This is what Mrs. Schmitz drove to the supermarket in 1963, after Mr. Schmitz drove to the office in his Wildcat four-door hardtop. The uneven-fire Fireball V6 had a permanent palsy under the hood, as it strained against the Dual-Path Turbine automatic. The automatic, two-tone paint, whitewalls and an AM radio were the only concessions Mr. Schmitz was willing to make to his wife’s desire for a bit of flair. But it didn’t stay in the Schmitz family long; in 1965, Mrs. Schmitz traded it in on a new Mustang V8. And she started wearing much shorter skirts. In 1967, the Schmitzs were divorced.
BigPapiC posted this 1963 Special at the Cohort. That part is true.
So Buicks never had Powerglide™, right? My childhood friend’s family thought their ’66 Special had one.
No, they had a 2 speed automatic, the ST-300, its 2 speeds, but not a Powerglide.
Buick also had the unforgettable Dynaflow 2-speed automatic.
Well, there is a low gear, but D in a Dynaflow doesn’t shift at all, it just oooooooozes……
But the Dynaflow never came in the small Buicks.
I’m beginning to appreciate how easily people could get confused about such things, as my friend’s family evidently was (despite being rabid car buffs). I always assumed that GM, being vertically-integrated, wouldn’t be so dumb as to allow ea. division redundant “in-house” engines & transmissions. Now I learn that Buick’s transmissions were not merely badge-engineered Chevy boxes, in addition to learning before that there was not only the Chevy 350, but also the Pontiac, Buick, & Oldsmobile 350s, all the same size, but different designs. Was there any value added in all this overlap?
GM still operated its divisions as if they were each their own car company, they had their own engineering depts, styling, plants, purchasing depts, etc. This lasted pretty much until the massive 1984 reorganization. Transmissions were one of the the first things that were made “corporate” in the 60’s, with the Turbo 400 replacing the old Hydra-Matic and the Dynaflow. Before that transmissions were mostly standarized within GM, except for Buick and Chevrolet, which continuted to use their own transmissions.
There was plenty of vertical integration from GM other countless divsions, i.e Delco, AC, Inland, Frigidaire, Harrsion, Guide, Fisher, Packard Electric, etc etc, but each divsion used to carry the full name, XXXX Motor Division,(except Oldsmobile for some reason) i.e Pontiac Motor Division, Buick Motor Divsion, signaling that it MADE engines, remember that each divsion started off as separate company before it was absorbed into General Motors.
Thanks for the explanation; obviously I had a serious gap in my education. Being a Ford fan at the time (on purely irrational grounds) led me to falsely assume GM was run the same way.
Actually they weren’t all the same size if you do the math. The Olds version was the smallest, rounded out to 349 and the Pontiac was the largest, at 354.
They just rounded it off to 350 for all divisions.
Also, Pontiac was a “created” division, as was it’s sister marque Oakland. All the others started as thier own divisons.
The other thing to keep in mind is GM’s volume meant that they needed multiple engine production lines to meet the demand. So in the grand scheme of things the cost of engineering engines for each division weren’t that great.
Of course that came back to bite them when Olds took off like the never expected and they couldn’t build enough Olds engines so they stuck Chevy engines which of course lead to the lawsuits and GM replacing engines when people opened the hoods of cars they payed extra for a “Rocket 350” and found a Chevy power plant.
I let Pontiac slide since it was an outgrowth of Oakland.
DeLorean’s book makes clear that the blurring of the old Divisions was well underway in the 70s as the GM Assembly Division took over the divisional assembly plants.
I have long believed that the planned move to shared corporate engines was the reason behind the divisional engines being identified in common sizes like 350 and 400 in the late 60s. To those who didn’t pay attention, you would get a GM 350 and be fine with it. One by one, all of the other (arguably better) 350s quietly faded away until we were left with the Chevy version only.
This is why I was always surprised that while Olds, Buick and Pontiac called their big engine a 455, Chevy kept theirs at 454. Of course, Chevrolet was the 800 pound gorilla within GM.
From a legal standpoint (as well as truth in advertising) it might’ve helped if they refrained from rounding engine displacements; customers would’ve been “educated“ better about the differences, & tipped off that their Olds had a non-Olds mill. Surely they didn’t think customers would begrudge a cubic-inch or two.
I understand that militaries often “lie’ about the bore sizes of certain artillery pieces to head off confusion over incompatible ammunition. E.g., 23mm vs. 20.
One reason was because people are so brand-loyal.
I remember a news report back in the ’70s and a woman on the street was being interviewed. This one when it came out that GM was using a Chevy engine in an Olds or something along those lines.
The woman said something like “I had a Chevy once and it was a bad car, I don’t want a Chevy engine in my Olsmobile!”
Sounds like my grandparents, only they never got a divorce. Grandfather drove a Electra 225, Grandmother drove a Skylark…later on Grandfather drove a Cordoba, Grandmother drove a Fairmont.
Not the most generous man when it came to buying her things.
I like this car,Buicks were always so stylish and elegant and what a lovely colour
This one’s nice, but I like it in what Buick called “camelot rose” even more.
That’s a nice colour too,I’m sure I’ve seen a Buick this colour when i was a kid but I can’t remember the model or year
After Mrs. Schmitz read the “Feminine Mystique” in 1964, everything changed…
Quite right; forgot that important detail.
Hmm, must be a “Shafer Outtake.” 🙂
When I was very young, maybe four or five, our next-door neighbors had one of these. It was maroon, and what I remember about it is that it was the plainest-looking car I had seen at that point in my young life. It had to be the lowest model, because the only chrome was around the windshield and rear window, and the ventiports on the fenders like this car.
Later on they got a blue ’69 LeSabre two-door hardtop, after that I can’t recall.
Mrs, Schmitz must have been 22ish y/o in 1963. I don’t imagine any woman over 30 in the mid 60’s starting to wear shorter skirts, unless in Hollywood or NYC.
My very respectable Southern mother had five kids and was in her mid-30s at that time, and photos of her show her skirts started creeping above her knee, although I can’t say I recall her wearing a miniskirt.
She has always been reasonably fit, and we lived in a warm climate, so that may have something to do with it.
A girl’s gonna need at least a Mustang…slithering out of a homely Buick compact showing all that mumma gave her in a mini skirt juss ain’t gonna cut it.
Hopefully by ’68 she got herself a Cougar XR-7 or an E-Type Jag and a mile-high bouffant, and joined the Mod Squad.
I like the earlier Special/Skylark look more than these, the front of this one makes me think Mercury.
Yeah, the ’61s looked just like a mini LeSabre big time. Especially in the front.
The 61’s have more early 60’s snazz to them, the 1963 is way more conservative.
Looking at the pic of the ’63 again…I think what’s missing is the Buick 3-Shield emblem in the middle of the grill. That would’ve helped it look more like it’s bigger brother.
It’ has basically the same charactor lines and shapes around the headlight/fender area as a LeSabre.
Divorce in ’67? Must have been on one of the coasts. With a name like Schmitz, I’m assuming East. So began the fall!
I can report that divorce was getting a toehold in the midwest by 1967 as well.
I have long considered these to be the most character-free cars of the 1960s. This could almost have passed for one of those generic American sedans that used to appear in tire and gasoline ads in those years.
The big 63 Buick came across as clean and elegant. This one comes across as plain and dull.
It is hard to find an early 60s car that doesn’t appeal to me on some emotional level. Well, here it is. I do appreciate it as a rare find, however.
Slightly more rare given the fact that people tend to preserve coupes and convertibles, not fairly plain sedans.
Grandma got a Skylark coupe in ’63 after grandpa died. It was even in this same color, but looked better with more chrome and full wheel covers. It also had the aluminum V-8.
She traded it in in ’72 on another Skylark. My mom still has that one.
My favourite Buick Special/Skylark years are 1962 and 1963. I remember seeing a red and white 1962 Skylark two door. If I were in the market to buy a classic car, and I had the money to purchase it, I would’ve bought it on the spot!
Wish I had seen this when it first came out. This is my grandparents’ car. They lived in Queens, so the car was used primarily for grocery shopping in cheaper Nassau County and visits to the grandkids.
Theirs was beige with the 215 V8 and the 2-speed automatic. They kept it over 20 years until my grandmother had a stroke and couldn’t drive it anymore. My grandfather, a retired CPA, always worked in Manhattan and never learned to drive. Interesting because he also saw action in World War I and got a Purple Heart.
Anyway, the V8, automatic, power steering and power brakes were the few concessions to creature comfort in the car. Base interior, no radio. It had carpeting but that was probably standard equipment. It was supposed to be a Buick after all. It did have a rust problem in the rear quarter panels but was otherwise very well kept. The car was older than me but stuck around long enough for me to be able to drive it.
It handled reasonably well but the steering was basically a potentiometer, or might as well have been. No connection to the wheels at all. We decided to sell it to a collector as I pointed out that even then, driving daily with 1963 brakes and 1963 steering was probably not a great idea. Better to pick up a GM A-body with front discs.
What I really wanted to do was grab an MGB and drop the V8 in it, as British Leyland later did anyway. I even considered a Jensen-Healey for the conversion but fortunately didn’t have the money. That would have spent years in the driveway.
Also, it did indeed look like the senior Buicks from the front with the tri-shield logo on the grille. For some strange reason, some of them had it, and some didn’t.