Note: These stories contain graphic content of injuries suffered in pursuing the joys of owning an English ragtop.

The 1957 MGA after it was painted.
Part 1—The Rebuild

The Trip to Los Angeles
Gary D. Smith
I had a nearly new car, but there was some magical quality to my fourteen year old ’57 MGA that beckoned what was then a teenager’s fancy in a way that only an English roadster could. It was a beautiful spring day, and I couldn’t resist the open air [...]

Ron Will worked at GM Design Staff and lived across the street from me when I first worked at GM in 1973. At the time he had two 1960 Cadillacs, a convertible and a hearse. Down in Detroit somewhere next to a cemetery (where else?) was a fenced-in lot with half a dozen or more [...]

Car Fiction by Gary D. Smith
The rush hour commute downtown could be worse—I’m usually ahead of the main stampede. With all of the construction it still can take nearly an hour. If I’m not in my car and backing out of the garage by 6:00 it could take an extra 30 minutes. But compared to [...]

From Buick One to Olds One
I was transferred from Buick One to Oldsmobile One Exterior Studio in late 1985. Olds One was a crazy studio even by Design Staff standards. One story comes to mind. Peggy Lee recorded a song called Is That All There Is? in the ’50s that was so depressing that it [...]

My Dad’s Century Turbo Coupe
The cars I remember my dad having included a Seafoam Green ’51 Ford 2-door, a red and white ’55 Chevy 2-door Del Ray, a gold ’62 Chevy Impala 4-door hardtop, and a tan ’68 Buick Skylark 2-door coupe. I was working at GM Design Staff, and dad expressed an interest in [...]

[Click here to see a gallery of images of the Pace Car garage and the Buick group from Flint on the first day of qualifying.]
The 1981 Buick Regal Indy Pace Car graphics originated as one of a variety of assignments for special promotional vehicle illustrations that Herb Fishel had me do freelancing under the [...]

1979 Buick Road Hawk

1979 Buick Road Hawk
Buick got a bit carried away with the idea that graphics were the key that would remake their image. The Road Hawk was the worst example. I didn’t work on that one. It had a hawk on each wheel center, one on each side of the car, one on [...]