STANFORD - Jim Miller tapped his finger on the hood of his 1959 Buick Invicta and remarked, "They don't make 'em like that anymore."

They don't make them in that color anymore, either.

"It's tawny rose, like a deep pink," Miller said.

Miller, a retired Caterpillar worker, has owned his four-door sedan for six years. He bought it for $4,000 after a bank repossessed it.

He removed hubcaps and a few other things that weren't original and now drives it in community events such as Tremont Turkey Fest and Hopedale Fourth of July celebrations.

"I get a lot of stares. It's different. It has the big fins," Miller said.

Only 10,566 of the cars were made, and there are only five registered with the Buick Club of America. Others are in New York, Colorado and Florida, Miller said.

Miller figures he's put about $2,000 into the car and that it's worth between $9,000 and $12,000 today.

He was drawn to the car not only because of its fins and color, but also because it was made in the year he graduated from Danvers Community High School.

Miller worked 30 years at Caterpillar in Morton, where he filled parts orders. Since retiring in 1994, he's worked at the IRS distribution center on East Empire Street in Bloomington.

The Invicta is his first collectible car. The 4,300-pound hobby has 109,000 miles and is stored in his Stanford garage.

It starts up with a deep roar and rides smoothly. Miller said it's been described as a "banker's car with a hot rod engine."

He has added a few touches to personalize the car, including the dice hanging from the rear-view mirror. He's proud of the shape the car is in. "The old tube radio still works," he said.

That's not the case with everything, however. The cigarette lighter for back-seat passengers, for instance, is on the blink. "But, it's the original," he said.

Miller, 65, has gone to some trouble to keep everything original.

The hubcaps are an example. He put an ad in a Buick Club of America magazine and found original hubcaps from a funeral director in North Dakota.

Sometimes, it was a matter of removing what wasn't original.

That was the case, for example, with what a previous owner did to make the car shoot flames from the rear.

Miller, who normally drives a 2005 Chrysler van, considered the adjustment gross and dangerous. He said he gets enough stares when driving the car as it is.