1958 Buick Limited "Wells Fargo"
1958 Buick Limited Wells Fargo
This car was custom built by the Buick factory for Dale Robertson, star of the Buick sponsored TV western Tales of Wells Fargo. The picture above is a postcard of Dale and the car issued by Buick. Interior custom features included: bucket seats of Danish calfskin with hand tooled western motif leather inserts; door panels of the same materials; a console between the seats - the "gun rack" - that held two chrome plated Winchesters with carved stocks; a hand tooled leather pistol holster attached to each door that held a matched set of pearl handled .38 caliber Colt revolvers (Is this car street legal??); natural calfskin carpeting; and flip up door handles. Exterior custom features included: solid walnut panels replaced the three banks of louvers on both sides; the words "Wells Fargo" were placed on the panels in chrome letters; a longhorn steer's head was superimposed over the standard hood emblem; and flipper hubcaps were added to the wheels. Buick displayed this car at major car shows across the country before presenting it to Mr. Robertson. I do not know the current whereabouts of the car. The last information I have is that it sold at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg festival on Labor Day, 1996 for $61,000.00. This was reported on the Collectable Auto Discussion Forum by someone who attended the auction.
Prior to that it was in the collection of a Buick dealer and car collector in the Milwaukee area. 7/30/05 - I just found out the car sold again in 1998 for $30,975.00 at the Barrett-Jackson auction. It is on their website, Lot #919 for 1998.
I am fortunate to own the original hood emblem, pictured above in its current condition. The story I have on this is that it was broken while the car was in the Milwaukee collector's possession several years ago. I heard it was replaced with a standard emblem, but the photo at the Barrett-Jackson web site shows that the emblem was reproduced.
The broken emblem was in a box of parts that was purchased from the estate of the Milwaukee collector. The broken piece is missing. Below - I have framed this with the postcard and with a magazine article about the car. Read the article here. It is a scan in .jpg format.
Updated March 28, 2006
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