Early this week, a mystery 1966 Buick Wildcat found its way on eBay in an attempt to persuade someone daring to buy it and start the most difficult restoration project of their lives.
The lack of information in the car’s sales pitch makes it harder for it to persuade potential purchasers to give it another try.
First, everything seems to indicate this Wildcat has been sitting under the clear sky in what looks like a junkyard for a long time. As a result, expect heavy rust, and some of the photos confirm that certain parts of the metal have already been wrecked. One of the photos reveals the rusty floors, though they don’t exhibit massive holes yet.
The best way to determine the condition of the undersides is to put the car on a lift, especially considering this Buick has been sleeping outside for the last few years.
The body isn’t as bad-looking as you might anticipate, but it does have some surface corrosion, dents, and faded paint. I wonder if this is the car’s original finish, but we’re unlikely to ever know the answer to this.
The driver’s seat is almost completely ruined, and the convertible top is completely destroyed. The door panels, the steering wheel, and the dash, which doesn’t appear chopped, are just a few of the components that are still attached.
The Wildcat also comes with an engine under the hood, but no further specifics were shared by the seller. Two engine options were available from Buick for the 1966 Wildcat. The 425 (7.0-liter) V8 was the standard model and had a single carburetor that produced 340 horsepower. The optional version of the same engine had a two-barrel arrangement and produced 360 horsepower.
I wouldn’t anticipate the Wildcat’s engine, no matter what it was, to be running, especially in light of the vehicle’s entire design. The V8 is most likely seized, but you may easily try to manually start it. It’s possible that this huge block, which I presume is the original component that came with the car because Buick’s V8s are robust, still has life.
Buick produced over 68,000 Wildcats for the 1965 and 1966 model years, down from more than 84,000 units in 1964, with the numbers remaining steady until the end of the generation in 1970. At that point, the carmaker dropped the Wildcat following a production of just 23,000 units.