2004 Buick Park Avenue Ultra Sedan 4-door 3.8l on 2040-cars

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Repo man pays off elderly couple's car just in time for Thanksgiving

Repo men get bad raps for a good reason; no one likes having their car taken away. At least one guy in the repossession game proved folks in his profession aren't all bad when he helped an elderly couple hold on to their wheels right before Thanksgiving. According to the Belleville News-Democrat, unexpected bills and the rising cost of prescription medications pushed Stanford and Patty Kipping's fixed income to the breaking point. Unable to keep up with the $95 dollar a month payment on their 1998 Buick, they fell into arrears and the bank sent a repo man out to their home in Red Bud, Illinois to reclaim the car. Jim Ford, co-owner of Illini Recovery Inc., hooked up the old Buick and dragged it away, but later that night his conscience caught up with him. "When I got home that night, I said to myself, 'They are a real nice elderly couple. I gotta do something. I can't just take their car,'" Ford told the News-Democrat. Ford did do something, something surprisingly humane. He set up a GoFundMe and, within just a few short hours, he raised more than $3,500 dollars. This was enough money to pay off the Kipping's loan with a little left over for some maintenance. Ford and a friend then hooked the car back up and towed it back to the Kipping's home. Ford presented the couple with their trusty Buick, and threw in a thousand dollars in an envelope and a frozen turkey for Thanksgiving. "It was a miracle come true," Patty told the paper. "We didn't know what we were going to do." "I got up this morning and I looked up at the sun and I said, 'I hope we get our car back,'" added Stanford. "It's just unbelievable."Related Video: News Source: Belleville News-Democrat Auto News Weird Car News Buick repossession repo man

Junkyard Gem: 1978 Buick Skylark Sedan

Around the time that OPEC shut off the oil taps, The General realized that it was time to sell more small cars from GM divisions not previously known for such machines. The logical candidate for this project was the Chevrolet Nova, a rear-wheel-drive compact that shared much of its chassis design with the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. The Nova-based Pontiac Ventura came out in the 1971 model year, and the Buick and Oldsmobile Divisions began producing their own badge-engineered Nova siblings for 1973 (Cadillac was late to the party, but eventually created the Nova-based Seville for 1976). At first, the Buickized Nova got Apollo badges, but the better-known Skylark name was applied to these cars for the 1975 through 1979 model years. Today's Junkyard Gem is one of those Nova-based Skylarks, found in a Denver self-serve yard. From the 1964 through 1972 model years, the Skylark lived on the A-Body chassis and was sibling to the Chevrolet Chevelle/Malibu, Pontiac LeMans/Tempest/GTO, and Oldsmobile Cutlass/442. After the 1975-1979 rear-wheel-drive X-Body phase, the Skylark name then went onto the unrelated front-wheel-dive X-Body chassis developed for the Chevrolet Citation. It's a Nova, sure, but Buick made sure that it had a bit more swank than its Chevy counterpart. Checked seat fabric with big square buttons! The base engine in the '78 Skylark was the 3.8-liter Buick V6, rated at 110 horsepower. GM had invested in a new crankshaft design for this engine the year before, so it no longer had the "odd-fire" cut-down V8 crankshaft that shook the fillings out of so many drivers' teeth in earlier years. An assortment of low-compression V8s from Oldsmobile, Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Buick were available as optional equipment as well, eventually leading to the "Chevymobile" lawsuits of a few years later. The base transmission in this car was a three-speed manual (I'm not sure if you could still get a three-on-the-tree column-shift manual Skylark in 1978, but a three-on-the-floor manual was available for sure). The very last three-on-the-tree car Americans could buy was the '79 Nova and its Olds Omega/Pontiac Phoenix siblings, while the final three-on-the-floor cars were the '81 Malibu and siblings. This car has the optional three-speed automatic.

GM applies for 'Enspire' trademark for the second time

When we wrote about the Buick Enspire concept debut in China earlier this year, we said "we wouldn't be surprised to see either an all-new crossover, or a redesigned current model, sporting the designs seen on this concept." Now it appears General Motors might be planning to go with Option A. GM Authority discovered a trademark application for the name "Enspire," to be applied to "Automobiles, excluding motor homes." This is the second time GM filed for the name, the first being in 2015. As always, applications don't mean certainties. However, we know Buick has a range of new models in development, it's losing the LaCrosse sedan and its crossovers sell quite well. If there's to be a new vehicle called Enspire, it shouldn't be hard to guess what kind it would be. GMA's previous investigations picked up clues that there'll be two new Buick crossovers, one about the size of the China-sourced Envision and sitting on the E2 platform that supports the Cadillac XT4, Chevrolet Malibu, and Buick Regal. Based on data in an IHS Automotive document, the site said the putative Enspire's platform code is E2UB, the U for utility vehicle, the B for Buick. The other crossover would sit above an Envision, below the Enclave, on the short-wheelbase C1 platform employed by the Cadillac XT5. We can probably take the Enspire concept's design cues as a preview of the future, if not its electric drivetrain. Designers carved the wide, formidable stance with curved and elongated versions of traditional Buick brand cues, such as the grille crossbar stretching into the headlights. A futuristic, art-filled and screen-heavy interior contrasts with genuine wood, and is probably best not to look at because Buick couldn't bring anything like it to production. The electric drivetrain included a 550-horsepower electric motor and enough battery to power a 370-mile range. Those figures seem a little outlandish given the potential price tag and the Buick badge. Besides, GM has other plans for a dedicated EV powertrain in development that should bow around 2021, and a Buick EV based on the Chevrolet Bolt's BEV II architecture. As such, a conventional powertrain seems more likely for an Enspire crossover, at least initially. The same IHS Automotive document said the E2UB vehicle would go into production in Shanghai in late 2019.