’34 Chevrolet Master

The 1935 Buick Series 40 was coming along a treat, suspension and steering sorted, engine was already ‘updated’ albeit to a throttled 200ci inline six, so nothing extreme. Wheels done, exterior great. However I’ve never been happy with the interior and Majella hates the high-back front seats.

Always with a view to restore the interior, the dash and dials are modern too, I kept my eye out for parts or a donor…

Now don’t ask why I was looking for vintage cars on Gumtree South Africa, but I was doing just that when I stumbled across this lovely original 1934 Chevrolet Master Deluxe. I’ve bought a motorbike, the Katana, from South Africa before, the RAND makes it appealing and almost cancels out the shipping.

The ’34 Chevy is a four-door saloon with a very similar body to the Buick, so many parts will fit. A quick reckoning and the seats and interior, door cards, window and screen trim all fit. Throw in the horns, wipers, deluxe luggage rack and loads of interior fittings missing on the Buick and the man-maths was simple.

A long sailing from Capetown and it sits here now in Dubai, waiting for the return of the Buick from India to decide if we do the swap, or just tidy it up and ship it to Ireland to use there, it is right hand drive after all.New tyres are here and on and a quick once over and it should be ready to go to Sharjah for registration, then its decision time…