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| Interested in a portrait of your car? Please contact artist John Robertson. |
Painting of Tom Brizuela's 1938 Buick Century from the Ventura, Ca.
"Classics on the Coast" car show on Main street. The painting is 6 feet by 10 feet, ink and
acrylic on unstretched canvas.
Tom Brizuela's. I met
Tommy at a recent street car show on
Main
Street in
Ventura,
Ca. (
Classics
on the Coast). There were over 300
cars on display and I took the opportunity to photograph this beautiful Buick
Century. Tom has worked for BMW for a number of years, and, as you can see his
main hobby is auto body restoration on pre-1960 vehicles and he does custom painting.
Some of the interesting facts about a
1938
Buick Century is that the base price started at $1,297. They made a little
over 12,000 of these cars. It had an Overhead-valve straight-eight,
cast-iron block and cylinder head with a displacement of: 320.2 cubic
inches. Horsepower @ rpm: 141 @ 3,600
and Torque @ rpm: 269 @ 2,00.0. The
transmission was a Three-speed manual, floor lever. Steering -
Saginaw worm and roller. I just put this
information in about the steering because I liked the sound of the words "
Saginaw worm
and roller."
When I was growing up in the 50's my step dad had a gas
station and garage. It had one bay and
he did every imaginable kind of work on a car.
He did ton's of engine exchanges outside with block and tackle suspended
from an "A" frame wooded structure,
besides rebuilds from the ground up.
Anything a customer wanted he could do.
I grew up around a lot of different cars, first working as a gas station
attendant, pumping gas, washing all the windows around on the car, checking the
oil, water, etc. Later, as I got older I
helped out in the shop with the engine work, starting with cleaning parts and
working my way up to assembly. I learned
a lot about mechanical cars.
My first car was a 1940 Studebaker half ton pickup. I was 15 years old and would get about to get my driver's learners permit in a
half of a year.. My step dad brought the
truck home from work (as I recall I paid $100 for it with the money taken out
of my earnings at the station) and parked it in the driveway. I had already driven a few cars around so I
had some confidence driving. I remember
getting into the driver's side of the cab, with my dad next to me. He was going to let me back it out of the
driveway. I promptly engaged the clutch,
put the three speed floor shifter into reverse to back out of the
driveway. I popped the clutch and
promptly drove the truck forward through the garage door. I had put it into first instead of reverse. Thus began my experience of driving my own
car.
