Sparking Joy And Plugs: How To Repurpose A 31-Year-Old Junk Buick

Sometimes your plans just don’t turn out the way you initially envisioned. Circumstances change — especially time, money and desired effort level. The latter usually dictates how much of the former two is allocated to a specific endeavor.

With my Buick Park-amino project entering Year 3, and with it mostly sitting for Years 1 and 2, I knew that it was now or never, since my interest level was fading, and the ultra-massive mountain of work that it required still remained.

Welcome back to another SWG article my Autopian friends! It has been a couple weeks since I last checked in after the seemingly rustiest Genesis in North Carolina piqued my interest. 

Well, with limited space, and very limited time, I knew that taking on another project with that Korean luxury sedan would push back all my other projects, and I’m currently overloaded at the moment with 17 cars in my stable. And yes, I realize that is a completely ridiculous and superfluous number of cars to own. Only Mercedes Streeter believes otherwise, which … bravo Mercedes! 

First-In-First-Out, Or One-In-One-Out?

One fine day in early February of 2023, The Autopian’s Publisher Matt Hardigree bought himself a nice, new-to-him BMW 5-Series. You see, Matt’s been doing this car-culture/automotive journalist gig for a hot minute, so he’s wicked attuned to the various oddities of being a car enthusiast on the internet and the development of this space over the decades. Me, not so much.

So when he published his above hyperlinked piece, I copied his title and used the Buick purchase I had completed a day or so earlier as a counter to his German luxury purchase. I thought it was funny; I may be the only one. In fact, that was so long ago, our buddy Patrick George (now EIC of Inside EVs) edited the piece before it was published! He’s an awesome dude; we got a chance to finally meet in person at the LA Auto Show in 2023. 

So why was I so excited about this seemingly nondescript, milquetoast GM front-wheel-drive, full-sized sedan? Well, because it’s none of the above descriptors once you look past the 2-tone green-over-champagne paint. This was the absolute top-of-the-line GM luxury offering (outside of Cadillac) in its time, and it had all the speed and comfort that GM could muster for the “Doctor’s Car” brand.

It’s supercharged 3800 put out 225 horsepower at 5000 RPM and 275 lb-ft of torque, which made it no slouch for its day. Today, with its Riviera stablemate, this is one of the few used cars you’re going to find for under $5K that have a stock blower under the hood. Comfort, power, an out-of-the-ordinary drivetrain, and a cheap price – what’s not to like? “Ultra,” well put, GM.

If you recall from that 2+yr-old piece (damn!) I got the tires aired up, purchased a new (used) battery, obtained a clean NC title, made a new GM-style set of keys, and was then hard-stopped with all forward progress when both the fuel pump and starter refused to work. I was not at all surprised that this was the case, though, since the car was parked in 1999. [Ed note: I guess that’s why they call it the Park Avenue, amirite? -DT]. 

No worries. I planned to have the car towed back to my Evil Wrenching Lair for a smooth hundo. I figured this project was going to be fun and not take very long, since it was a GM FWD car of which there are literally millions! I figured wrong.

Let’s Do A Quick Recap Of Why Many Americans Left GM During This Era 

If you recall from my last piece on this car, I found that this top-of-the-line Buick (which was a retirement purchase for an elderly couple) needed the below dealer repairs in its 68,000 miles traveled (total) on this Earth:

• Crank sensor $276
• Trans solenoid $414
• Purge canister & solenoid $193
• Supercharger failure/replacement $1,394
• Rear wheel cylinders leaking $185
• Harmonic balancer $248
• Failed PCM $355
• Failed Traction Control Module (EBTCM) $881

That’s right, the elderly couple spent $3,946 on repairs in the first 68,000 miles. Which is $8,323.50 in 2025 dollars. That’s insane. Any brand or parent company that burns a customer that hard, that fast, probably isn’t getting them back, ever. The General does not deserve a salute for this tactical customer retention battlefield failure. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was better at his job at The Battle of the Somme than The General of Motors was doing during this era.

OK, Enough GM Dumbassery. Back To The Park Avenue Ultra.

Initially, the entire Autopian Writing Team was behind it, well, mostly. Being totally honest, some of them are into Ferraris, some are into Porsches, some are into Jeeps and some are into Citroen 2CVs, so my idea of bringing back a moldy GM full sizer from ‘94 wasn’t that cool to many, which is OK and definitely expected! Except for one, lone colleague. A man who doesn’t play by the rules. An outlaw that draws his own lines…

The Bishop! The man has an eye for art, and eye for design, and he strangely even was familiar with the designer who penned the ‘94 Park Avenue! Because of course he was; Bishop is incredible. After a quick DM in Slack, he popped out this absolute stunner of a concept and had it written up and published in short order. Again, the dude is superhuman.

And holy shit was his idea wicked badass! I mean, I was instantly transfixed by it, and the wheels started turning in my mind about paths to take to bring it to fruition. First though, I had to get it running!

I said previously about this car, “Out of 118 cars I’ve had, this is the only one that I’ve found that is both green and supercharged.” This is still true, even though my grand tally is now up to 153 cars, 2-plus years later. I cannot think of any green, supercharged cars that you can buy today that are under $100K, can you? 

Regardless, in my mind, it was officially Wicked Unique, which is a classification that only the best rescue examples receive as they pass through my Evil Wenching Lair. This Buick, despite its extremely poor condition, was killer cool, and I was determined to make it even more so.

The Extraction

A few nights after having the keys made and airing up the tires, I called a local tow service and threw ‘em a $100 to pull it out of its wet backyard prison of 24 years. The tow guy was a bit hesitant upon first seeing the situation, but after reassuring him that: 

• we had the keys at hand
• the tires rolled (this statement was pure optimism) 
• it could be shifted into Neutral 
• the Parking Brake was not stuck in the “On” position
• it would not have to be dragged up the roll-back 

…he then agreed to the extraction.

Seeing the car in motion (even if it was just being slowly winched) for the first time this millennium brought a huge smile to my face, as I absolutely love resurrecting and re-purposing anything that has been passed over — both from an environmental and from a general usage standpoint.

A short few moments after the winch hook was attached to the frame, the green Park Avenue slid right up the roll-back and was secured in place for its short five-minute drive across two neighborhoods to be awakened. Honestly, convincing the whiny tow guy that it wasn’t going to be that difficult at all was the hardest part of the entire tow experience!

That night, I went to bed with visions of Ultra, Supercharged Buicks dancing in my head.

Let’s Wrench! Part 1: “No Phone” -Cake

Let’s remember that this hoss has only 68K on it. When that low mileage (for its age) is applied to the condition-carnage that follows here in this section, it really shows just how heavy the hand of time is.

Once the car was safely delivered, I awoke the next day and started on the lowest-hanging fruit: the cell phone! I’m old, but I’ve hung out at enough hipster bars in East Nashville to know that there is good fake-nostalgia fashion money to be made from those folks in items like that phone (which hipsters usually weren’t alive to use back in the day). Hipsters, man, always trapped in their own irony.

A few screws going into the floorboard in front of the front-middle seat, a few wires going to the cellular module and antenna in the trunk, and it was ready for eBay!

Fun, After-Sales Note: That phone sold immediately after being posted, and the buyer reached out to me to express how absolutely stoked he was. If I recall, it sold for around $75.  I don’t get it at all.

Let’s Wrench!: Mold

I wasn’t going to get in the car to do anything until I made it safe(er) to breathe in there. Ripping out that petri dish of a headliner was Priority One. It was beyond gross, but it only took a few moments and very minimal effort.

Let’s Wrench!: Fuel

The next order of business was to deal with the biggest “known-knowns” of the situation: the rotten fuel system. Luckily for me, a “shade tree” mechanic had tried to assess the no-start condition the car had sometime between 1999 and the present. His attempt at diagnostics was to cut open the floor under the rear seat for direct fuel pump access instead of dropping the tank. I actually wrote about this exact move last year – check it out for a fun read! Lazy, yes. Dangerous, yes. Efficient … yes.

This was great since now I had a straight shot right at the seemingly OEM pump (from 1994)! Upon removing the pump, I was confronted with the nastiest, brown, stank-ass, corn-gas, rust water turpentine you’ve ever witnessed, but I was honestly expecting that. What I wasn’t expecting was this:

The rusty old pump actually worked! I’m not a bettin’ man, but I would have definitely lost money had I bet on that pump actually working. Now, after my initial amazement, my thoughts turned to how I can maximize this fortuitous turn of events. I decided to do the following, which I’m pretty proud of! 

I then shop-vac’d the sediment out of the bottom of the tank, popped in a cheap $65 new pump assembly, used compressed air to blow out the fuel lines, replaced the fuel filter, and added a few gallons of fresh gas. Fuel system: revitalized!

Lets Wrench!: Tail Lights

I had noticed that the tail lights seemed to have a bit of water in them, which seems to be a known issue for these cars — all the examples I’ve come across in my local yard exhibit the same unit seal failures. I looked for months at multiple examples; the flooded taillights were something that I could not fix, outside of slathering on bathroom silicone, so I decided to re-approach this repair after I got the car running.

Let’s Wrench!: Engine

Ok, enough messing around with tail lights and phones; let’s get to the real heart of the beast — the supercharged 3800 engine. Now that we had a fresh, properly-pressurized fuel supply, we needed to get that engine spinning and hopefully light that fresh fuel up! The only issue was that the starter was not engaging when the key was turned. Not a problem, as I called in my buddy Corey for backup, and we set about hot-wiring the starter.

With the fresh 12V source of juice that the car now had (in the form of that new (used) battery I picked up from my local Pick ‘n Pull for $45), we were getting 12V at the starter, so bridging the hot connector to the signal wire on the starter was as simple as laying a flathead screwdriver between the two points. I actually pulled this exact same, old-school trick on The Autopian cab last Fall…and it worked to get that beast started for the first time in who knows how long!

Sadly, we weren’t getting fuel to the Buick’s engine since the Security module was activated, which shuts down both fuel and the starter. But a can of ether in hand and a flathead screwdriver held by Corey, and ….

The Supercharged Buick fired for the first time since the 90s! Hell yes!

Cold, Wet Storage

Corey and I had a few celebratory beers that night. He’s a great mech, a great dude, and a great friend. Shout-out to all the good wrenching buddies out there; you folks are golden. 

But why was the Security system activated? The correct VATS key resistance was checked (that’s the little black chip on all GM keys during this era), so the only other explanation was a fault in the Security system. 

After purchasing the factory electrical manual off eBay (shout-out eBay for really stepping up their game), I dug into it to hopefully find some answers. Only, I wasn’t the best with reading highly detailed electrical diagrams, nor do I have much of a background in electrical diagnostics with my backyard shitbox rescue history.

I couldn’t figure out what was causing the Security system to activate (honestly there is a ridiculous number of inputs that activate it, such as the lock cylinders on the deck lid and doors, the ignition switch, the hood, etc), so I parked the Buick and vowed to study up, increase my skillset and understanding of the issue, and then to return to it with triumph in mind.

We published the first article on the Ultra on February 10, 2023, and in the conclusion, I stated that I had owned 118 cars up to that point. Well, between then and now, 20 additional cars came my way, so I definitely had my hands full! But I never forgot about the Supercharged Buick; it was always lurking in the background, reminding me that I needed to finish what I had started. 

Let’s Wrench, Take 2!

You can only postpone something for so long before guilt starts to get at you. Well, after about 18 months, I decided that it was time to crack open that electrical shop manual and try again. I stared and stared at diagram after diagram, I went online and scoured the forums, I moved from Security section to the Fuel Delivery/Injection section to the Fuel Pump/Relay Center section to the Starter section (they are all intertwined, electrically) until one wire on one post popped right off of the page and smacked me in the face: The Fuel Enable Circuit! 

Eureka! I think I finally cracked the code and solved the mystery! When you look at the location of the Security Module in the dashboard, it was right next to the A-pillar moonroof drain! GM, in all of its wisdom, placed a bunch of computerized electronics next to a cheap plastic drain hose and just hoped for the best. The hose leaked (eventually, it disintegrated) and it was literally raining on the Security Module! 

When you piece together the rest of the puzzle, the big Live Oak tree that the car was parked underneath clogged the moonroof drains with debris and shorted out the Security system decades ago. That was why the shade tree mech cut open the floor, since he believed it was a fuel delivery issue (which it was, but the Security Module was purposely cutting fuel). Nobody could figure the root cause out, so the car was doomed to sit for a quarter century.

Puzzle solved! Time for a Stanley Tucci Negroni to celebrate!

The Chains Of Immobility Have Been Broken.

I immediately ordered a $20 Security bypass off of Amazon, which arrived the day before last Thanksgiving and was popped into the Security Module harness plug as quickly as I could get it out of the box. Fingers crossed, the bypass would fool the computer into believing the Security Module is present and disabled. About 20 seconds later, I was greeted by this:

I was about as happy as I have ever been in my wrenching career. This one felt so, so good. Solving a puzzle is fun – solving a 25-year mystery is wicked fun! I immediately went and got plates for the car before the DMV closed for Thanksgiving.

The next day, I woke up to a city with minimal traffic and a fully registered, inspected, and insured car. I was driving a machine that few thought would move under its own power ever again, let alone at speeds up to 50mph. For the first time since the Clinton presidency, the Park Avenue Ultra was Ultra-ing once more.

I was about as happy as an Autopian could be. The Buick was running, and I was completely unaware that a big yellow toaster would be dropped off in my driveway a few hours later.

Time Waits For No Man Or Buick … And There’s Never Enough Of It

I returned home after that trumphant first drive and moved immediately onto the disaster that was The Autopian Cab a few hours later. The Park Avenue was parked again.

After the Cab left a couple of weeks later, I was gifted a $50 stick-shift Volvo. A two-door 2002 Explorer Sport fell into my lap right after the Volvo left. The Buick continued to sit. More cars showed up, were rescued and rehabbed, and moved onto new owners. Still, the Buick sat.

As the months went on, there just always seemed to be something more pressing and important than my green Park Avenue Ultra. The list of items that were needed to take it from operational to actually-decent condition remained static and daunting. 

Literally nothing electrical in the interior worked – seat motors, window switches, HVAC unit, radio, etc., all non-functional. But not just those; serious safety items such as the turn signals, brake lights, headlights, AC, heat, power brakes, and more were inoperable. Did the car go forward, backward, turn left and right, and stop well enough on its own? Yes, but that was about it. I had to accept the Park Avenue was just too far gone.

I posted the car for sale for $900, which was about how much I had into it, given the $400 purchase price, $100 title, $100 tow, $65 fuel pump, a 68,000-mile supercharged donor engine, and other odds and ends. The buyer would get a running, well-documented drivetrain and be able to scrap the body for $250, so they’d be out the door around $650 for a Supercharged 3800 – fair money for what they’d be getting, I figured.

It’s a bittersweet moment when you realize that your project car is just not going to reach the state of completion you hoped for in your lifetime. You’re giving up on something that you had previously financially, emotionally, and physically committed yourself to. On one hand, putting the Buick up for sale felt like a defeat; but on the other, there was a pile of cash out there waiting, and the weight of having to complete the long list of repairs the car needed was lifted off my shoulders.

The Supercharged Heart Keeps Beating

Recently, an aeronautical engineer who worked for the FAA contacted me. He told me that he has the same Fiero that he bought new in high school in ‘88, and its original engine had just blown. I knew immediately this guy was (A) one of us and (B) the perfect buyer.

Bob The Buyer came down from Wake Forest to The Cape Fear, and it took about 30 seconds before he PayPal’d me the cash and asked if I could deliver it to Wake Forest. Luckily for him, I was bringing Jason Torhinsky his new 2CV that same weekend, so I already had a trailer lined up behind The World’s  Greatest $400 Durango!

Bob has been working on and massaging his high school Fiero into a gorgeous masterpiece over the past 37-plus years, and the man has exquisite taste and talent. Check this out:

Bob also recently posted a YouTube video that documents his custom build. Click that link, you’ll be glad you did. Putting a Supercharged Buick Park Avenue Ultra 3800 engine in a Fiero is wicked, wicked cool.

I put together a fun little social media Reel on how to get a car like my Buick running, sent it off to The Autopian Video Crew (a crew composed of one Griffin Riley) and rolled my green Ultra onto the U-Haul car transporter to leave its coastal NC home for the last time.

That Buick was heavy! I don’t think I’ve towed anything with that weight at that speed for that long, but my Durango saw it through with an impressive 15MPG at 75MPH! The U-Haul car transport weighs in at 2,210 lbs, and the Buick rings in at 3,533lbs for a total of 5,743 reasons why you’re sleeping on how badass the Gen 2 Durango is.

Saying Goodbye To A Dream

Silly dreams are still dreams, and it’s never easy to let a dream go. To me, that green Ultra had a set of traits (green & supercharged) that I don’t think I’ll ever find again for the rest of my life, even as a guy who has waaay too many cars coming and going all the time. Green is my favorite color. This was my first supercharged car – they’re not exactly commonplace.

The easiest aspect of letting this dream go was knowing that the car has become an organ donor and that it will donate its powerful supercharged heart to a worthy recipient. Literally, the best possible outcome here. I get a feeling of pride thinking that my old supercharged engine will be impressing a new generation of car enthusiasts in the Wake Forest area in a gorgeous custom Fiero body.

The hardest aspect of letting it go is realizing that life is moving way faster than I think I was consciously aware of. I don’t have the time that I thought I did for silly, fun projects like this one anymore. The clock is always ticking, and there are always going to be other options out there – and there will always be less time to finish them. 

Everything in life is a choice. 

Looking back, I’m so glad that I saved this car’s engine from the crusher. I was also able to get the immense satisfaction of solving a 25-year mystery and taught myself basic electrical diagram analysis! The truth is, the car was way too far gone when I found it, and attempting to bring it back to glory was a fool’s errand. 

It’s still such an undercover, low-key, wicked-unique and killer-cool car in my mind, and it always will be. Even after it’s crushed into a cube.

My hope is that we each have the wisdom and awareness to know how to best spend the finite days and dollars we each have, while we have them, and how to make the best of our circumstances and situations.

88mph, into the future.

• How I Saved A Once-$90,000 Mercedes SL I Bought For $1,900

• Why The Dirt-Cheap Broken Jaguar X-Type For Sale In Every Town Might Actually Be Worth Buying And Fixing

• I Took On A Bad GM Design In A Hail-Mary Attempt To Fix My Friends Broken Suburban But It Was Too Little Too Late

• What It Was Like Owning And Fixing My First Jeep After Owning Over 100 Non-Jeeps

• What I Learned Restoring A $600 Dodge Ram With A Burned Up Transmission And Ruined Interior

• How I Bought A Broken Version Of My Dream Car For $300, Then Nursed It Back To Glory And Let It Free

• Proof That A $700 Car Saved From The Junkyard Can Make Someone As Happy As A New Lambo Can

• How I Saved My Buddys’ SUV After It Died At The Most Embarrassing Possible Time

• ShitBox Showdown: The British Are Back In The Cape Fear

• Why People Cut Holes Into Their Cars’ Trunk Floors Even Though It Could Kill Them

• Even Cheap Cars Can Be Expensive: A Hard Lesson I Learned About The Repair-Parts Minefield

• I Spent $1300 On A Nissan That Lasted 3 City Blocks And 2.5 Minutes

• Rescuing A 75-Year-Old Car From An Older Car Enthusiast Reminded Me How Important Every Minute We Get Doing This Truly Is