$4,639.77 out the door in 1960: the Buick that started Barrhaven's car show

The car that started the Barrhaven Classic Car Show was parked in the middle of it on Sunday, hood and trunk both open, with its original window sticker still taped inside the glass.

Keith Goebel's 1960 Buick Electra 225 convertible left the line at Flint, Michigan, and was delivered through Lorne T Rowsen Ltd Buick in Windsor. The sticker in the window lists the base price at $4,192.00 and then works down the options the first owner paid for: heater-defroster, $98.90. Wonder Bar radio with electric antenna, $158.02. Rear seat speaker, $17.20. Six-way power seat, $68.80. Permanent anti-freeze, $6.85. Whitewall tires, $48.00. With $50.00 to get it to the dealer, the total at the bottom reads $4,639.77.

Under the hood is a 401-cubic-inch Wildcat 445, rated at 325 horsepower. Buick built 6,746 of these convertibles that year. Goebel's own display board runs through all of it and then ends on one line: body, paint and parts, roughly $70,000. Labour, me, still hurting.

The details he wants you to notice are smaller than the fins. Two options on the car were added rather than ordered: Guide-Matic, which drops the high beams when a phototube on the dash picks up an oncoming car, and Twilight Sentinel, which switches the headlights on when it senses dusk. Both were $43 and $29 installed when they were new. Both were tube-operated in 1960, like the radio.

That radio is the other thing. Goebel says the factory AM set only carried so far on a long drive, so there is FM in the back now, along with a six-disc CD changer he put there for himself, and an 8-track player he found brand new in the box for $25 and installed. The trunk is part of the display: a rack of tapes for it, a Coca-Cola tray, the 1960 chassis service manual, the owner protection policy, and a booklet on how to look after a convertible top.

Goebel travelled to shows with this car for years before he ran one of his own. Standing on the other side of the field Sunday, he was more interested in pointing at the rest of the field. "Go over there, talk to some of the guys," he said. "You'll be pleasantly surprised at what you hear from each and every one of them."