The story of The Boat.

      When I finally got my license I started driving our gold '72 Buick Electra 225 Limited hardtop coupe, that was affectionately named the Boat later on by me. It was bought new by my grandparents at the now defunct Adams Motors in Fremont, Nebraska. My grandpa said that they practically ordered it out of a catalog, deciding exactly which options they wanted. I'm glad they didn't have a choice on the motor, 455 or nothing. :o) After a few years my parents bought it and we've had it ever since. There are so many memories in that car for me, I hate to see it go. Even though most of them are of my brothers and I fighting on long trips to visit my grandparents. We almost sold it to pay for a revamp of my dad's '73 Olds Cutlass S for me to drive, but decided that the work to do that was just too much since the Boat was in quite good shape then, compared to the 'Indian Mobile'. When I started driving it everything worked all right, even the A/C! The perfectness of the car came to a quick halt in January of my 8th grade year. A young gal ran a stop sign, hit my drivers side rear quarter square on the wheel and spun me around 180*. Her car was totalled, my dad later that day pried the fender skirt off the tire and drove it home with no ill effects until the tire went flat a few days later at B-ball practice because the fender skirt took a huge chunk out of the sidewall..
        From then on I have respected the Boat's strength, and have been known on occasion to be rather boastful of what it has gone through and the fact that it just keeps ticking. Sometime in late 1997 the original motor finally died at the busiest intersection of the metropolis known as Huron, SD. That fall and winter I was preparing a used 455 to take it's place. Come May of '98 the motor was installed, it was finally warm enough and my great freind Casey's dad, Gary, had been nice enough to delay a few projects of his own so I could get it done at his place since he's got an engine hoist and a host of tools to use over a weekend. The whole swap went off without a hitch aside from running to get some bolts and some other parts running (Thanks Skip!). Well, that was until we had it running and Dana asked what that stuff was that was leaking. Doh! No one told me I should replace the freeze plugs, it didn't even cross my mind! The one that was leaking was behind the drivers motor mount. Double Doh!! That Monday after school and a stop at NAPA I finally had it fixed with the help of Josh's brute force to get the new one in. All was good after that. Now I just had to put the dashpad back in since I removed it to install a tach, oil pressure, and temp gauges in the dash. Turns out the old motor quit because of a skipped timing chain. It was so loose Josh pulled it off the sprockets with his fingers when he tore it down! And a piston had a hole the size of a dime!!
         In July '98 I was in an accident yet again. An old lady was driving her car about 35 down a side street (20 mph speed limit) and I didn't see her because of parked cars, she didn't see me and she whacked me pretty good in the same spot as the earlier accident, but on the passenger side. I was spun nearly 180* on dry pavement and bashed into a curb that was lined with railroad ties as a 'trimming' of sorts. I took out six ties, two hub caps, one slightly bent rim and the one good sideskirt. Drove home after freaking out because I couldn't find the insurance card! Thanks Dad for keeping the extras in a spot you could remember!!! Special thanks to the HPD for not writing me a ticket for not having it with me! :o)
         Now to tell you what she's been through, my mom backed into a phone poll and bent the bumper, trunk and frame enough so that a prybar is needed to take the gas cap off since it's relocated below the top of the bumper. That kept sugar out of the tank who knows how many times at high school.   She's been backed up along and into some big white posts that served as a fence by a city park and pushed one over about 8 inches (don't ask). Yeah, the huge white streaks from the paint on the posts looked pretty nasty along the side of the car. She's also ran over some reinforced cinderblocks which lightly messed up the gas tank, trailer hitch, and muffler. And was basically abused the first few years I drove it. Hey, let a 14 yr old drive a car with a 4bbl big block what do you expect?
         Some 25,xxx miles and 3 years after the engine swap with 201,xxx miles on her clock she sits all lonesome behind my grandma's shed awaiting her fate as a demo derby car for the 2001 season. I can't bring myself to put the Boat in a salvage yard and be crushed, I think she'd rather go out in a blaze of glory beating the crap out of other cars.
          Kind of ironic that she'll spend her last days at the same house she came to when she was brand new 28 years ago.   One interesting fact is that the protecto-plate says she was born on the same day Shaquille O'Neil was born, March 6, 1972. Weird huh?

To see some pics of the Boat from this summer go here but beware the pics are kinda large.

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