If you actually waste any time reading posts authored by “The Bishop,” you will be familiar with the rather inane “what if” automotive scenarios that I propose. From third generation Corvairs (which some people seem to think are real) to Tesla ride on mowers, it’s possible that the best thing about my concepts is that there is no chance of these atrocities ever coming to life. Until now. Maybe.
The Swamp Ute?
You see, the other day my Facebook feed coughed up an image of an eighties Electra Park Avenue that some person had decided to turn into a sort of El Camino ‘ute’:
Knowing that our own beloved shitbox-saving staffer S.W. Gossin owns a rather moldy and currently non-functional big Buick sedan he calls the Swamp Thing, I shared it through our infamous Slack channel.
The ever-enthusiastic Stephen seemed quite inspired, even joking about doing that same type of work to the currently-refusing-to-start Park Avenue he rescued. His 1994 model is of the much different later generation, a more organic looking car (filled with very organic fungi from a blocked sunroof drain).
I had a design proposal for a store display program that I needed to get together for work that day, so of course I dropped that and immediately did the more important task of a quick photoshop of what this car/pickup mashup might look like. We have priorities, right? Steven’s level of excitement for this project-that-I-didn’t-know-was-a-project seemed to kick into high gear. Like me, S.W. also labors in the corporate salt mines for at least nine or ten hours a day, so we naturally wasted our employers’ time and money briefly discussing how he’d like to turn the $400 remains of a used land yacht into a pickup truck. (For the record, we do this during our breaks).
It was obvious to us that we’ll certainly want the great hive mind of Autopian readers to offer expert bodywork advice in the comments below. Oh, but save your typing energy on one thing- we’re well aware that you can get good condition similar cars for only $4000-6000 or so all day long. But where’s the challenge there? Plus, we’re not doing CAD virtual stress tests or whatever on this thing, so wouldn’t you rather chop away at a sacrificial lamb first to learn what would work best before ruining a pristine example?
Whatever the case, here’s what we were thinking.
Square Box In A Round Hole
While General Motors embraced the whole ‘ute’ concept down under, in the United States, General Motors only ever offered the body style as the Chevrolet El Camino and identical GMC Caballero, the last one being the 1978-1987 model:
When the first El Camino was introduced in 1959, there was a Pontiac version prototyped that never went to production:
However, there were never any variations even suggested from more upscale GM brands. And why not? The whole idea of a ‘ute’ is to offer utility when you need it and the ability to drive to church in it on Sunday. Nothing says ‘drive to church’ like a Buick, does it?
The way I see it, doing such a conversion could be handled with two distinctly different approaches:
Concours- The end result will be analyzed by chin-scratching judges in sport coats with paint depth gauges on a country club lawn.
Passably Janky- Your girlfriend deems it acceptable to actually ride in for short distances as long as her friends won’t see her.
As I just mentioned, the first significant challenge of such a conversion is that the Buick in the Facebook picture is the boxy front drive 1985-1990 C Body style, the one that was often held up as an example of Roger Smith’s era of identical looking General Motors sedans that got crucified by the critics and public, especially when the Audi-looking aero Fords appeared. Still, boxy shapes convert to pickups more easily.
Stephen’s 1994 Park Avenue Ultra is the second generation built on this platform, a much more curvaceous body that was one of the last projects that veteran designer Dave Holls worked on at GM (along with the more angular but still attractive 1992 Cadillac STS). Whatever you say about it being a car for matrons cruising to bingo or Cracker Barrel in, this later Park Avenue is really quite a nice looking design. Buick took the 1989 Park Avenue Essence show car and kept the production model surprisingly close to the initial concept.
The tapering nose and tail, lack of GM’s ‘formal roofline’, and rather tasteful detailing like the waterfall grille were more Coventry than Cleveland; I mean, maybe not exactly a Jaaag but easily one of the nicest looking Buicks released in years. The car set the identity and direction of Buick design for the next decade or so, but none of these later cars had quite the look or pleasing proportions of the original.
Such a sculptural form (especially with that descending trunk lid) obviously does not suit itself to lopping off parts and adding a cargo box area as easily as the earlier designed-with-a-T-square Park Avenue seen at the Sonic. Speaking of Jaguar, you can see the disaster that results from adding a ‘box’ to the back of a similarly rounded XJ6 as done by coachbuilder in the image below. Yikes!
Come Sail Away
Another challenge that you might not see at first is that simply cutting a four door sedan aft the front doors creates a surprisingly compact front passenger compartment. Look at where the front seat is in the image below. Just ask any hearse or taxi driver how far back they can slide their seat and they will likely begin a rant about how difficult it is to spend hours behind the wheel of one of these things.
[SWG’s take on the above: First off, Bishop is a luminary and seems to have this unique clairvoyant ability to inspire others with his visions of the future. Secondly, I’m 110% with him on the above take on having an “extended cab” for this build. Right now, I’m envisioning the rear glass to be located about midway upon the present rear doors. This will leave enough space to recline the (currently non-operational) seats and for a little storage area/breathing room. -SWG]
Not that Stephen wants such a cut off-looking passenger compartment anyway. No, that wouldn’t be befitting the design of the car. The sweeping C pillars of the original car are something that he’d like to keep. Still, that angled backlight of the Buick just isn’t going to work with a pickup truck. However, he did throw out an idea: utilizing sail pillars in a manner similar to any number of cars, including the aformentioned 1978-1987 El Camino.
So the rear roof section would be cut off and moved forwards, mating with the roof just aft the B pillars. How you would join these roof sections obviously could be done in a concours way (welded, angle ground, body filler) or in a janky way (weld as best possible and fill the gaps with Great Stuff). If done in a Janky way, this mess could be covered by a mock ‘targa’ bar.
Or, the whole business hidden by a vinyl roof cover. Don’t laugh- there’s a reason that stretch limos always have vinyl roofs. I was told by a model maker we’d hired from a limousine builder that they would need far too much time and effort to get the seams presentable enough with a mirror black finish. Hell, you might remember the way that Chrysler was able to add a ‘formal’ roof line to a lowly Dodge sedan. This image below is a factory job, black goop and all. Can you believe this shit?:
I really don’t want to do the vinyl roof, especially on a car known for dealer installed fake convertible top kits. But the solution is always there..
[SWG: This begets another issue though, which is the glass/area between the B-pillar and the rear glass/ flying buttress C-pillars. If you look at the stock glass setup on the Park Avenue, you’ll see that the rear windows are square, with a filler piece of glass on the aft side, to lie flush against the curvature of the C-pillar. The “2 pathways here, daawg!” paradigm from above holds true with this choice as well. Either we:
- Order custom glass to fit the space between the B-Pillar and the C-Pillar or
- Just use steel to fill that area (which would serve for a cool look, but would create a killer blind-spot)
As I’ve done previously, I think letting the readership decide this quandary would be the best move. What says Ye, oh fellow Autopians? Ok, back to The Bishop. -SWG]
The new rear quarter windows, as Stephen said, could be glass or, as a slightly jankier solution, we could use plexiglass (you don’t have to scrape ice off of the windows in Wilmington, North Carolina). However, I think the quarter windows from the rear doors plus fabricating a small filler panel looks best and would likely be the most cost-effective solution:
The full steel panel Stephen wanted to see as an option, well, it’s a big heavy blind spot, ain’t it?
Oh, and the moonroof that was the guilty party in this moldy mess will need to forever stay shut, and the drain tubes rerouted. At least the Parkamino will require about 60 percent less headliner than the stock sedan to replace the black-with-mold original.
Windows Of Opportunity
The sail panels of the El Camino which Stephen would like to emulate actually surround a complex and likely expensive curved rear window that is, surprisingly, a dead ringer for the back glass in a Ferrari 308/328:
That won’t fly here with a semi-home build, so the sail panels here could hide that this ‘Parkamino’ features a flat back panel to seal off the opening behind the seats in either steel (concours conversion) or marine plywood (janky). Then, a vertical window from whatever mid-sized Ranger or S-10 wreck happens to be sitting in the salvage yard Steven is visiting on that particular day could be installed. He might need to get a template for the rear window and carry it with him to see what fits.
A great example of this template work was used in developing the Lynx Eventer, a rather fetching ‘shooting brake’ conversion of the not-universally-loved Jaguar XJS. Apparently, the coachbuilder finished the metalwork of the fabricated hatchback on the first one and made a cardboard template of what they needed in terms of size and shape of the glass to fit in the hatch. They then walked through a bunch of parking lots and tried the template out on any car that seemed to have glass that came close. The winner- a backlight from a Citroen Ami 8 wagon.
With super-low production cars, this is how you have to do things, be it a bespoke $100,000 Jag or $400 Buick.
Make Your Bed
Creating the cargo area in the back of the Buick to make it a pickup truck will require a flat surface. Once the rear seats are removed and any other items aft the front seats (except for the fuel filler, unfortunately), we will have to put down crossbars of some kind for a floor, which can be done with welded-in steel (concours) or a chunk of marine plywood (janky). With the Janky solution, Stephen might want to look on his next junkyard visit and see if he can find any cargo bed liners on mid sized trucks that are ready for the crusher. This plastic tray could be cut down to fit the space and it would take care of finishing off the sides, back, and bottom of the new bed.
Regardless of the method use, there’s one thing that this conversion will also have in common with the El Camino. Many don’t know this, but America’s favorite ute has a secret- the footwells for back seat the Malibu wagon on which the El Camino is based are still there, right under the front of the cargo bed floor. Pull back the carpet hanging over the back of the cab and you’ll see what is known in Camino circles as ‘the smuggler’s bin’ (I doubt that was an official General Motors title). Extra storage space and an area for the spare. Sorry, El Camino owners- I shouldn’t have spilled the beans on your hiding place like that.
The Buick will have such voids as well, and we can even use the plastic bin from a wrecked El Camino if we can find them, or fabricate marine plywood boxes for cargo. If the factory (Bose?) audio system is shot, amps and subs could fit here; I know this is an old Buick but we need bass since we’re not animals for Chrissake.
Stephen threw another wrench in the works, in that he wants to have the trunk lid become a tonneau cover over the new ‘bed’. Well, shit, how is that gonna work? Understandably, the soft curves of the trunk lid would be nice to keep, but how to continue it? Regardless of if we do a Concours or Janky solution, I’d propose a welded steel structure from 1x1s to connect to the old trunk lid. These would connect to hinges mounted to the back wall of the car.
The Concours way might be to extend the trunk lid with perfectly formed sheet metal or aluminum perfectly blended into the original trunk lid; the Janky solution would stretch vinyl or convertible top material over the metal frames. Actually, that would keep it lightweight and allow us to grab hatchback shocks from Autozone to lift it. You’d now just have to add steel channels along the sides to mount weatherstripping to and allow for a water gutter/channel. No, we would not go so Janky as to use actual rain guttering. I hope.
[SWG: Here’s where my head is regarding the above at the moment. Cutting the roof off and getting the “cab” section to actually exist as an entity will be a huge undertaking and also an expense that is in no way commensurate with the value of this car.
The existing, stock deck lid is water-tight, fits the adjacent panels perfectly, creates a stylistic and visual “top” to the rear light bar section and keeps water away from the taillight array. I think that leaving it for “Version 1.0” of this car may be the right move so as to not create extra work where it is not needed. I can always remove it in the future and do a full-length bed section. -SWG]
Good point from Stephen there – so at least to start why not keep the whole trunk intact, and then the center section for semi-open cargo. In fact, we could even do that stretched fabric cover over the ‘mid bed’ opening were the rear seat was, and even add some matching canvas to part of the trunk lid to give the illusion of a full-sized bed cover. If the cover wouldn’t make the ‘mid bed’ area fully weatherproof, I see a $45 X-Cargo roof box you could pop in the area.
Finishing It Off
Some people like the whole ‘rat rod’ look and I have to count myself in the group that does not. There’s cases where it works but if it’s just a lazy way to finish a project, then no. I would think that even in a Janky way this thing could be made to look sort of like a factory ute; look at the Saturn Ute that Thomas posted a little while ago and you’ll be inspired by what can be done in a back yard (we’re guessing). Keeping it as close to stock as possible instead of a custom will only add to the appeal and double takes by passers-by. “Did Buick really make a pickup truck?”
Paint? I mean, it’s a big nineties Buick, so it has to stay that signature metallic dark green, right? Plus, do we really want to clear out the whole engine bay or get into the door jambs to paint a new color in there anyway? The Ultra wheels are great rolling stock and should clean up nicely or even re-powder coat if needed.
Also, if Jason gets too close to this project he’ll demand installing the Euro-spec taillights with amber indicators and rear fog lamps in the bumper.
How many of these did they actually manage to sell overseas anyway?
Of course, the US specification tail would retain its slide-in license plate holder. No rusty bolts; just open the trunk and pop the plate in place. Are you kidding me? Why in God’s name don’t more cars offer this type of feature?
You Got Something To Say?
As dumb as I might be, I’m not totally stupid. I’d never try to actually build any one of the creations that I’ve drawn.
[SWG: Ok I would forgo the use of the word “dumb”, but instead utilize “mechanically ambitious”perhaps? I’d actually pay good money and would strongly encourage The Bishop to try to real-world-create one of his digital masterpieces. Doing so would elevate mankind and be a step towards the kind of future we all want to be a part of.
After all, there’s only one Bishop and that dude inspired me to cut the roof off my car. And I’m actually doing it! Stay tuned. -SWG].
Oh, no – this decapitation idea appears to be entirely my fault. Please do me a solid – could you Autopian bodyshop ninjas out there offer some advice? I feel guilty already, but optimistic that Stephen will make it work. You’ll have a hard time finding a more persistent, enthusiastic person.
I can certainly see him grabbing a beer, sitting in a lawn chair, and watching the sun setting over his finished car/truck after a long day at work. Who knows- maybe Stephen can even get it to run again. If you want to wager that he can’t, I’d say that’s a very, very bad bet.
I Bought A 29-Year Old Buick With 68,000 Miles On It To Prove The Haters Wrong – The Autopian
How I Saved A Once-$90,000 Mercedes SL I Bought For $1,900 – The Autopian
How I Got Six Years Of Service Out Of A $220 Car – The Autopian
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“…so we naturally wasted our employers’ time and money briefly discussing how he’d like to turn the $400 remains of a used land yacht into a pickup truck. (For the record, we do this during our breaks).”
Standard boilerplate disclaimer to CYA.
To me, this is one of the biggest arguments FOR WFH. Why make me sit at a desk and kill time because someone arbitrarily decided we need a 40 hour work week for a job I can do in 20, at most. Just give me the work and a reasonable deadline, and let me choose when and how I do it before that deadline. I had a few office jobs before my current line of work, and never once spent more than 15-20 hours a week on my own work. Hell, I’d get so bored wasting my extra time that I would ask coworkers what they needed help with, until I ran out of extra work to do. I wasn’t even trying to waste company time; they were just really good at wasting mine. And yet I still needed such CYA statements.
Is that red and white Buick an ex-flower car? Unlikely in anything other than somber black or dark grey, but it looks like it’s got some sort of bed extensions over the beltline.
Still, if the funeral industry figured out how to hack up DTS’s and XTS’s to have a pickup bed, the Park Avenue doesn’t seem that much of a stretch (although none of them went to the work of incorporating fantastic sail panels).
Just. Do. It.
I’m all for ute-ing anything, just for the shear ridiculousness of it all
Why not full janktastic and meld a ridgeline or Avalanche rear to the the Buick front?
It has been done before, and much earlier. I have pictures of a 1960 Buick converted ala El Camino, but it’s on my computer, not on a website, and I don’t know how or if I can post it here.
Go to imgur.com, drag the picture from your computer onto the browser, grab the imgur link thus created, and post it here. I want to see it!!
Before anyone gets wound up about the claims of Buick/Jaguar similarity, there IS precedent.
In the movie, Nurse Betty, Renee Zellweger’s character takes a Buick from her scummy car salesman husband and takes off on a delusional adventure in it.
Before she leaves, she tries to convince a girlfriend to go along, assuring her that the car she’s taking is sufficiently glamorous because “it looks kinda like a Jaguar, if you squint.”
The defense rests, your Honor.
StillNotATony- I remember that movie now! The funny irony is that when this Park Avenue was introduced in 1991, Jaguar was making the XJ40 sedan, the ‘neutered cat’ that was one of the blandest, least-Jag looking products they’d ever made.
That one scene is pretty much all I remember from that movie. I even had to look on imdb for the title of it.
Hey, don’t you diss my XJ40 like that! That being said, I know it’s absolutely the red-headed stepchild of the XJ family. It’s why I could afford it in the first place, and I love going to Jag events where nobody else has the courage to bring one. I still love it, though.
The LA Times, Car & Driver, and probably some other publications, also made Jaguar comparisons with Buick’s styling back then, was probably something GM coached their designers or marketing people to say at press events, or else several reviewers just made the same connection on their own
Mmm, smuggler’s bin. Same idea being used in a Rivians R1T today.
I am totally excited by this project. My vote for execution must be for properly done. A janky Buick just ain’t right, particularly with the nice lines of the Park Avenue. It would be like seeing that your favorite High School Cheer Leader three years into her Meth addiction.
For the cargo cover, I propose getting a second trunk lid somewhere and using it as a lift-off piece (think the roof panel on a Porsche 914)separate from the regular trunk. You might even make this second trunk into a cooler with a drain in the bottom.
I will whisper though that I would consider another Park Avenue for the base. I mean I am am confident that the heat from a welder will probably kill mold, and you will be doing a lot of welding, but…. well… frankly nuking it from orbit is the only way to get that swamp thing clean enough to sit in with the windows up.
If you actually waste any time reading posts authored by “The Bishop,” you will be familiar with the rather inane “what if” automotive scenarios that I propose.
Enough with the humility; time reading your posts is NEVER wasted.
Speaking as someone who got the heebie jeebies from the moldy Buick and begged Gossin to get rid of it this seems like an awesome and very Autopian way to resurrect the car.
I know a flat rear window makes it easier but I like the aesthetic of reverse-curved rear glass a-la late El Caminos. Whether using the Buick rear glass or El Camino rear glass I think it would look great. I do understand that it may be too much to fabricate, though.
Why not just cut the Buick glass out, surrounding metal and all, flip it inside out, and weld it back in?
I have a Mercedes w123 wagon with an extremely rusty rear hatch hinge area and I’m almost daily tempted to do this to it.
With the missing rear side glass, I get a very heavy Reatta vibe, which isn’t a bad thing. That blind spot is huge though.
I say louvers for the rear side window, as to the roof it would be best to be steel but that is some fancy curves there that would be hard to finish correctly find a rear roof section from an el camino and graft that on
“…or, as a slightly jankier solution, we could use plexiglass…”
Oh, come on. At the very least spring for a sheet of polycarbonate.
Yeah – go for it!
And somebody needs to figure out how to get that Pontiac built. That thing’s awesome.
Would this Buick ever likely see the road again if you don’t convert it? If not, then definitely do it. No car deserves the cruel crush of fate or slow death by rot.
Agreed on both of the above penultimate outcomes being the opposite of what is desired; so much that I even built my business upon it!
After hitting a wall with a mystery electrical issue between the starter relay and the starter, I sent the car to a buddy that has AllData to get a second set of eyes on it. Work continues to resuscitate this green, Supercharged, soon-to-be-Ute!
Hopefully I’ll have a good news article on it shortly. Cheers.
Ground points under the carpet right ahead of the seat bases of the front seats under the plastic trim. I bet those are corroded.
Also, if it’s still around even in archive form, pontiacbonnevilleclub.com was a wonderful forum for these machines. There were folks on there who knew those cars inside and out and left lots of tips/tricks. The Photobucket apocalypse likely took out many of the photos, unfortunately.
Look forward to periodic updates.
As a man constantly dreaming of utes, i am in engaged in a near daily infinate loop of “what can be ute’d”.
late model chebby monte carlo, the slow blobby one? almost halfway there with those c-pilla sail panels.
volvo 245? the back hatch has been shown to nearly perfect slide forward and serve as rear cab wall, and still open for air, long lumber, whatever.
This Buick Farkel Park Avenue would be a hit.
Do eeet!
I know it’s currently a toxic Swamp Thing, but being a Buick Park Avenue Ultra, I think it deserves the concours treatment. For the rear cover, why do vinyl at all? Couldn’t you weld a piece of steel to the frame to cover the area from the old trunk lid to the back wall? Mount some channel around the inside perimeter and put rubber seals on it to keep out the water and add some strong hydraulic lifters and you’d have a mega-lid for the rear space. If steel’s too heavy, maybe aluminum?
Looking forward to seeing how this develops!
Get swamp thing runningDo this article IRLfill the bed with a koi pond, and have the Parkamino Swamp Thing edition.Option instead of koi pond, fill will shrimp.
that dude inspired me to cut the roof off my car. And I’m actually doing it! Stay tuned. -DT].
Wait. Hold up. What?? Haven’t heard a peep from David in days, then he pops in to say he’s cutting up a car? Which car? The wrangler already doesn’t have a roof, nor does the Metro, and there’s no way he’s hacking up the i3, what car are we talking about?!
That should have said “-SWG”
Sorry to disappoint!
Ah. Bummer, you had me all sorts of excited to see what craziness you were about to embark on.
El Camino, El El Camino!
The front is like a car, the back is like a truck!
The front is where you drive, the back is where you.. OH!
El Camino, El El Camino!
That black triangle in the rear side glass area has got to go, THAT looks major janky.
Is it possible to reuse the existing rear windshield, by turning it around, so that it curves the other way?
MiniDave- I also did a version with a full piece of clear there which I didn’t show. However, the cost for doing custom glass or janky clear acrylic might be cost prohibitive. Hence the reused door rear quarter window.
That’s one ambitious, creative, hard working guy who doesn’t flinch at a huge project like this and kind of enjoys the challenge! Go Stephen!
You could use spray-on bedliner. It would hide the seams like a vinyl roof but without the extensive fiddling around that custom vinyl would require.
It would also reinforce the rough-and-tumble nature for which Buick-based utes may or may not eventually be known.
Bold, aggressive. When should we expect to see the finished product?
I wired in a push-button start, bypassed the security and jumped the fuel pump, but still couldn’t get an injector pulse or fuel relay voltage. Once I get this mystery electrical gremlin solved, this 60K mile supercharged car is ready for the roof to come off!
Hope fully this fall if all goes to plan, my dude! Cheers.
Try swapping the ECU. It may have a bad solder joint or five.
Have you eradicated the fungus?
I’m commenting with only reading the headline and I don’t need an explanation; I say do it.
Now I’ll go back to read why you think you should do it.