Buick Limited

Four-door 1958 Buick Limited convertible.

When John Watkins and his late father, Doug, drove a pair of 1958 convertibles to Buick’s 100th anniversary celebrations in Flint, Mich. in 2003, the cars appeared to be as alike as the proverbial peas in a pod.
At least if peas were painted Laurel Mist, rather than green.
But there was one big difference, which even many seasoned Buick owners failed to see at first glance.
Yes, both were 1958 Limited convertibles. Yes, both were powered by Buick’s famous 364-cubic inch “nailhead” V8.
But one of the convertibles had two doors, and the other had four.
If you read that last sentence and said, “But Buick never made a four-door convertible after World War II, you really know your GM history. In fact, Doug Watkins had spent 10 years building the car himself out of a Limited hardtop sedan.
It takes a close inspection to see that it’s not a factory job – a VERY close inspection.
Watkins wasn’t just a backyard tinkerer. He owned and operated a machine shop in Pickering, Ont. for many years and was adept at working with sheet metal.
He added extra bracing to the frame which his son says makes it stronger than anything the factory produced.
“Those doors are never going to sag in our lifetime,” John boasts.
The big ragtop “drives real nice,” he reports – but then it should. By the time the project was completed “in about ’93 or ’94,” the engine, automatic transmission and differential all had been completely rebuilt.

Factory continental kit also was added.

His father also crafted the red leather interior. John says the black convertible top was “a real engineering feat, which dad also had to make himself based on the mechanism, top bows and canvas from a two-door car.”
The 1958 Buicks, and their Oldsmobile counterparts, were among the most massive American cars of the 1950s, adorned with hundreds of pounds of chrome-plated steel.
But Doug Watkins made his four-door convertible even bigger by adding a factory continental kit, which made it exactly 20 feet long. Try fitting that in a garage in just about any 21st century subdivision.
John, who retired from the Canadian Air Force 20 years ago and now lives in Campbellford, inherited the car when his father died in 2007. He drives it about 500 miles per year.
John says the car’s paint is a 1959 Cadillac colour, but one of The Brooklin Collection’s latest models is a 1958 four-door Buick Roadmaster in – you guessed it – Laurel Mist.
I’m not enough of a Buick historian to know who’s right, John or Brooklin, but I do know this: whether full size or in 1/43rd scale, the colour perfectly suits the car – and the era.