This 1939 Buick Eight Special Coupe belongs to Len Hanson of North Smithfield.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

NORTH SMITHFIELD Len Hanson’s maroon 1939 Buick Eight Special Coupe is no trailer queen.

“It’s driven almost every day,” Hanson said in a recent interview, adding that his wife, Linda, asks him why he even drives it downtown for a haircut.

“And I say, ‘That is exactly what we got it for, to drive every day.’ ”

“The more you drive (old cars), the better they behave,” he said. “Let them sit and they get cranky; they need to be driven.”

Hanson sounds like the expert he has become in just a few years. Prior to purchasing his Buick three years ago, he and Linda were big motorcyclists, taking trips all over the country on their Honda Gold Wing.

“We rode motorcycles until just a few years ago,” he said, sometimes as many as 400 to 500 miles in a day.

“From here to Niagara (N.Y.),” he said, adding that “it was like riding a Cadillac” and so quiet that he and Linda did not need walkie-talkies to communicate.

Indeed, motorcycles were clearly Hanson’s first love. He said he owned and rode them from the age of 25 and that his first bike, a Triumph Bonneville, was his “favorite to this day.”

However, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, seven years ago and subsequently moved off his beloved bikes and into slower-moving classic cars.

Hanson, 64, is a solid block of a man with a direct manner and wry sense of humor.

“I’m slowly losing my strength, losing my balance, losing my coordination,” he said. “But I had no close calls, I’ve not hurt my wife. It was just a matter of knowing when to quit (riding motorcycles).”

“My wife makes me happy, my (two) daughters make me happy and my four grandchildren make me happy,” he said.

Hanson said he had held “multiple blue collar jobs” through his life, including working as a machinist and a truck driver for a number of years. But clearly the job that mattered most to him was the 23 years he served as a volunteer firefighter for the North Smithfield Fire Department. He discontinued as a volunteer over 20 years ago but still regularly drops in at the station to catch up.

Hanson said he initially went looking for a Model A Ford, which he admires for its character.

“I was hoping to find (a vehicle) to fit my girth,” he added.

Instead, he found the Buick in the ‘For Sale’ corral at a car show in Endicott Estates, Dedham, Mass.

He said he noticed it because it was on a carrier and therefore sitting up higher than anything else. And when the owner started it up, “you could not hear it.”

“That got my attention,” he said.

Hanson said he haggled over the price with the owner for a week until they were $3,500 apart. He said he told the owner, “The price may reflect the value but this is what I have in my pocket.”

He held his ground and the owner finally agreed to the price and, to Hanson’s surprise, delivered it to his house.

Buick is one of the world’s oldest automobile marques, but the man who gave his name to it had very limited involvement in its development. Scottish-American David Dunbar Buick — he came to the United States when he was 2 years old — formed the Buick Motor Company in 1903.

However, poor business skills forced him to sell out just three years later to William Durant, a successful carriage maker who had been hired in 1904 as general manager. More bad investments followed and Buick died in poverty in 1929.

However, Buick Motor Co. went on to become the largest carmaker in the U.S. and the cornerstone of General Motors Corp., which Durant formed in 1908 with the acquisitions of Cadillac and Oldsmobile. He added Chevrolet in 1918.

Durant targeted Buick to moderately wealthy folks who might not have the wherewithal for a top-of-the-line Cadillac. In that niche, Buick held its own until the 1980s, when U.S. sales peaked. Today, there are just three Buick models on the American market, the LaCrosse, the Lucerne and the Enclave crossover.

At the same time, over half of all Buicks are sold in China, where it is General Motors’ flagship brand, according to autoblog.com.

Unlike the trips Hanson and Linda used to take on their motorcycle, Hanson said he has not taken his Buick on long trips, the longest being about 100 miles to Stratham, N.H., where one of his daughters lives with her family, via Amesbury, Mass., where his other daughter lives with her family.He said on arriving, he turned to his wife and told her that history had been made that day.

“We were one hour on the Interstate and we did not pass one single car,” he said he told her, adding, “That’s not like me.”

The Buick Eight Special Coupe has a long, imposing hood with bullet-shaped headlights atop the curved fenders. Its trunk slopes dramatically to the rear bumper

A spotlight controlled from the driver’s seat sticks out of the left-hand side of the hood. The engine is started with an ignition switch and the three gears engaged via a shift on the steering column. He said top speed is about 65 mph.

Hanson said it has 2/40 air conditioning: “Two open windows and 40 miles per hour.”

The car is also equipped with a “Buick Air Control” heater and a “Sonomatic” AM tube radio.

“It has an automatic choke and a coil spring suspension,” Hanson said. “It was quite a jewel in its day.”

“My wife accuses me from time to time of living in the past and, boy, does this take you back to the past,” he said. “But I tell her you have to remember where you come from.”

“It brings me back to my early teens,” Hanson said. He said he learned to drive a “doodlebug,” which he described as “part car, part truck,” growing up in Smithfield, which he said was more of a rural community in those days. He said doodlebugs, which were basically makeshift working vehicles, were common on farms in those days.

He said the Buick particularly reminded him of his grandfather, who raised turkeys.

“It brings me back to those days, spending time with my grandfather, whom I happened to adore,” he said. “You know, to young boys, grandfathers are the best.”

Hanson said two friends have helped him with the car: Brian Pizzarelli with the mechanics and Norman Bernier, who is part owner of automotive electric shop in Woonsocket. He said while Pizzarelli is an old friend, Bernier is a new friend he made through the antique-car collecting hobby.

“It’s a community of (people interested in old cars),” he said. “They’re happy to be doing what they are doing and to help each other.”

Auto Biography tells an interesting story about a car and its driver. If you think you have a newsworthy story to tell about your car, write to Auto Biography, Features Department, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St. Providence RI 02902 or e-mail projocars@projo.com. Be sure to put “Auto Biography” in the subject field.

The car doesn’t have to be a classic or expensive, but it should be somehow unique. The driver must be willing to be interviewed by a reporter about what makes this car special and to be photographed with the car.

pelsworth@projo.com