(first posted 9/21/2015) Prolific CC Cohort poster William Rubano caught a ’66 Wildcat convertible unleashed in a series of great shots, just the way it was meant to be driven. Here it comes…
Its big “nailhead” V8, making its last appearance in 1966, is getting a chance to breathe a bit. The 401 was standard on the Wildcat, the 425 was optional. Either way, it had no problem motivating the big ‘cat.
Based on the nose-up attitude, the Wildcat looks like it’s still accelerating.
Wish we had the soundtrack to go along with the pictures…
Going…going…gone.
Colossal series of shots. William captured the bliss of a late summer / early autumn drive in a classic Buick perfectly.
+1!
+2 Beautiful!
+3 nice to see a classic actually driven and in use
Nice capture!
Beautiful. Thanks!
The Wildcat was caught in it’s natural element doing exactly what it was designed for. What do we have today that could match that experience? I can’t think of a modern large coupe/ convertible that would be somewhat affordable.
A subtlety menacing high performance “large” coupe would be a welcome addition to the Buick lineup! Also Buick is perhaps 2nd only to Ford in having bada$$ed model names in their past to draw from!
“Buick is perhaps 2nd only to Ford in having bada$$ed model names in their past to draw from!”
YES! Bring back the Reatta !!!
I’m sorry. I just couldn’t resist.
No.. bring back the Rendevous, Lucern, and whatever they called the ugly minivan… HA HA Just kidding. Buick needs to bring back their great names like Electra, Skylark, Century, Wildcat, LeSabre, Centurian, Invicta, heck even Special !!
I’m glad you remembered the Invicta and certainly don’t forget the ROADMASTER – definitely the most bada$$ name for a car of its particular type. Mover over Oldsmobile 98, Chrysler New Yorker, and Mercury Monterey; here comes the ROADMASTER!
Here’s some to forget: Apollo (o.k. not really that bad), Skyhawk (is there such a thing as a ground hawk?), and Somerset (sounds like a retirement village).
Back in the mid 70s an acquaintance of our family (an ex-biker trying to show his respectability) got hold of a ’64 Riviera with the 425 nailhead and dual quads. Oh my sweet Lord could that thing fly!
Beautiful car and great shots too! Nothing like old GM convertibles.
One of the best car names ever. How a name as great as Wildcat and a name as crappy as Enclave came from the same division is baffling to me.
I don’t think Buick is the same division as it was in 1966…
Back then, they had just released the new Riviera and had refused to make it FWD like the Toronado and the following year’s Eldorado as Buick’s engineers didn’t like the handling characteristics of FWD prototypes. Now, everything Buick offers is FWD and China makes more Buick cars than North America!
I don’t think I’ll trade my ’65 Wildcat for a new Buick anytime soon!
Two days ago, I drove to Flint with my ’93 Toyota and it felt weird to be one of the very few to drive an import around there! But then I noticed that while people don’t drive import brands (not even those made in the USA!), some do drive imported cars from local brands…
My Buick history book does not suggest that Buick was offered the FWD option for 1966. What it does say is that the Riviera and Toronado had to share a common body platform, which then required the 1966 Riviera’s to be restyled for the new body design.
Have a look at this link: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1966-1970-buick-riviera.htm
It has been said that not everything found on the internet is true. My history book is “The Postwar Years”. You can google it. I think only the Toronado was intended to be FWD for 1966.
I think I got the information from the October 1992 issue of Collectible Automobile magazine. The text in the link is very similar to what I remember…
I own a 1965 Wildcat and a 1967 Riviera as well as a 1975 Electra and I had quite a few Buicks from the 1960s and 1970s in the past and I have a lot of documentation on these cars too… I know some information in books and internet isn’t always exact but that’s what I recall seeing.
Here’s another link: http://buickcity.blogspot.ca/2008/02/1966-riviera.html
And one more: http://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/buick-riviera-1966-1970/
what those links suggest to me is that Buick could have joined the FWD club, but declined from the very beginning. What is true is that the Toronado and Rivera had to share the basic body shell, with different styling. For some reason Cadillac waited a year for the Eldorado.
GM stylists David North and Dick Ruzzin have commented here on CC with regards the Toro…
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/design/the-great-28-car-4-1966-oldsmobile-toronado-the-almost-a-riviera/
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/did-this-1962-exner-model-inspire-the-1966-toronado/
That’s a fantastic photo Don.
My understanding is that Cadillac and Oldsmobile worked on FWD together.
Phil, spot-on about Flint and the lack of foreign-branded cars on the roads there. I usually try to specify an American-branded car at the rental agency when I return.
The Buick division you are thinking of, the one with style and substance, maker of desirable cars for buyers with upscale taste, is long gone. The Buick name may linger as part of the “corporate” group, but the spirit that produced this car vanished years ago. MadMen of the 1960s conjured up Wildcats, while consumer clinics in the 21st Century drifted down to the lowest common denominator of groupthink acceptability with the Enclave.
I think Buick has some of the most beautiful heritage names – especially Invicta and Wildcat – but count me as someone who likes “Enclave”. To me it has connotations of luxury and coccooning comfort.
I always thought “Enclave” was a politically-correct term for “Ghetto”.
Maybe an upscale ghetto
if you put a v in front of enclave it sounds like a very upscale way to say my last name.
While I agree with others that the name is quite unfortunate, I really don’t think the Enclave is a bad vehicle. If I had to pick a three-row crossover, the only one that might top the Enclave would be a Ford Flex.
That being said, it’s no Wildcat, that’s for sure.
Buick will have a convertible for the 2016 model year. Not a big convertible, but I think affordable (whatever that means). Not big on power either (200 HP, 206 lb-ft).
Knowing Buick-or at least GM, it will probably be a re badged OpeI something or another. I wonder if they will use that annoying disco music in the TV commercial, you know, like the music they use with those two women when one walks into the wrong car with the guy eating a sandwich.
As a lifelong Buick fan, I must say That commercial makes me want to drive a ’64 Electra through my TV! and IIRC You’d be right on the new convertible being an Opel.
I can’t believe I learned to drive on city streets in my dad’s ’66 Wildcat without scraping up against some poor signpost or fellow driver. It was an enormous car, even in an era filled with big American cars.
Invicta, Wildcat, Centurion, LeSabre. And now we have…Enclave? I wonder if the next Buick will be named Cul-de-sac.
The upwardly mobile, mover-and-shakers of the sixties sure had some great choices for a big-engined, swoopy, full-size convertible in cars like the Wildcat, 300, or Marauder.
Almost, but will be Cascada.
Of all the great Buick names from the past…Riviera, Roadmaster, Century, Invicta, Electra, Skyhawk, Skylark, Wildcat…the best they could come up for their rebadged Opel convertible is a name that sounds like dishwasher detergent?!
it seems that for several years GM has marketed Buick as a brand of boring and bland cars so they have to find matching names I guess!
BTW, I get more excited about old GM dishwashers than I am about any of the cars in the current Buick lineup!
I’m serious, here’s the 1963 GM dishwasher in my kitchen, and I own 7 more!
A `63 GM dishwasher? Surely you can`t be serious.
To reply to Phil B, yes a GM dishwasher. GM’s Frigidaire division made high-end home appliances in the fifties and on into the sixties (they may have started before then). My grandparents had a Frigidaire refrigerator from the early fifties that was still going strong well into the late sixties. I have no doubt that it was more solidly constructed than any refrigerator from today. What finally did Frigidaire in was high prices, due to the assembly plant workers being represented by the UAW, rather than the IUEW that represented workers in their competitors.
Frigidaire was sold off by GM a long time ago, 30+ years ago. I think it’s now part of Electrolux today.
Phil b, GM even made “Signature” dishwashers for Montgomery Ward for a few years in the 1970s. I have one of these too!
Here’s a link to a group I made on Flickr for GM Frigidaire appliances:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/1704348@N21/
A few of these belong to me:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/1704348@N21/pool/33723086@N02/
Here’s a close up shot which clearly shows the GM badge on another 1969 dishwasher that I have. GM started to use that badge in 1966 on it’s 1967 models of cars and appliances.
An overtly aggressive, masculine name like Wildcat or Marauder would never fly on a mainstream car today. (Mercury sort of got away with in in ’03-’04 as it was a niche vehicle). The Challenger can pull it off with its sporting intentions and 2-door body style, but on a sedan, buyers don’t want aggressive. It’s not in step with the times in our current overprotective, over-isolated cutlure. Buyers want safety, economy, comfort and conformity. Hence the current proliferation of non-threatening nothing names like Optima, Cascada, and Altima. Honda and Toyota anticipated the trend 30+ years ago with Accord and Camry.
Nice ! a Wildcat in the wild .
-Nate
Speaking of great Buick names – the first production car that got actually go 100 mph?
Buick Century.
More on the Century name. When the Century was introduced in 1936 driving 100 mile per hour was really something. Just imagine what it must have been like on the roads of the day and with the iffy brakes and suspensions cars had then. Must have been quite a thrill.
For many years the Century name really meant something. Too bad it was devalued so badly.
btw I do not believe Roadmaster, Centurion, Invicta, Electra and a few others were ever devalued. The cars that carried those names may have had shortcomings but the names were never used on lower line models.
A co-worker looking for his 1st car (in 1980), chose a 1966 Wildcat 2 door hardtop found at an antique car show and sale. A nice enough car but not as attractive as this convertible as his hardtop was that turquoise green in and out…..borderline blah in my opinion.
I’ve always thought that the full-size hardtop coupes from Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick were quite handsome in the mid-1960s. Very sleek and graceful, especially considering their size.
Anything at a car show that’s not a Corvette, ’67 Camaro, ’70 Chevelle SS or GTO clone, or Mustang will never be blah to me.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, when I was in high school a friend had a new 1965 red Wildcat convertible that I got to drive occasionally. It had the “Wildcat 465” engine (425 cu in with 465 pound-feet of torque) and four speed. That engine did a good job of moving such a large car. Most people were surprised when they looked in and saw the four speed on the floor – a long shifter with a white knob as I recall. I imagine production numbers were pretty low for that setup (the friend’s family owned a Buick dealership and special ordered the car for her). It was a total blast to drive. It looked pretty great, too – red, red interior, white top.
Beautiful shots of a beautiful car. Great catch William.
Nice shots of a real nice car.
My first car was a ’65 Wildcat sedan, purchased in 1973 for 350 bucks from an old guy in the neighborhood. Bronze with a white top, 66,000 miles at the time of purchase and running on nearly bald snow tires. It had the 425 V8, which pulled like a locomotive. Being a western PA car, rust was an issue; in particular resulting in massive leakage around the windshield. Friends called it “the brown submarine”. It pretty much self-destructed over the next year and a half, but it was fun while it lasted. Freedom!
Such a pleasure to read an article about an American car without attacks on its engineering, finish, or reliability.
Very nice!
My grandfather was a GM man. Going from Buicks to Oldsmobiles and then to a Cadillac.
As a kid I remember he gave my parents his 63 or 64 LeSabre which I remember my father saying had a Wildcat engine in it. I was pretty young at the time but the two things I do remember about the car was it had a radio speaker in the rear shelf which I thought was cool and a buzzer you could set on the speedometer to warn you when you went past the setting.
The straight eight engines were known as Fireball’s. The first V8s were also Fireballs until mid 50’s when they seemed to stop call the engine anything in particular. The 1959 models named the V8s Wildcats. The new engines in 1967 were not called Wildcats.
As others have pointed out, this is when Buick mattered. And big convertibles were always a strong point for GM.
GM really did built some great looking and driving machinery back in the glory days.
The 66 interior is a lot nicer than what came in 67 and afterwards.
The 1966 and 1967 instrument panels were almost unchanged, there was a new 3 spoke steering which I think looked better than the standard two spoke steering from 1966 and the bright horizontal ribs of 1966 were replaced by a brushed aluminum panel in 1967…
One thing that changed in 1967 was the use of plastic for parts that used to be made of metal. For example, the chrome a/c “ball” type vents were made of plastic in 1967 (the center vent remained metal) and some knobs (headlight, a/c and radio) were also made of chromed plastic with smoother edges in 1967.
To me, the worst thing that happened in 1967 was not about the interior styling but it was the change from the Buick Nailhead to the 430 engine. Some won’t agree but as I own both (I have a 1967 Riviera GS and a 1965 Wildcat), I have to say I’m more a Nailhead fan than a fan of any Buick motor with the distributor at the front!
There were still a few good things in 1967, safety improvements mainly, dual master cylinders, collapsible steering column (something I care about since I’ve been in a severe crash and would probably have been killed without one!) and the newly available power disc brakes which were an improvement over Buick’s already good aluminum drums. I have disc brakes (with Bendix 4 piston calipers) on my ’67 Riviera (the same were available on the 1967 Wildcat) and these really improve the driving experience.
Things like door panels and seat covers did change between both years and the body styling is what changed the most.
1968 while similar from outside to the 1967 had more changes inside. These changed included a new dashboard and new “safer” interior door handles and armrests as well as padded windshield posts and other things like that. I still think the 1968 interior looked OK. In 1969-70, while the instrument cluster remained almost unchanged from 1968 but the dashboard was new, there was a new steering wheel and most other dashboard controls were relocated and I don’t like them as much as the earlier ones.
That’s what cats do, they skooch down and wiggle their butts, just before they pounce. This car seems to be doing the same.