Fall festival car show showcases vintage Buicks
By Linda Taaffe, Town Crier Staff Writer
 Above, Ken Clemens purchased his 1940 Buick Special convertible 20 years ago. The Special, which will be on display this Saturday, is the same model Clemens had wanted to drive in when he was a boy. Top right, Dale Kneebone’s 1923 Buick was featured in a Hollywood gangster film. |
Bob Hamro had an eye on his 1957 hardtop Buick for 20 years before the vintage car went up for sale. Word among Buick enthusiasts is that the car once belonged to the manager of the Smothers Brothers, who attended San Jose State College before launching their career in the entertainment industry in the 1960s.
Although Hamro is sentimental about his Buick, built the year he graduated from high school, he’s the first to admit he wouldn’t have been caught riding in that car when he was a teen.
“In 1957, it was considered an ‘old man’s car’ when I got out of high school,” he said.
Hamro is one of 11 car owners, including six from Los Altos, scheduled to display their vintage Buicks this weekend in the Classic Car Show at the Celebrate Los Altos Fall Festival. This year’s event will pay tribute to the Buick, a car that became known worldwide for its durability, with its overhead valve engine, after winning a series of endurance runs in the 1920s. The manufacturer sent a single Buick around the world in 1925 to further demonstrate the car’s reliability.
Founded in 1903, Buick Motor Company was considered the least likely auto company to become a success. Scottish immigrant David Buick, a plumbing inventor and manufacturer in Detroit, had produced only two cars in three years, according to company historians. By 1908, Buick’s luck had changed. The company had recovered from near bankruptcy to become the No. 1 producer of automobiles, surpassing the combined production of Ford and Cadillac. Buick created a racing team to promote the car’s overhead valve engine, which won 500 trophies from 1908 to 1910. Buick, now General Motors, has continued to be a leader in the car industry and a collectors’ item for numerous local residents who say they are attracted to the various Buicks’ history, look and the fact that they are a symbol of another era rather than the cars’ reliability.
For Los Altos resident Dale Kneebone, finding his 1923 touring car completed his and his father’s longtime vision - to share a vintage car. Both liked the Buick touring car, with its side running boards, best known to later generations as the vehicle of gangsters’ choice on the Hollywood screen. Finding an old Buick from that era proved to be difficult. Kneebone’s father died before they were able to track one down. Shortly after his father’s death, Kneebone unexpectedly found the 1923 car for sale in San Mateo. Kneebone purchased the car, manufactured just a year after his father was born.
The Buick was the only car, out of about 10 that Kneebone owned at one time, allowed to park in his one-car garage.
To add further sentimental value, Kneebone discovered that the car had once belonged to a Los Altos resident.
“I brought it back home,” he said.
Besides some damage inflicted by Hollywood producers who used the car in a 1981 made-for-television film called “The Gangster Chronicles” at the Claremont Hotel in Oakland, Kneebone’s car came to him in good condition. A previous owner had fully restored it in the 1960s, Kneebone said. He will show his car this weekend.
Ken Clemens purchased his 1940 Buick Special convertible 20 years ago, and there’s no indication that he plans to sell it anytime soon. The Special is the same model car Clemens learned to drive in as a boy.
“I can remember my dad letting me sit on his lap and steering (the car) into the garage. That really drew me to it,” said Clemens, who found the car in Pleasanton.
His kelly-green Buick will be at the car show Saturday.
Joyce Bimbi, who owns a 1954 Buick Skylark that will be on display this weekend, drove her Skylark cross-country from New Jersey to California without any complaints. The rusted convertible had been parked in a garage for several years before Bimbi and her former husband lovingly restored the vehicle to its original condition over a five-year period, using other 1954s for body parts. Even the chrome had to be replaced, she said.
Besides being the site of the car show and home to numerous Buick collectors, Los Altos has a lesser-known tie to Buick. The town claims previous ownership of the oldest existing Buick on record, according to the TriShield Buick Enthusiast Network. Researchers from the Buick Motor Division have identified 14 Model C Buicks manufactured in 1905 and 1906 as the oldest known survivors among about 35 million Buicks produced over more than nine decades. Five are in museums, one is on display in a Las Vegas casino, Buick owns one, and the rest are in private ownership, according to TriShield. Using engine numbers, the researchers believe a Model C owned by Harold Warp Pioneer Village museum in Nebraska is the oldest survivor. The car, built in April 1905, once belonged to a Los Altos man named Riley. Car collector Alton Walker purchased the Buick from Riley in 1957, according to researchers. Buick manufactured only 729 Model Cs in 1905.
Hamro said restoring a vintage car is a labor of love that can cost three times the value of the car and take as long as seven years to complete. But all of those interviewed agreed that nothing compares to taking their vintage vehicles out on the road.
