10k-Mile Family Heirloom 1966 Buick Wildcat Is So Original It Still Rolls On Factory Tires

Let’s go through the facts briefly: the automobile is the pride and joy of Anson Renshaw, a resident of Mesa, Arizona. He got the car as a gift from his grandmother, the original owner of the stunning Buick. Recently, the man celebrated rolling the odometer to its fifth digit and turning the dials for the car’s ten thousandth mile (16,090 kilometers).

Now, let’s go through the story in detail: the year is 1940. On July 7, a steamship from Seattle docked at the piers in Seward, Alaska. On board was the Renshaw family: Anson LeVake, his wife Sarah, and their children. The Renshaws weren’t on vacation – the family owned the Gold Cord mine in the Willow Creek Mining District near Anchorage.

A local from Petersburg, Alaska’s Little Norway, Sarah M. Renshaw, was no softie. She enjoyed her smokes and brandy just as much as her cars. Digging for gold must have been a prosperous enterprise. In 1966, the Rensahw couple walked into a Buick dealership in their hometown of Anchorage. ‘That one,’ Mrs. Renshaw pointed to a Seafoam Green automobile shining on a spinning display—a two-door hardtop Wildcat Custom.

Sarah came from a family of fishermen, and her spouse's profitable business wasn’t enough reason to keep her from earning her own money at Sears and Roebuck. She knew exactly what she wanted from the car, even though she only needed it to go to the grocery store and back. Her Wildcat came with the big V8, the 425-cubic-inch Wildcat 465, an automatic transmission, and no air conditioning.

With an all-year high of 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius) recorded in July 1966, who would need an expensive air-cooling system? (The following years weren't much different, with summer temperatures lingering in the high 70s and low 80s - below 27 degrees Celsius - on one or two days a year). Sarah Renshaw got an $800 discount and paid $4,197.66 for her car. In exchange, she received one of the 10,800 Wildcat Custom Two-Door Sport Coupe examples assembled for the model year.

During the following 28 years, she drove the car around town for short trips to the shops, so in 1994, the odometer read 6,993 miles (11,252 kilometers). One of her grandsons, Anson Renshaw, was a student at Kansas State University – a Wildcat in his own right. Grandma gave the keys for the Wildcat to the Wildcat.

The Buick has been pampered like a newborn in the three decades since that moment, never spending a minute out in the open unattended. Anson Renshaw, the current owner, went as far as making life decisions based on the big car's well-being. The houses he lived in had to have a garage roomy enough to accommodate the survivor automobile. When he was in Alaska,it was the Buick that sat in the garage, while his daily endured the harsh winters out in the open.

In January of this year, the car turned 10,000 miles (16,090 kilometers). Now living in Mesa, Arizona (some 3,600 miles away from Anchorage), Anson celebrated the moment with Lou Costabile. Play the video below to see how the Wildcat passed the milestone.

Apart from a handful of parts (the battery and its cables, sparkplugs, muffler, air filter, and glove compartment lock), everything is exactly what the factory put on the Wildcat, including the Goodyear 8.45x15 whitewall bias-ply tires braving the last 58 years with remarkable resilience. The car has spent most of its life in the cool climate of Alaska (Anson Renshaw moved to Arizona only two years ago), which is probably why the rubber didn’t succumb during the last six decades.

Also, not being driven often must have helped preserve the tires. Still, Anson plans to replace them with replicas (Goodyear no longer produces the Power Cushions) and drive the car more often. In the three decades he has owned it, he’s taken it on occasional rides six or seven times a year, mostly when the KSU Wildcats won a game. The codes on the tires reveal a manufacturing date of February 1966.

Anson kept the Buick heirloom in a garage where the average temperature stayed between 55 and 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13-14 degrees Celsius). He ensured the tires sat on plywood panels to insulate the rubber from the concrete floors. Just like his grandmother had done, he would use the Wildcat only in the summers.

The car’s big 425 cubic inches of V8-ness (a hefty seven-liter motor) was the second most performant engine in the lineup at the time. Dubbed ‘Wildcat 465’ (Buick marketed the eight-cylinder powerplants according to their torque output rather than cylinder displacement), the mighty mill made 340 horsepower and 465 lb-ft of torque (344 PS, 631 Nm) from a single four-pot carburetor and 10.25:1 compression.

The Super Turbine three-speed automatic transmission (the alternative to the standard three-speed manual) required a 3.07:1 rear axle. One other, hotter option, the Gran Sport, was available only in 1966. It used dual-quad induction and punched the tires with 360 hp (365 PS). But, with only 21 being built with this muscle option, probably no example got sent to Anchorage, Alaska.

The owner’s manual from 1966 states that a free check-up was offered at 12,000 miles (19,308 kilometers, to be dead accurate). Anson Ranshaw intends to drive his survivor Wildcat to a Buick dealership and collect the bonus (I wouldn’t be surprised if they rose to the challenge and did the inspection free of charge).