Club Member Restoration Project – Carol Hughes

Note: as of 6/6/16 the Buick is still a work in progress – RB

Carol is having her ’54 Buick restored and it is an interesting process and attached you will find several U-Tube videos that will run one after another of the steps being taken.  Many of us who know Carol is an avid Buick fan so when she was asked to describe why, this was her reply.  Many of us have reasons for their choice of their special and classic car, hers obviously ties into her youth and family. RB

“My father inadvertently steered me towards Buicks.  He worked in the paint & body shop of a local Buick dealership near Bethlehem, PA when he was in high school and college.  Grew to hate Buicks!  His sister was just the opposite.  She had a new Buick about every year.  I loved her big ’58!  In 1978 I needed to buy another car to replace a worn out ’68 Dodge Polara but was too young to get a loan without a parental cosignature.  One night my dad showed up home with this beautiful ’76 LeSabre sedan that a co-worker had up for sale.  Love at first sight!  I drove that car over 205,000 miles until a shoddy repair job cost me an engine.  This was about the time Buick reissued the Roadmaster series.  I fell in love with the new 1994 Roadmasters and a commercial featuring a ’54 Roady.  I wanted both but could afford neither.  Replacement vehicle was a 3 cylinder Geo Metro.
Fast forward to October 2000.  I was working a shift one night as a reserve deputy and we received a call to take a road rage report in downtown Christiana.  We pulled in the driveway and there sat this huge 54 Roadmaster Sedan on blocks.  I don’t remember the details of why we were there on the call.   All I could see was the car of my dreams.  I asked the owner what he was going to do with the car.  He said he was going to “fix it up”.  He had just bought the car out of a shed.
One thing led to another in our conversation and the owner ended up getting involved with the Sheriff’s Citizen’s Academy.  I tried to buy the car over the next few years but he wouldn’t sell.  I did find out a bit more about the car such as it had factory air and belonged to someone connected to a prominent Murfreesboro family.  The car had been stored in a shed near Christiana for @ 18 years after the original owner died.  John Morgan remembered seeing the car around town with a little old lady driver when he was much younger.  The A/C tubes in the rear package tray caught his eye.
October 2003, our local Buick Club Chapter had a meeting at Miller’s Grocery in Christiana, across the street from where the car sat.  By this time, the car was sitting flat on the ground with trash piled in it.  I begged the owner to sell me the car and named a price.  Nope, not selling the car.  I got a call a few days later and the owner was more than willing to sell the car and at a much lower price than I had offered.  DONE DEAL!!!  The Roadmaster was hauled home just before Halloween, October 2003.
That’s how the Buick ended up living with me.  There is a lot more to this story including the time spent in the unmentionable shop that nearly destroyed the car (Tom Collins & Dale Hamilton helped with the rescue!) to where the car ended up for this well deserved restoration.  I’ve got to get more of the story and pictures about all the bullet holes found in the car while tearing it down.  If only that Buick could talk!
I actually have a lot more history on the car and some of the original documents.  Turns out the car belonged to Betty Elrod’s mother, Mabel Garmany.   Betty was married to Cecil Elrod of the French Shoppe and WGNS radio. I’m still trying to track down how/when the car migrated with the Garmanys from Chattanooga to Murfreesboro. Early 1970’s?”