“Fat n’ Sassy, 1954 Buick Century Estate Wagon

Fat n’ Sassy

The primary focus for brothers Dominic and Nicholas Cape is their race team Cape Motorsports which fields four Mazda-powered Tatuus USF-17 race cars in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship. The Cape team have earned nine consecutive titles with a total of thirteen titles to their credit. For relaxation in 2014, the brothers started the Cape Brothers Speed Shop.  

The shop’s latest creation “Fat n’ Sassy,” a two-tone green 1954 Buick Century Estate Wagon, appeared at both the 2019 (Specialty Equipment Market Association) SEMA show in Las Vegas and the 2019 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show in Indianapolis.  

1954 Buick wagon mailer 

The new-for-1954 Buick Century design highlighted the new Libbey-Owens-Ford (L-O-F) panoramic windshield, which traced its history back to the 1951 Buick XP-300 concept car.  It reported took L-O-F engineers many months to perfect the wrap-around production distortion-free windshield. The 1954 models, the first of Buick’s second fifty years in operation, were unveiled to the public in showrooms on January 2 1954.

A 200-horsepower 322-cubic inch “vertical valve” “Fireball” V-8 engine powered the two-ton six-passenger all-steel wagon, Buick’s first all-steel wagon, as the 1953 Buick wagon was the last Detroit wagon produced with wooden structural components.  This wagon is equipped with the optional ‘Twin Turbo Dynaflow’ automatic transmission, the ‘Sonomatic’ radio, heater and defroster, along with a tachometer and 'Brodie knob' added later.   

The Buick Century Estate station wagon (catalog model 69) General Motors’ most expensive wagon, had a list price of $3,470. Ionia Manufacturing Division of the Mitchell-Bentley Corporation in Ionia Michigan built just 1,563 Buick Century Estate Wagon bodies for the 1954 model year. In a twenty-six year span, Ionia Manufacturing built station wagon bodies for all of Detroit's Big Three automakers from its six-block long facility.

“Fat n’ Sassy” started as a well-preserved ultra-rare original car, and the Cape Brothers “resto modded” the car, as the shop added a new frame and air suspension and a modern V-8 power plant with FiTech fuel injection topped by a vintage style Buick air cleaner (although it isn’t correct for this model). 

The wagon, fitted with a brand-new vintage interior and restored original steering wheel, rolls on 20-inch diameter by eight-inch wide Detroit Steel “steelie” wheels fitted with thin line whitewall tires, and a roof-top suitcase and surfboard complete the vintage road trip look.  

All photos by the author who is a proud SEMA member