(first posted 1/18/2018) Although it has had a tough time of late, no American mid-priced brand has had the long term success of Buick. That the 1950s was Buick’s decade is well known. While the top three spots were locked up by perennial leaders Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth (almost always in that order) the sales spots for number four on down were always hotly contested. Pontiac would rule that group in the 1960s and Oldsmobile would be its king of the ’70s. Both of those divisions, however, had trouble maintaining their status as king of the mid-priced hill for much longer than a decade. Only Buick could consider the spot of America’s top mid-priced brand as something nearing a birthright. This is a long way of saying that the 1940’s was just one in a series of stylish and successful decades for Buick. Our tour begins now, so please step this way.
When General Motors was formed in 1908, Buick was the young conglomerate’s keystone. Buick was the second-best selling car in America that year – coming within 1,400 units of outproducing Ford, which was then the leading brand. As late as 1910 (the third year of Model T production) only about 1,500 Fords separated Buick from the title for the largest volume auto manufacturer in the country. The point of this ancient history is that Buick’s pedigree and its market popularity go way, way back.
Buick remained a contender through the ’20s, mixing it up with Willys-Overland and Dodge. As late as the early Depression years of 1930 and ’31 Buick was America’s number three brand. As the Depression deepened, however, Buick seemed to lose its moxie. Buick production (which had topped a quarter million units as late as 1927) dropped to under 47,000 cars (and 6th place) by 1933.
Even though Buick got over 168,000 cars out the door by 1935, it still managed only a 7th place finish with Dodge, Oldsmobile and Pontiac displacing it among “medium price” brands. Perhaps a line of nothing but eight cylinder cars during a time of economic collapse was not the magic combination it had seemed to be in 1931, when prosperity was just around the corner. Buick would prove, however, that it still had something left in the tank.
1936 saw the beginnings of some new model names that would serve for many years (if not decades). Where older Buicks were identified by a Series number (40, 50, 60, 70 and 90) the ’36 models got names. The Special (Series 40), Century (Series 60) and Roadmaster (Series 70) would put some ooomph into the lineup. The Special got the smaller of the two straight eights and the middle line B body while the Roadmaster naturally got the big engine and the larger C body. This would remain a constant state of things for each of those cars through 1958. The 1936 Century would mate the Roadmaster’s big 320 cid (5.2L) straight eight with the Special’s B body, a car that became known as the banker’s hot rod.
The combination of a solid lineup of solid cars (and stylish ones, at that) worked back then just as it does today. Buick was back up to 278,000 units and 4th place by 1940. And as Al Jolson famously proclaimed in his 1927 film The Jazz Singer, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”
The 1940’s would be Buick’s decade, and never more convincingly than in 1941. The economy was finally rolling and Americans were becoming concerned about the war in Europe, factors that made 1941 a post-Depression record year for auto production. Chevrolet built over a million cars for the first time since 1929 and Buick set a record by building over 374,000 cars – a record that would not be surpassed until 1949. And for comparison, Buick sold over half of what Ford sold that year.
The ’41 Buick was a honey of a car, and the Super convertible seen here may have been the best combination of quality, luxury, performance and style in the entire industry. Not content with three models (excluding the high end Series 90 Limited), Buick added the Series 50 Super for 1940. Think of the Super as the Century’s opposite, a car with the big Roadmaster’s C body and Special’s smaller 248 cid (4.1L) “Valve-In-Head” Fireball straight eight. Although the Special came as a convertible, the Super’s larger C body brought its “A game” as an upper middle priced convertible.
This photo found on the internet is not of today’s featured car.
One thing the ’41 Buick was famous for was its “Compound Carburetion”. This twin carb setup was standard on all Buicks other than the base level Special. Where the Super with its dual downdrafts was rated at 125 bhp, the single-carb Special was at a ten horsepower disadvantage. Buick’s Compound Carburetion was a precursor to the more modern four-barrel carburetor. In this design both carbs worked at idle but the front, the only one with a choke, did most of the work up to about 50 mph. At higher speeds the rear carb would come online for added power. Once in service the dual carbs were often misadjusted and may have been the genesis of the old joke wherein the Buick owner bragged that his car could pass anything on the road but a gas station. Although this setup was on ’42 models as well, it did not make a comeback after the war, and many of these cars were converted to a single carburetor when gasoline was rationed during WWII.
All of the technical specifications, interesting as they might be, were nothing compared to the ’41 Buick’s style. Inside and out, Buick was a beauty. I ask you, for the person with some money in his pocket and the desire for a stylish convertible, was there a better choice to be had? You could save about $100 on the Special, but you got a noticeably shorter car. Buyers must have agreed because the Special convertible only sold about a third as many as did the Super. Or you could spend $200 more for a Roadmaster, but those sold fewer yet. Yes, the Super was the sweet spot for Buick convertibles in ’41.
1941 Lincoln Zephyr (top), 1941 Chrysler Windsor (bottom)
What about the competition? The Lincoln Zephyr, while attractive, sold for Roadmaster money and was less powerful (not to mention less robust). The closest match might have been the Chrysler Windsor which, while a very good car and priced close to the Super, was less powerful with its flathead six. It was also nowhere near as stylish.
Not content to sit on its laurels, Buick introduced a newly restyled line in 1942, a model year that turned out to last only a few months. That car came back for 1946 and continued doing what Buicks had been doing in the years before the War.
The cars were still stylish (in a more modern way) and came with the advance of the new Dynaflow automatic transmission midway through the 1947 model year. As a pure torque converter (a low gear was available but only by manual selection and not used in normal operation) the transmission was exceptionally smooth but quite inefficient and Buick’s reputation as a gas hog continued.
What the discontinuation of Compound Carburetion giveth, the Dynaflow taketh away.
By 1947 the Century had been temporarily shelved, leaving the Special, Super and Roadmaster to satisfy customers. Buick again hit 4th place in production, this time just shy of 273,000 units. This figure may seem small but even during the labor and materials issues of the immediate postwar years Buick again achieved over 50% of Ford’s production that year.
There were only two convertible choices in the ’47 Buick line, which was virtually identical to this ’48 model. This Roadmaster listed at $2,324 and was far more popular than its 1941 counterpart, selling over 12,000 examples. The Super was again the convertible sales champion at over 28,000 sold, no doubt due to the roughly $300 cost savings.
1947 Chrysler (top, Windsor shown) and 1947 Studebaker Commander (bottom). Yellow seems to have been the color of choice for an upmarket convertible in 1947.
The competition was not even in the ballpark for convertible sales. Both the eight cylinder Chrysler New Yorker and the six cylinder Studebaker Commander were priced in the gap between the two Buick ragtops and sold terribly, 3,000 exactly for the Chrysler and about 1,500 for the modern, stylish Stude. The six cylinder Chrysler Windsor was a bit cheaper at $1,861 and still sold fewer ragtops (11,200) than Buick’s much more expensive Roadmaster series. Did anyone else offer an a convertible that was even remotely as appealing as the elegant, stylish Buick?
I think it is fair to say that Buick in the 1940s was the “it car” of its time for the mid-upper income buyer, much as Lexus has been in recent years. And as an executive-level convertible, its good looks left the competition far back in the dust. I knew this from listening to my mother’s stories from her youth. As a young nursing student in the early 1950s, she was friends with a well-off young man whose family owned a lake cottage and a sleek wooden speedboat. His car? A Buick convertible, of course. To hear her tell it, she felt like quite the queen heading for a day on the lake in that big open Buick.
How fitting it was to find both of these stunning examples at . . . a gas station. Knowing these cars’ reputation as problem drinkers I laughed out loud when I saw this scene. I immediately recovered and made a fast maneuver into the station to take some pictures. As I framed the opening shot of both cars fueling, the caption wrote itself in my mind: The secret to finding old Buicks in the wild is to know where they feed.
An even bigger coincidence was that both cars are owned by the same fellow who owns the 1954 Ford that I wrote up here last year. In fact, I shot these pictures only a few days after catching the trim little light green Ford. And what a contrast – from the austere stripper Ford tudor sedan of the early 1950s to the peak of swashbuckling style from the decade before. It is easy to see and appreciate the changes Buick made in the course of the decade when seeing the cars side by side. Of the two, I prefer the more classic look of the ’41 (and that color combo cannot be beat). I can see, however, where the more modern ’48 would have have had its appeal as the country began to look towards the fast-approaching 1950s.
This concludes our guided tour of Buick’s success in the 1940s. Buick has only recently made another try for the convertible dollar after not offering an open car for quite a few years. By all indications, the Cascada has been something of a flop. I am convinced that Buick could do a lot worse than to look to the 1940’s for inspiration should it make another try at the droptop market. Buick hit a sweet spot back then with power, quality, price and style (especially style). I remain convinced that what was a winning combination then remains so today. Or perhaps times really have changed and there is no longer a significant market for a grand touring convertible for the upper middle class buyer. I doubt that today’s Buick will be how we will find out.
Further reading:
1940 Buick Series 40 Special (Jim Grey)
This was definitely an article written for me, as both my automobile ownership and antique car hobby started with straight eight Buick’s. I owned a 1937 Special two door sedan for about fifteen years and belonged to the national Buick club for a bit longer than that. In fact, that Buick is the only eight cylinder car I’ve ever owned.
They were magnificent to drive (even the bare bones cheapie I owned, an aftermarket gasoline heater was the only option), and yes they were gas hogs. I remember getting about 15mpg on the highway at a steady 55mph. Acceleration? Use a calendar. But I do remember one time hitting an indicated 95mph on the flats, passing my buddy’s ‘66 Bonneville hardtop in the process.
Obviously this was not usual behavior, as the car was primarily intended for the AACA local circuit, which was very Buick and Packard heavy once you got past the inevitable 70% Model T’s and A’s. You think you’re tired of Mustangs and Camaros now? Within the local Flood City region we my three ‘37’s: My Special, a Roadmaster four door sedan, and a Limited 7-passenger limousine (all black, of course). They were always parked together at shows, and made a very impressive sight.
Thanks for a wonderful article.
There was a classic Punch cartoon which had an attendant filling up a massive touring car. He says to the driver, “D’ya mind switchin’ off, sir? She’s gainin’ on me.”
I’ve heard that one myself, and it’s left me wondering if it was *ever* legal to leave the motor running while gassing up.
My father had a ’48 Super convertible back in 1948. My parents used to kid that the car was the reason my mother started going out with him. It was gone during the year I was born-1952, replaced with a ’52 Ford 4 door Customline with a flathead V-8 and FordoMatic. Convertibles are not a practical year round car in Upstate NY.
Great write up and photos JPC.
Dynaflow made driving a Buick like running a cabin cruiser. Move the throttle up to a particular engine speed and the boat would first register the engine noise and exhaust sputter, throw white water out from the bottom of the stern, dip the stern and raise the bow a bit, and … then … start … to … move. Slowly at first, and then a bit less slowly, then up … up … until a level of equilibrium between engine rpm and craft speed was reached.
It even sounded like a boat.
If you dropped the stubby black tipped chrome Dynaflow lever into Low, the analogy would then be like an outboard. Not those inflatable Navy Seal monsters you see today, more like a 25 hp Evinrude on a 15 foot wooden Lyman. In other words, much faster, but not much much faster.
The steering of the 1950 Buick required real effort, but that was helped by the fact that the steering wheel was huge. No one turned the wheel unless one was moving. Today I always cringed when I hear a stationary car’s front tires scrunching on the pavement as the driver spins the power assisted wheel.
And, in 1950, Buick’s Riviera and its GM stablemates, came out with the hardtop convertible body style. No B pillar. Just beautiful.
Thank you for a cold morning’s memory ride in that 1950 Riviera.
Thanks RL for this delightful description of the Dynaflow in action. Someday I would like to experience in person the sensation you describe.
One oddity of the early Dynaflow, which contributed to its unusual sounds, was that its torque converter had a two-stage impeller. During torque multiplication, the secondary impeller would overrun the primary impeller on a one-way clutch, allowing it to spin faster than engine speed. Approaching coupling stage (where the converter stops multiplying torque and just functions as a fluid coupling with a high level of efficiency), the two impellers would lock together and spin as a single unit.
Later (1953+) Dynaflow and Turbine Drive transmissions didn’t have this feature, but instead had multiple turbines driving planetary gears.
I very much enjoyed this article JP! I also must agree that these Buick convertibles were among the most beautifully-styled American convertibles of the 1940s.
Naturally, a 1947 Roadmaster convertible in this color combination evokes thoughts of the 1949 prominently featured in one of my favorite movies to watch on snow day, Rain Man.
Great post! Sadly, it is all too easy today to forget the powerhouse that Buick once was. As a car crazy little kid, I used to pepper my elders with questions about what they had driven through the years. For my grandmother (Pop’s mother) the answer was easy and memorable: Buicks! Her father had started buying Buicks in the nineteen-teens, and the family was so pleased with them they never switched. I’m not sure what the early models were, but the one that will forever standout was the Roadmaster, which my great grandmother got in 1939 (and had all the way through WWII). Probably one of the best all-time automotive names, and from what I gathered from my Pop and my grandmother, the car earned the name in every way. Several more Roadmasters followed that one (always the big sedans, sadly never convertibles), and each was described in glowing terms.
For GM, Buick was probably one of the biggest contributors to the coffers, given its combination of premium pricing and relatively high volume. Plus the loyalty Buick engendered, as well as the brand’s reputation for style and quality, ensured that buyers like my family kept coming back for more. When GM and its core brands like Buick were at their peak, the results really were quite impressive.
GM was Buick in the early days, and largely so for decades later. Without Buick, GM would never have happened. Durant used the success of Buick to create GM and buy other companies with its stock, but almost totally based on Buick’s success and fat profits. The reality is that very few of the vast motley collection of companies he bought actually panned out. he was like a gambler who got lucky at first and then couldn’t stop. Which explains how he lost control of GM the first time.
In the teens, when Durant was ousted the second time, Sloan had to make something functional of this array of totally overlapping car companies. And during this organizational period, Buick was the one sustaining the company, until the new organization started to click, in the 1920s.
Redefining Chevrolet’s role started generating healthy profits by the mid 50s, and Chevrolet eventually became the biggest profit center at GM, finally surpassing Buick. I’m not sure exactly when this happened, but probably in about 1928 or 1929 or so.
The other middle brands were never very profitable during this period, and that includes Cadillac, which suffered badly from the Depression. Only after the the war did Cadillac really come into its own. But Pontiac was weak until the 1960s, and Olds wasn’t all that strong either. GM had three strong legs after the war: Chevrolet, Buick and Cadillac. And in the 60s, and 70s, as the market became ever-more compressed, all the divisions just competed with each other relentlessly. Then it became a matter of which brand happened to have the right appeal at any particular time period, because they were all the same under the skin anyway.
But Buick’s role in being the bedrock of GM from its beginning until after the war is hard to overstate. And Buick’s internal political power was outsized during all those years.
Which explains why it was allowed to have the Special, which especially in the 50s, dove right into upper-Chevrolet territory and stole a lot of sales from the low priced three. If Buick hadn’t been so powerful I doubt it would have been allowed to do so.
To really keep in mind how important Buick was to GM, remember that there was a post war recession in 1919-21 that at the time people were treating as a depression – until the term Depression was truly defined a decade later. At this point, some possibilities were ventured, the most important one being . . .
. . . . . . . kill off Chevrolet.
In 1920-21 it was ventured that Chevrolet could not profitably compete directly with the Model T. Ford was turning out just as good, if not better a car at a lower price that was getting lower every year. At one point, GM seriously considered not competing against Ford at all, and just starting their line with Oakland. The decision to keep Chevrolet as a car slightly above the Model T for a few dollars more, but still well below Oakland was really only finalized by he 1922 model year.
And all this time, Buick is the main profit source.
As to the founding of GM, here’s how it started:
1908 – Billy Durant starts a holding company called General Motors on 16 September. The day after the paperwork is done, he purchases Buick (I’ve read other sources that say he owned Buick since 1904 – Buick was a failure for the original owner, David Dunbar Buick). Later in the year he buys Oldsmobile.
1909 – Durant now buys Cadillac, Cartercar, Elmore, Ewing and Oakland. On the truck side, he buys Reliant and Rapid (these two later became GMC).
1910 – He picks up Welch and Ranier. Next move is an attempt to buy Ford, which falls thru. The bankers force him out.
1911 – Working with Louis Chevrolet, he founds Chevrolet as a separate marque. This Chevrolet is a car in the Buick/Oldsmobile class, even nudging Cadillac when they bring out their first V-8. And it doesn’t really go on sale until the 1913 model year.
1916 – Durant and Chevrolet is buying GM stock, ending up with Chevrolet owning 54.6% of GM. Guess who’s running GM again? At this point, Chevrolet’s become four cylinder cars slotted where we’ve always expected them to be.
1918 – Chevrolet goes from owning GM to being part of GM.
A delightfully information packed article about two awesome examples of 1940s GM. This was Buick and GM in their full glory.
You’ve triggered two memories. The first is the 1939 Special sitting in the showroom of Cape Toyota in 1985 when my father purchased his lightly used 1984 F-150. That Buick was quite the contrast to the new MR2 sitting next to it.
Secondly is one I’d forgotten. Details of the story are extremely sketchy, but it was a straight-eight Buick that turned by paternal grandfather off from GM for the rest of his life. It had something to do with a cracked piston, removing said cracked piston and running on seven cylinders, and it not wanting to burn kerosene. I can only imagine what really happened.
Great writeup Thanks Others may have better information but I believe Buick used the Century name starting in 1936 was because the car would actually go 100 mph. I have no idea how long that speed could be sustained but I can imagine that doing 100 mph on the roads and tires of 1936 must have been death defying.
You could be right, but I suspect that it would have taken a fairly tall axle ratio to get it there. Syke would probably know this.
I do know that the Auburn Speedster of that same time frame (1935-36) came with a plate on the dash certifying that the particular car had attained 100 mph in testing. And I agree about what a hair-raising experience that must have been, trusting that none of the tires would blow out at that speed.
That is how it got its name.
And doing 100 back then wasn’t exactly death-defying. Owners of hot cars like Duesenbergs and such did it rather routinely. And out in California, there were already quite a few early hot rodders, which back then was all about top speed and going to Muroc to prove it, not drag racing.
A good set of tires back then was quite capable of that speed or more.
The Century’s claim to fame is that in 1936 it was about the only ‘reasonably” priced car (as in, something that white-collar manager could buy) that would hold 100mph. If you looked in the corner of that 1936 ad, the price listed was $765.00. No doubt, that’s for a Special, but a Century was most likely in the $800-850.00 class. Competition? An 852 Supercharged Auburn was $1200-1500.00. And that’s the only mass-produced car I can think of at the moment that would hold that level of performance.
In comparison, a V-8 Ford probably topped out at about 85mph, while a like year straight eight Terraplane (Hudson) was good for 90 or a bit above. Nobody ever remember that the Terraplane could outrun the Ford, but it was gone by 1938.
And other than Auburn (up to 1934) you didn’t touch a V-12 or V-16 for less than a couple thousand.
If I had been able to get my hands on a 1936 or so Century before it was worn out I guarantee that I would have put it to the test and seen if Buicks claim was legit. Who knows what would have happened but I sure would have put my foot to the floor. Would have been grand fun wouldn’t it?
Also, I feel sure that many, maybe most, people who bought a Century found a decent road and gave 100 mph a try.
A good straight road. Keep in mind that what passed for handling on a 1936 American car would most likely be in the delivery van category today. That Buick was a big, heavy, wallowy mother. Then again, so were most every other American car.
Love these – couldn’t say which one I’d prefer, they’re both so gorgeous. Probably the ’41, because of the colour. Best era for American cars by a mile and a half.
Not a fan of Buicks built post war until about 1955-56, to me they just look like chrome fronted boats. YET….when articles like this compare 1 car to it’s contemporary peers I realize that cars I am not familiar with aren’t all that bad. Though in this case I’d still rather have the pre war model.
Now those are two beautifully restored cars!
For those who respect the significance of the Buick brand in the marketplace, here is some bright news from Barrett-Jackson yesterday.
The top dollar car on Wednesday was a Buick – ’65 Riviera Gran Sport. I saw the car before it hit the block and it was superb. Nice to know that a Buick is so admired.
How exciting it must have been to catch both of these cars out in public. This is a great story about a storied American brand.
These cars have real presence and style. Even today, it’s easy to see why prosperous upper-middle class buyers would desire them. It’s also easy to see why people who could afford a Cadillac, but preferred not to flaunt their wealth in such a manner, would buy a Buick Super or Roadmaster and be satisfied with it.
(It’s also interesting that, by the early 1940s, Packard management saw Buick, and not Cadillac, as the company’s chief competition. The resulting emphasis on medium-price Packards ultimately left the company adrift in the postwar years.)
Buick’s 1936 revival was led by Harlow Curtice, who would serve as GM’s president in the mid-1950s. To keep GM ahead of the competition, he used the same basic formula that had revived Buick – flashy style, performance and catchy advertising.
One factor that had depressed Buick sales in early 1930s was the reception accorded the controversial “pregnant Buick” of 1929. It was the first Buick that had been styled under the supervision of Harley Earl. He later claimed that the production people had made changes to his design that resulted in a “rounded” look to the lower body. The public called the resulting car the pregnant Buick (at a time when that word was not used in polite company), and Buick sales began to fall even before the Depression really took hold.
And Curtice made a big point of cozying up to Earl, the result being that Buick received an outsized amount of his attention. Think 1938 Buick Y Job, perhaps the first and the most important concept car ever. This car redefined the future of all GM cars for almost two decades, and profoundly influenced the rest of the industry (including Europe). No, it wasn’t Cadillac or Chevrolet thta got that honor; it was Buick. And then it happened again with the LeSabre in 1951.
Buick was the style leader for all of GM during the whole Ear Era, right up to the final one under him, the 1959s. All of the ’59 GM cars were based on Buick’s design.
One could almost say that during the Earl era, all the other GM divisions had to more or less take their cues from Buick, but make them a bit different enough to distinguish them from the original. Which really helps to explain why the Buicks were most consistently the best looking GM cars during this whole era, and that even applies to Cadillac.
Part of Buick’s sales trick in those days was a disconnect between its perceived prestige and its actual pricing. Everyone thinks of Buick as GM’s penultimate step, but from ’36 to ’54 the Buick price range spanned almost the entire GM price range. Buick was a parallel hierarchy. The base Special in 1950 was near the bottom of Dodge’s range. Later in the ’50s Buick was strictly below Olds, model by model, but still retained the status of “almost Cadillac”.
In the 1945 murder mystery thriller Mildred Pierce, which got Joan Crawford an Oscar, her wealthy restaurant chain owning character gets her spoiled daughter this ’41 Buick Super convertible, and she’s thrilled. Just the thing to cruise around in showing off her rich friends. Photo from the IMCDB.
And if you look carefully, Veda’s snazzy Buick is monogrammed with her initials, “VP”, at the top middle of the driver’s door…
Wow, nice detail!
Not to mention this reminded me immediately of Mr. Blandings Builds a House, the 1947 comedy which prominently features a 1941 Buick Roadmaster convertible, one of my favorite movies starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy.
A really fun writeup, btw. Quite a catch to find both of these venerable classics at the same feeding trough together!
A great add, Don. This is one of my favorite movies of that era, fabulously funny. I had forgotten about the Roadmaster, but the car fits the character perfectly.
Actually, it’s Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.
Yes, I realize that, just saw the movie again a couple of days ago. Just love it! “If you ain’t eatin’ Wham, you ain’t eatin’ ham!”
I believe Mildred purchased her daughter a “brand new” 1940 Buick Special convertible.
I’ve been playing the LA Noire remaster I got for Christmas, so to me this is almost a normal sight 🙂 Beautiful cars, I’ve really come to appreciate prewar design more than I used to, Buicks were particularly distinctive.
From AutoWeek;
“When GM Export debuted in 1911, Buicks were its first cars, and they quickly arrived in Australia, New Zealand and China. Sun Yat-sen, the first provisional president of the Republic of China, was photographed in a Buick in Shanghai in 1912. The last emperor of China, P’u-i, who abdicated as a child in 1912 but later regained some power, bought his first Buick (but not his last) in 1926. A Buick sales office opened in Shanghai in 1929. In 1930, an advertisement claimed that one of every six cars in China was a Buick and that “Buick owners are mostly the leading men in China.” A Shanghai museum displays a 1941 Buick owned by postwar premier Chou En-lai. In Nanjing, a Buick owned by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is identified as the car in which his wife was driven after World War II.”
( http://autoweek.com/article/car-news/gm-100-gm-china-building-buicks-heritage )
GM could cover the current US car market with just Chevrolet and Cadillac; this is especially the case if all the current Buick CUVs continued as GMCs. But Buick kept its’ old luster in China, and would lose it quickly if it became a China-only brand like so many others. Or at least, that’s a risk GM is unwilling to take.
An interesting idea I have not seen mentioned is why not kill Chevrolet cars. Chevrolet could sell trucks (and maybe the Corvette) while Buick becomes the car brand. The dealers could be swapped so that you have Buick-Chevrolet in one channel and Cadillac-GMC in another. Or make Chevrolet a Corvette boutique brand and have one dealer channel a la FCA in the US, or maybe two with Cadillac and Corvette by themselves and Buick cars/GMC trucks in another as they are now, but with a fuller lineup.
Wow. I have a neighbor who’s a Chevy-owning fanatic. He has a set of ’57s, a Camaro, a Corvette and a recent pickup. Killing Chevy cars would turn his world upside down.
For that matter what about the Volt and the Bolt? Turn them all into Electras?
Unamerican! 😉
JP, might the featured ’47 Roadmaster actually be a ’48? I say this because of its Dynaflow badging and Dynaflow was not offered until the ’48 model, only on the Roadmaster. In ’49 it was expanded to all models.
The owner’s brother said 47 and it looked from my research that the Dynaflow started getting installed midway through 1947 production. I wondered about that myself and could not find an easy way to ID the year.
My Buick history book indicates that the 1947 Roadmaster offered the Dynaflow beginning with January 1947 production. The 1948 Roadmaster had dynaflow as standard equipment.
A nice article and two nice cars.
My Grandmother’s 1950 Buick Special could do close to 100 MPH.
What beautiful cars, that 41 is just perfect. A very nice find.
In my dream garage there’s a 41 4 light Buick sedan next to the 41 Cadillac 60S.
The first account I worked for when I worked for EDS was the Buick Customer Relations Center account.
Even in 1996, there were many fiercely loyal Buick customers.
And our 2002 Regal (the mighty 3800!) was one of the best cars we’ve ever owned.
I love these… They’re real masterpieces of Harley Earl’s art. As befit its importance to GM, Buick in those days was also something of an engineering powerhouse (the OHV engine design is claimed to originate with Walter Marr, the company’s first engineer) as well as a powerhouse of executive & entrepreneurial talent (Charles Nash and Walter Chrysler were both early managers, I believe).
I found a fun piece of Buick’s history, and a short testament to the power of the later OHV straight-8, in a piece by Terry Dunham which is worth one’s time (if one has already read this far down). Link: http://www.buickheritagealliance.org/content/pdf/BuickRaceCarsFromHell2.pdf
It’s big!
Heh. That’s great, Roader. I’m reminded of Bruce McCall’s “Bulgemobiles,” with their tiny passengers (and railroad-tunnel seating) . . .
Pleased to see the OHV design noted. Buick was certainly a leader this regard, even as Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Cadillac used flatheads. Charles Nash continued to use overhead valves at his own company after leaving Buick.
Great piece. They were pretty glamorous cars. My uncle bought one new back in the day – he’s blocking a better view of the Buick in this picture, taken at their lake cottage before even I was born;-) but it’s a beauty. IIRC it had the hydro-electric windows, at least in front.
JP, I’m not the car guy many folks are here, but I do have some old-school movie fandom. “The Jazz Singer” is from 1927, not 1929.
I think the ’41 would be my pick.
You are correct on that year, I have amended the text. Thanks for the catch.
My father-in-law will love this write-up. His first car, after coming out of the army, was a used ’48 Roadmaster Convertible. Same color as the one pictured.
A 1951 Buick was my first car. My uncle had cosigned for it for a ranch hand, then took it when said ranch hand couldn’t pay for it. He gave the car and gas to me in exchange for working on the ranch one summer. The Buick was green with a mouse fur interior. Not exactly the most sporty car for a high school student, but it was transportation. It had a great radio except for the loud hum from six volt power supply. The Dynaflow eventually stopped working and I got $25 for the car from a junk yard.
I’ll take the ’47. I prefer the light yellow over black by a wide margin and that ’41 GM grille never did anything for me. The “toothy” post-war Buick one is distinctive.
Little late to the party here…but, the yellow Buick is a 1948 model. Distinctions between it and a ’47 include:
– ’48 black steering wheel, shift and turn signal knobs, and black and silver instrument faces vs. cream wheel, etc. cream and copper instrument faces on ’47
– The redesgined ’48 wheel has a half-circle horn ring + series ID in center cap vs 47 full-circle horn ring w/o series ID
– ’48 hood ornament has cross bars, ’47 does not
– ’48 has plastic insert in hood emblem, ’47 is metal
– ’48 has series script on front fender, ’47 does not.
In comments, the statement that Dynaflow was available after January 1947 on 1947 Roadmasters is incorrect. It was introduced in January 1948 as an option on the 1948 Roadmaster (verified by many references, including the Automobile Quarterly book, “The Buick A Complete History” by Terry B. Dunham and Lawrence R. Gustin).
And, in response to another comment, Veda’s gift Buick in “Mildred Pierce” is a 1940 Century Convertible Coupe, not a Super. It appears in a number of other Warner Bros. films, including Casablanca, where it is driven to the airport by Major Strasser in his attempt to intercept Ilsa and Victor. It can be seen in color, driven by Shirley Temple, in the 1949 film, “The Story of Seabiscuit.” The car was owned by Warner Bros. until about 1970 and it still exists in excellent condition—with sidemounted spare tires added by a collector owner in the 1970s. Here it is in a Warner Bros. PR shot from 1940:
Thanks for the additional info. It had been awhile since I had talked to the owner and I tried to confirm the year by looking at other cars online but was not very successful in comparing the normal stuff like grilles, etc. I have made corrections to the article to reflect the correct year. I would never have made these rookie mistakes with a Mopar or a Studebaker. 🙂
The info on the Warner Brothers car is a great addition.
Gore Vidal always said the so-called film noir look of many Warner Brothers films was because they were too cheap to light sets properly. Keeping that Buick in use for so long fits the Warner reputation for thrift. Glad to hear that beautiful car is still being cherished.
I’m a huge fan of Hollywood film of the 30’s and 40’s and have noticed an abundance of ’41 Buicks used primarily in Warner Bros movies. Watch “In This Our Life” 1942 to see Bette Davis running from the police in a ’41 convertible while being chased by a 4 dr ’41 sedan and ’39 police car.
Oooh..! Both the featured Buicks are gorgeous, though I think the ’41 is my favourite. The ’40s is far and away my favourite decade for car styling, finish and klaar!
Good write up!
Although for my money THE car for 1941 was the new 127″ wheelbase Packard Clipper, a new car for that year like no other, and if luxury, quality and prestige were the criteria, it had all of those in spades, and by the end of the year the 160/180 Clipper with it’s massive 9 main bearing 356 cu in Eight, had the performance as well. The new Clipper was the class of ’41, and although lacking a convertible model, Packard, with it’s illustrious history of great cars, more than made up for that absence with 4 dr sedans and 2 dr coupes that gave any Buick more than a run for the money… IMO!
It may seem curious that Buick developed an in-house transmission (Dynaflow) when Oldsmobile had already developed the highly reliable Hydra-Matic automatic transmission. But, in those years, each General Motors division was given much more autonomy and allowed to explore its own ideas, and therefore each created its own identity.
Oldsmobile didn’t develop the Hydramatic. It was developed by a GM engineering group, and first made available to Olds and Cadillac. Buick decided they wanted a very different approach, with a torque converter, and Buick was big enough to be able to do so although much of the work for the Dybaflow was also used on the Powerglide.