish it you don't like to do anything to it liberating yeah except just drive the heck out of it and it's uh and it looks like a 48:28 Buick but the powertrain is what we're running the ls9 from the zr1 Corvette for l85 II and then Art Morrison chassis yeah well how much fun is it to blow off BMWs and Porsches and everything with a 48 pure gets it's hilarious and it's really nothing that gives it away a few little tiny things but you've managed to integrate those very very nicely so you what you find the car and then you find a customer or customer comes to you with a car house it were usually customer first then the car then find the car and start the engineer I in this case I would actually been looking for a Roadmaster convertible for another client right stumbled into this car and oh my gosh I just fell in love with it so I bought it it's funny we found it back in pencil on Craigslist and it had been in a garage for so long we had to have a tree cut to get the garage door open and yank it out so I bought it just because I took one look at a photo of it and fell in love with it was it running at the time no not have been sitting literally for decades I think the last registration sticker on it was from the 70s oh okay but when we brought it out to the shop serendipity is my friend I guess because a client was visiting looking at his Bronco that we were building him a Nikon VR saw this at all my gosh that's just too cool and then he bought it right on the spot literally as it was unloading so serendipity is not a stripper that is actually correct okay all right very cool so I mean and you've left everything pretty much the way the way I don't even like what will do is will we take it in the shop we liberate the body from the chassis brace it and then we'll scan it to get the spatial data into the computer so then when we work with Art Morrison on the chassis we can design the rails to fit specific to the body and then we you know pick our favorite suspension and powertrain elements but then digitally test and realize all of that because like GM now would get of us the CAD file for the engine and we can really package everything down to the gas tank before we actually start physically working and what is the transmission we're running the four l85 a the super Matic okay about the only thing that'll handle this much power was that available with the zr1 there was no automatic day correct it would have been a transaxle mount for this year okay okay but correct yeah conventional okay we just had to change the flywheel and party on so you just put it in drive click it down you know I don't like the old hydra-matic ever and then the the column is modern but we went to pretty significant lengths to hide it because what you told me because I think I hate I know and when I see a 32 Ford with a tilt it just looks it's not a hot rod with you if you're so fat you have to move the steering wheel on a diet it's ridiculous yeah like modern gauges an ugly stereo that's know so do power windows those plastic switches that's so to me I love the look cuz I hate it when I see a classic car in the in the dashboard and the whole interior is modern I don't feel I'm in the classic car this feels like something I would have ridden in when I was a kid I mean there's some giveaway those speakers you recognize those what are those awful 300s oh okay that was the cleverest way we could think of to get the sound that's not we just perforated the leather I'm so glad you didn't put bucket seats in ever come on yeah and the other cool thing this leather specifically yeah comes from Morin Geils which is more known for like interior design leather right so we talked to the client and we agreed it not being UV stable is kind of part of the fun yeah so it just funks him gets more with the derelict finish the biggest labor though that consul cuz they never had a console all right here has a client request yeah though okay hours that took to reshape that seat yeah it was just pretty ridiculous plus the fascinating thing is if this was a real 48 Buick you have easily $25,000 worth of Chrome here don't you yeah to do I mean easily I mean chrome is very expensive now because of the EPA and all that kind of stuff so honey we're saving when he explained to the wife we're saving because we're not doing the Chrome you things that we're saving a lot of money there the fact that we have Art Morrison chassis but you see so you're not wasting a lot of money on chrome and it's really you really can't wash this or maybe you clean the windshield what's it that's about it and then you just drive it and we do like pretty shiny versions we call reformers but the derelict Tsar just so much fun because like you said you're not afraid of it your kids can climb in you you get a ding on the door and a curb or whatever you see a dirt road you can hang the ass out sideways and party on you're not like tiptoeing around it and what are the brakes what brakes yeah we're running Wilwood so six piston front 4-piston rear and two-piece hat rotors and then we had to see and see those wheels to be able to pull that off yeah which is one of the bigger challenges with the derelict sizz not jumping this shark so to speak with a CR really tired give you away yeah so it's a delicate balance but we like will would we use them quite a bit grow up in the hood sure what we got here just you don't know the drill same well they goes up you notice even the wiper motor is a modern Delco three-speed with delay we kept the original linkage updated two blades but it's all electronic control now all right hilarious yes fun we lifted that fireball font and the crest to try and get the zr1 it across modern as you said will would last it with do you know not a single piston or any of that no nope and it's a dry sump yeah yeah we left the air to water intercooler and dry sump I guess I realized a lot of builders avoid the complexity of that and convert him to a wet sump yeah but it seemed like the right thing to do for longevity what's the horse ball here just under 7 yeah it is so much fun should be equal to a Hellcat pretty close yeah yeah I love that it's hilarious I mean just blow it off it's hilarious I just like making you giggle it's funny sighs it just makes me laugh and I always love these when I was a kid this finally these are like illegal now you can't have and that was such a pain too because we can obviously it's all milspec 12-volt but that is from our electric bike the Eve Flyers are headlights so it's now in LED control no these are great oh look at you got the mirror on yeah I was factory on the car yeah very cool very cool already nice big radiator does nobody hasn't got air-conditioning yeah yeah fall in - a/c and then power windows but we use the later Buick Century switches so we have a four gang control and the drivers otherwise you were hydraulic and you how to do the reach-around did you ever make a hubcap that could fit that yeah the least we're trying a couple different techniques so those are spun stainless and then we take the original font create a vector and an acid etch it into the stainless so it it's dimensioned if anything gave the car way it would be yeah the wheel because the real you're okay because you yeah the spare tire but but but without you kind of go hey wait a minute but you know the the partner we use for these wheels is circle racing here in Cali so there's cnc'd 6061 and they're starting to realize what we're up to I'll kind of getting off menu yeah so like that 58 rolls they're like we're doing we're machining the wheel to receive the factory cap so it's completely invisible okay very cool and let's move to the back of the car here now obviously fuel here and as this a whole modern yeah from that area all the way through so modern stainless tank in tank factory pump yada yada yada and a funny thing with these cars originally at freeway speeds the those gas caps despite the spring would kind of flap in the wind yeah so we built the modern sealed neck and cap we boxed in that area okay we didn't at first on the freeway I'm like what is that noise he looked behind us I mean about 90 it's flapping around alright now this is the famous icon lizard that's your little low yeah he goes on everything we build one one place or another kind of like Hitchcock showing up in his own movies okay now you have a reversing is there camera here yeah yeah we milled it into the center of the super oh maybe that ties to the double din and this you back up camera and well I can't even see the screen as we'll find that later and then you have your manly full-size trunk here yeah that's pretty straightforward other than we ran out of room for the battery up in the rows and then the amplifiers and base modules are back here and you can see the polyuria this is kind of a neat thing that we learned to do on these when we blow the body apart after we pre fit the new jersey and everything raw we put the body on a rotisserie and after we strip it and rest moored it we coat it with this he cured polyuria on the bottom polyuria that sounds like some sort of disease you get from food poisoning yeah it's a venereal issue is it like a like a plastic yeah basically and it's like a bed liner but it's the more intelligent of the bed liners most of those are polyurethane but yeah does I'm gonna heat your gun oh very cool it really does a lot to just have everything wired it down yeah very cool trunk light and everything yeah was this originally a 12 volt or a 6 volt car 6 okay so you converted obviously to 12 and you have the period license plate as well these were hard to find this car didn't come with him but those were there in the body already yeah but we finally scored those on line in the right ratty sort of condition I think it's time to take it for a ride before we take it for a drive let's go over everything obviously speedometer now the gauges are all appear to be original but I imagine what they have modern entered you guessed it yep so we didn't even we really just blew them off and clean them and put them back together but on the backside it's all modern video guts an internal same with the clock and this is a tilt wheel yeah they were back in the day correct so I did it wheel but then we did the patina to try and get it to blend and then we modified rhe machine the hub to accept the old wheel because again like I hate that when you see a modern and what's real that's the wiper control away but yeah we kept the original knob isn't that strange though it looks like an afterthought yeah it's fact okay now this is the original radio yep obviously yeah original clock now 12 volt quartz okay and then this has all been modified but subtly so modern switches for you know lights fog lighter fan temp and vent right re see vents are all hidden under - because I want to see them and where's our camera with good Davis the bomb da da dadad Danis so that is your navigation Bluetooth music management's and all that modern stuff but then you don't have to look at it yeah and the cool thing is you know those AM radio in this day it's a beast yeah so just by gutting and getting rid of that give us so much room to put the big AC module and electric windows power seat power time was that a compass yeah it's funny story did this car all this paint is original right and there was literally looked like someone had taken a chisel and a mallet and blown holes through here for gosh knows what reason but it was killing me because I don't want to paint it so Tim the owner of the car found this online and bought it I think it's supposed to be an accessory for like an early Chevy okay so then we created the housing got it in there and then patina'd it and actually just this week I found a guy in Maine and we build these old offices so thus far no matter what you're always always going on always north well yeah what any problem that's the power top oh okay yeah it sounds like a 48 Buick yeah this thing is hilarious remember that scene that rocky where the mousy girl takes off her glasses and something she she's beautiful that's kind of what this is life as it got positraction yeah yeah what does the rear end anyway what a strange nine with fine spline what is the ratio 373 now you think so yeah I think I did 373 in it it's a freeway flyer and it's a six-speed right yeah final wait no for 45 you'd still afford oh it's a 40 yeah yeah I want to get into the 6o 90s but a the electrical integration and durability can touch the rating of this one yeah yeah so haven't gone there yet it handles sense that it's hilarious because it doesn't look like a counterintuitive I was flogging it on bohon with my kids no flex at all you said these cars were famous for cracking windshields huh yeah yeah so we really over built the chassis we got four by six main rails to Snug it up you know be funny just get a little old lady and put her in this car and have her drive round blown off Porsches you know there's such a great idea of this whole derelict thing because you know what's your biggest bond when you have a classic oh you can't park it anywhere somebody's gonna bump it or ding it or something and here you've got all the performance of a zr1 Corvette in this ridiculous phony 8 viewer hilarious and it's really comfortable I mean you have basically the same horsepower you having a new Hellcat I'm funny with that beep loan a Hellcat off of one of these it's got such a great presence patina is just perfect it's got a sports car chassis let's take it upon the hill see how it handles it would be funny to blindfold a car guy put him in this car and say what are we driving now I'd never guess that would be funny you know the singer boys test their Porsches up here Rob does yeah yeah be fun to come up with my man a Porsche coming through here just hop on his tail and stay there and go wow what up what are you doing here you look like a crazy guy pulling up behind Porsches and stuff with this just you everything you're doing for on the tree like a manual family six on the tree that would be fun right thanks on the tree would be nice complex situation if this was an actual 48 Buick we wouldn't be able to catch that bus it just went fluffy I like this door squeaking it adds a little bit of really it raised me now if you kill that chipmunk just here that just adds a bit of fun makes you realize you're in an old car I gotta say this is one of the most fun cars I've ever driven because you can just beat the heck out of it because you can't really scratch it or damage it and with this modern chassis it's a co one Corvette that looks like a 40 AP looks like a 48 viewing it's hilarious how well it handles and when people look in the rearview mirror they go ah nothing coming up behind me just hilarious let's take it out in the freeway let's put our foot in and see how she goes hilarious this thing doesn't bottom out suspension is terrific just all kinds of my own you know this car does you does make you rethink that whole restoration thing you know Dolly Parton used to have a great line in Iraq she said it cost a lot of money to look this cheap and that's that's kind that's kind of what this is cause a lot of money to look this bad it's the big question is will it do a Burnout I mean a 48th Bureau where the Dynaflow could never do a Burnout let's give it a try oh here's the owner hi Tim coach Timmy was supposed to see that this is Tim Vesey owns the car are you happy with this thing it's it really is a lot of fun it's hilarious it handles and stops it does burnouts it's great it tells it really is terrific Tim thanks for being a good sport thanks for bringing your car Jonathan thank you thank you buddy yeah and we'll see you guys next week

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,049,639

Rating: 4.9179049 out of 5

Keywords: Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay lenos garage, nbc jay lenos garage, jay leno, jay leno jonathan ward, icon derelict 1948 buick super convertible, jay leno icon derelict, jonathan ward icon derelict, jay lenos garage icon derelict

Id: B3X8DtxYt8I

Length: 18min 47sec (1127 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/Vespuela]

Did he say they are doing a Rolls Royce one???? That would be so amazing to piss people off. too bad waiting time on his cars has gotten ridiculous.

[u/alwaysnefarious]

Yeah? Well he can derelick my balls, mon capitaine.

[u/munky9002]

I absolutely love this thing. I'd love to do something just like this but it far exceeds my skill level and budget.