Last year, I cracked open one of my many storage units to find that one of my beloved Smarts had turned into a moldy Superfund site. My excellent wife cleaned it out with some heavy-duty chemicals and as of today, the car is still in fantastic shape. Somehow, our Stephen Walter Gossin found an even worse car, and picked up his own environmental disaster. I’m not entirely sure how he’s going to fix it.
[Editor’s Note: We forgot to publish this on Friday. Crap! So I’m just going to publish it now. Why the hell not, right? – JT]
Gossin purchased a vehicle at the same time that our Matt Hardigree did, and the two cars couldn’t be further apart. Matt’s manual BMW E39 is so beautiful that it’s hard to believe it’s a winter beater. Meanwhile, Gossin’s Buick Park Avenue Ultra looks like something that has been parked in a swamp for the vast majority of its life. I mean, just look inside of this thing:
The interior looks like it’s covered in animal fecal matter and perhaps pounds of mold that have been allowed to grow for who knows how long. Gossin says that the sunroof’s drains clogged and the car has been filling up with water. Everything is rusty; apparently, and there are three inches of moldy water behind the driver seat. Word is he didn’t wear PPE before cracking open this disaster, so hopefully, he’s not going to gain some horrific superpower.
After some polling in the office Slack, there was a clear winner in making us laugh on Friday, and it was this comment from Skwimjim:
That thing looks like Shrek has been using it as a hovel in his post-fame years.
Poor Shrek, he’s gone from a swamp to a Buick. As for how Gossin plans on fixing this, he says:
Since none of the windows roll down (yet), this first step on this moldy crusade is to remove the headliner and blow out the drain lines to stop the source of the moisture. After that, a few days of it sitting in the sun with all doors open (well one is stuck closed) to air it out. Then, out come the seats and carpet. It’s a marathon, not a sprint and we gots nothin’ but time.
I’m impressed with this car’s condition. It just gets worse with every sentence! What’s with Autopian writers and moldy cars?
As you can probably guess from our news coverage last week, I went to the Chicago Auto Show. I’ve been going to the Chicago show since 2009 and over those years it went from being so packed that it takes two days to see everything, to compact enough that you could probably speedrun the thing before noon. I mean, this year Honda’s showcase vehicle is a plane, which is something that I’ve never seen before at the Chicago show. Still, I went back on Saturday, bringing my wife along for the ride. Apparently, this was Sheryl’s first-ever visit to an auto show!
Your regularly scheduled Mercedes will return today, I hope you all had a great weekend!
(Top Photo: Stephen Walter Gossin/Dreamworks Pictures)
Personally I think the whole thing should be soaked in jet fuel and incinerated.
I missed that comment. Must have been late in the day. We should have a cutoff time. Despite that yeah that was smart and funny as shit. Thanks for the laugh
Summer of ’21 was especially humid and my Golf4 TDI was due for a timing belt. So tucked away in my earth sheltered garage and attached house I leisurely tore in to the task, more slowly because it was a great summer for distractions like motorcycling. After about a week of inactivity I went back to work on the belt, only to be greeted by that telltale smell and a strangely slimy floor… But used the usual cleanup techniques, the floor was returned to it’s normal texture, and 12 years later the TDI still runs great!
Am I the only one thinking this car might mutate into a ‘Last of Us’ version of ‘Christine’?
Articles like this make me think whatever David Tracy has is contagious, and is spreading to the rest of the staff.
“Typhoid Tracy”
Between Gossin’s Superfund Buick, Mercedes’ toasty buses and Smarts, Hardigree’s overmileaged BMW – admittedly the best of the bunch and then Tracy’s fabulous (fabulist?) rust collection, in a league of it’s own, The Autopian really needs to consider a name change. I’m not complaining, mind you, but believe your Nom de Plume could be more accurate. I nominate The Horder-O-Pian. Or perhaps you could do a spin-off site. Auto-Horder. Car and Rust. Red Car. Iron Oxide and EZ Off might also be popular among those who reminisce about the old two-wheeler magazines.
Don’t forget me, the Infrequently Contributing Man of Many Ford Econolines
I was going to protest, and say that I only have three cars and they all run and drive just fine, but then it occurred to me that my hoarding is just on a smaller scale – literally: 1/24 scale model kits and 1/10 scale RC cars. Never mind.
Because I am a bit OCD about grammar and spelling, I looked up horder and hoarder to see if my spelling and usage were proper.
Webster’s says, “a horde carries the connotation of a throng or army whose members are fierce like warriors and perhaps uncultivated, and out to invade an area or hungry for something.”
A hoarder is someone who collects things that others see as useless.
I believe the staff of the Autopian can be characterized as horders in that they are fierce, uncultivated people with an odd hunger for vehicles invaded by rust, bacteria, small varmints and fungi.
I would rather be sentenced to a lifetime of cleaning out old ladies cat boxes than deal with this mess. WTF? Projects are one thing, self abuse is another.
You’re bummin’ me out, man!
This is the dumbest project I’ve seen someone take on, when you can get perfectly mint ones for like $3k. If it had been posted on April Fools I would have assumed it was a joke… but this site… this site has people who do things that defy rational thinking and logic.
Let it die.
Where’s the fun in that?
Not everything is about money. Sometimes a fun challenge to learn something new and to save an old car from the crusher is a worthwhile pursuit, regardless of the cost. I have a job for money.
There’s more here than just the linear thought process of “this thing costs x and and the alternative thing would cost y”.
There is value in building/rebuilding things with your hands. Especially so with cars when you have a passion for them A value that cannot be quantified and monetized.
Thanks for the comment and for reading.
I agree it doesn’t need to always be about money, but in this case it’s not rare, it’s not desirable, and I would argue it’s not even a very good car. These are boomer mobiles for people who didn’t like driving and wanted to be transported somewhere on a couch, vague steering, marshmallow suspension, they’re good for roadtrips and little else. Why bother with this? I do not understand the “passion” you speak of in this case.
I wouldn’t consider these to be boomermobiles. More like Silent Generation.
I don’t think a supercharged buick is a bad project at all but this amount of mold is pure danger. Don’t risk your lungs.
I’m going to ask David about implementing a “thumbs down” button.
You’ll be lucky if your thumbs don’t rot off from gangrene, man
That is an interesting take, and I wholeheartedly agree that rebuilding stuff connects you in a way that purchasing new simply can’t.
That being said, I think you misunderstood the concept of a “donor vehicle” – this is supposed to be the car you buy to salvage parts from, and use them in a viable vehicle you intend to bring back to life. This abomination doesn’t fit either category.
Anyway, while I’m totally judging you for trying to pull a pet sematary on this thing, my judgment is not legally binding :-). Do whatever float your boat – although, in this case, I’m pretty sure it would sink faster than a lead Titanic.
I enjoy these projects of Gossin’s as a worst-case scenario test for my own vehicles.
As in, I could end up in a coma for years after being hit in the head with a bowling ball and my beloved cars sit, get flooded/buried/irradiated/tractor-beamed then shot down, etc.
I appreciate getting a sense now on the upper limit of what might be possible restoration-wise when I wake up and behold the horror.
I’m wondering what will be left once all the rusted/moldy/broken/just-plain-gross parts are removed. Tail lights, windows and maybe a couple door handles?
“You have to get in there to test if the ignition key works/fits. I ain’t gettin’ on there. No way.” -The locksmith, after new keys were cut
Smart locksmith.
Gossin’s plan seems like the best way forward. Also, I imagine his superpower would be like Meg Griffin’s: his fingernails will suddenly be able to extend and retract a little bit.
“Ow, that kind of hurt.”
I’m not sure you’ll ever erase the evidence of mold from inside the parts. It’s always going to curse this car. Even the unibody frame cavities have to have it in there, and without dunking the whole thing in a pool of bleach, how?
Gasoline and a match would do the trick…
I agree. That mold has seeped into every nook and cranny, unless you disassembled basically every single component… Actually no even then it will have found places you just cannot possibly get to.