1938 Buick Century

• The four-door sedan sits in a salvage yard with faded black paint and surface rust across the roof, hood, fenders and rear panels.
• Both headlights are missing, leaving empty buckets either side of the grille, and the front bumper is rusted.
• Wheels and tires are mismatched, including one whitewall at the front, and the car sits unevenly on rough ground.
• Front and rear seats are torn with stuffing exposed, the headliner is torn and sagging, and the dash has an empty gauge hole.
• The trunk floor boards are broken and holed through in the trunk photos.
• The straight-eight engine is still in the bay, dusty and complete-looking, with loose and tangled plug wires.
• A body tag photo reads Buick Motor Co., 1938 Mod. 61, with style and body numbers stamped on it.
• No underside photos are in the set, so the frame and floor structure beyond the holed trunk boards can't be judged.

Money: at $4,000 the photos buy a parts-or-full-restoration project — a mostly complete 1938 Century shell with its engine and body tag, but rust, a gutted interior and holed trunk boards mean the budget is a full rebuild, and the unseen frame condition decides whether it is even a viable start.