In 1988, Rain Main hit the theatres, featuring Tom Cruise as Charles Babbit, a wheeler-dealer, and Dustin Hoffman as Raymond Babbit, an autistic savant. The premise is simple, the senior Mr. Babbit dies, leaving a multi-million dollar estate. When Charles goes home to settle his father’s estate, he realizes he has been left a beautiful classic car, a 1949 Buick Roadmaster, while the bulk of his father’s estate has gone to an unnamed trustee.
When Babbit digs deeper, he finds the fortune has been left to his elder brother, someone he did not remember, who is in a mental institution. The movie shows Babbit hatching a plan to rob his brother of the fortune, but when the two take a road trip in the Buick Roadmaster, things begin to change.
Charles then has a change of heart and wants to have a relationship with his brother, with money and greed fading away in the background. To us, it’s the Buick Roadmaster that brought about the change, so the real hero of the Rain Man is that cream-colored car.
Here’s taking a look at that classic 1949 Buick Roadmaster from Rain Main and where it is now…
The History Of The Buick Roadmaster
In 1936, Buick changed its nomenclature across its range to show its engineering prowess and advancements over the 1935 models. So the series 40 became the Special while series 50 became the Super. Similarly, the Series 60 was renamed Century and the Series 90 now became the Limited. The discontinued series 80 was reintroduced, and it became the Roadmaster.
The brochure read, “It literally named itself the first time a test model leveled out on the open highway”, meaning the Roadmaster owned the road, bearing a 120-horsepower engine, and selling some 16,000-plus examples.
After many years of existence and some poor sales, brought about WWII in general, the Roadmaster got it's first extensive post-war restyling in 1949, with a curved windshield, and an even more iconic front grille. More than 88,000-plus sold in 1949, accounting for 27% of all Buick sales.
Clearly, this car was the star of the year though sales began to spiral down from the next year on. By 1958, the Roadmaster was off the Buick roster. The nameplate was revived in 1991, with the Buick Estate third generation being renamed the Buick Roadmaster Estate, however by 1996, it was retired once again.
That Cream-Red Roadmaster
Clearly, there was one thing other than the charming Tom Cruise and the pretty Valeria Golino, which caught the viewers’ attention and no, we do not mean Dustin Hoffman's stellar performance. We mean the gorgeous Sequoia Cream Roadmaster bearing red leather insides.
Like always, there was more than one car. There were two Roadmasters used in the movie, one kept for studio still shots and promotions and used for the green scenes. The other was modified to be able to take on the weight of the cameras and the cameramen, and it is this car that was caught the eye of Rain Man’s director, Barry Levinson, who ended up buying it soon after the production wrapped up.
The car lay at his Connecticut summer home till it needed some refurbishing to preserve its life and longevity. Levinson first reached out to one car restorer but apparently was unhappy with the way things progressed.
To restore it right and proper, he then reached out to Wayne Carini of the Chasing Classic Cars fame, of the F40 Motorsports shop. Carini, in turn, first had to undo the beefier rear suspension initially put up to bear the added weight of the camera equipment, to be able to give this classic car a fresh breath of life.
The Face Of Autism?
Why this car? It’s not just that Barry Levinson is a classic car fan, the movie made him a big success so we are sure there is some sentimental value he attaches to the car. And while Wayne Carini also loves classic cars, there’s another reason he loves this car in particular. Some years after the Rain Man was released, Wayne Carini’s daughter, Kimberly was also diagnosed with autism.
The car came to Carini for just a paint job but he was able to convince Levinson of its value in more ways than just one although Levinson did emphasize that it needed to look the same, inside out. So other than getting repainted, the instruments and the dash also got refreshed, the mechanicals was given a once-over and finally, the chrome and stainless steel were refreshed as well.
In 2016, this car debuted at the 2016 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance and was used to raise funds for various autism-related charities, plus it also appeared on an episode of Chasing Classic Cars.
According to Wayne Carini, the car was shown at the 2017 Amelia Island event as well, this time in the Iconic Movie Cars section. Plus, the greatest bit was that Carini was able to take his daughter, Kimberly for a much-vaunted ride again. Looks like it's Rain Man to the rescue, again!
Sources: GMAuthority, Hagerty