For all middle children life is hard. And no life is harder in the automotive world than the middle model or trim level. The most difficult life to live is between the bargain entry point and the lap of luxury in any postwar line up. And in a middle brand family, the pressure to thrive is even harder to survive.
Like Chrysler, Buick was pretty schizophrenic with its series designations and how they were marketed. In 1959 all of the tradition designations dating from the late 1930s were thrown out the door along with bulbous and baroque styling for LeSabre (Buick for the Broke) Electra/Electra 225 (Buick for the Bank President/the slightly flashier bank president).
But the Invicta, although brilliantly named, got lost in between those two dichotomies. Although the Century was particularly cast well as the bankers hot rod, something got lost in the translation of ever faster and more luxurious Body By Fisher creations.
Like Chrysler’s Saratoga, the brilliant name eventually got sidelined for another nameplate that had more of a mystique. While Chrysler did a rather rare name debasement of by adding the 300 Sport series, Buick brought out its own B-body bomber for 1962 in the form of the Wildcat coupe.
Long a show car name for Buick in the 1950s, the name was dropped on a rather undistinguished 2 door hardtop with bucket seats, and didn’t sell as well as the other two specialty B-Body coupes, the Grand Prix and the Starfire. So for the encore season it followed the example the 300 Sport set.
Sprouting a 4 Door hardtop sedan for 1963, the Wildcat ate the Invicta for breakfast, leaving only the den mother of a wagon for one more season. And it also opened a major mixed message. Were these supposed to be exotic equivalents of the newly glammed up Starfire and Grand Prix? Or were they just Buick’s latest middle child searching for an identity.
For one the Wildcat didn’t share the B-Special concave coupe roof of the Grand Prix and Starfire, making it seem like an overtrimmed equivalent of a Super Eighty Eight or…. well, what was the Star Chief’s purpose again? I know it was the whole lotta Pontiac for a little less than a Bonneville, but who really bought them?
When you question what the Wildcat was doing, you really have to question those other two middle children at Pontiac and Oldsmobile, or for that matter the further decontented Bel-Air at Chevrolet. They all seemed awash in the splintering market of 1963, flush with intermediates and luxury compacts.
But the Wildcat did stay on message best. While the other 3 were relics of 3 tiered marketing of the same body shell in escalating trim/power or length configurations best left to the 1950s, the Wildcat clarified it’s role as Buick’s Hot Rod better than the misunderstood Invicta did. Outwardly dressed with more war paint than its predecessor, it actually looked ready to fight. Fight a war that really didn’t exist anymore.
By 1963, the Bucket Seat full size bomb attack had obliterated its own market. No true survivors or winners save the Impala SS really emerged as long term victors. And with more specialized coupe models like Buick’s own Riviera, the only way to survive was to figure out a new strategy.
I don’t know if the 1965-70 Wildcat’s sporty yet zaftig ways (and essential replacement of what used to be the Buick Super role) was all that much more focused. The middle step was banished to the history books at Oldsmobile by 1969, which left Chevrolet and Pontiac continued to play musical chairs along with Buick, killing the cat with the Centurion, which had a brief life as warrior through 1973.
I’m a dog person, and I’m sure most Buick buyers were too. But for a short period of time, the Wildcat made an interesting argument to consider being a crazy Cat-Buick person.
Love the top and bottom pictures. DO WANT. That styling makes me think of Alan Jacksons song “Buicks to the Moon.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUtlvCT22Gk
My great aunt only drives Buicks- since atleast 1953 I think- Century-Invicta-Wildcat-Centurion-80′s Wagon-Riviera- and now a Le Sabre, so with the exception of the Wagon(Might have been an Electra) and the Riviera she always goes for the mid market car- I think If Buick was traditonally sensible luxury than going for the middle car is the sensible choice of the sensible choice. Middle america modesty in full display. If Electra was the flashy choice for the less flashy buyer, than the mid market cars must have been the less flashy choice for the less flashy buyer. “Buick for the broke”, that almost calls for a duel to defend my Aunt’s honor sir! Permit me to excercise a bit of Buick snobery here but thats what I thought Pontiacs and Oldsmobiles were for…..
I believe quite a few times during the 1950s a Special undercut a comparable base Eighty Eight, and were nearly in Dodge/Mercury territory.
I don’t know if it was equally as severe in with LeSabres in the 1960s, but they weren’t far apart in price, and at least in 1964 the Jetstar 88 and LeSabre were pretty decontented compared to a Catalina (which still came with a 389 and a Roto Hyrdamatic as the optional automatic, while Buick and Olds put their A body intermediate drivetrains in their basic B-bodies, the Jetstar all the way down to the smaller F-85 brakes).
Specials (full sized Specials then LeSabres) were priced clearly in Dodge, Pontiac, Mercury and Nash Statesman territory and with Straight then V-8 power, certainly were a lot of car for the money. Specials tended to undercut Olds 88′s – the 88 had an advantage power-wise as the Rocket 2-bbl was hooked up usually to a Hydra-Matic vs. being anchored (in most cases) to a Dyna-slush; Soecials wooed many “low price 3″ buyers with a cachet of having a Buick for Bel-Air/Impala. Belvedere or Customline/Fairlane prices.
Maybe when the Century was still around, getting lost in between Specials, Supers/Roadmasters wasn’t an issue, as through ’58, Centuries had a clearly defined role, but once Invictas then Wildcats came along, the mid-line Big Buick became a caveat – rather than a model to be taken as seriously as. Pontiac Grand Prix. I am surprised the Wildcat stayed around as long as it did – Pontiac tried with Star Chiefs/Executives, but they too faded away and “graduated” as a lesser trimmed series of the next model up (think Bonneville vs. Bonneville Brougham/Grand Ville).
Of course, this GM bleed over scrambled up the Sloan ladder and could be the start of the end for GM as we knew it pre-2009.
If that were a Buick Electra, well, I’d have a great story to tell, as my friend’s dad owned a ’63 4 door hardtop, off-white roll-and-pleat-like vinyl interior, dynaflow and all! What a cruiser that thing was. It also ate transmissions on a regular basis, too. The A/C vents on the edges of the dashboard would actually get frost on them when the A/C was on.
That was caused by putting the Dyna-Shush in “Lo” more than occasionally so its mega V-8 would actually accelerate faster than that a VW Bug. Stomping a Dyna-Flow with any regularity, regardless of the transmission selector position, would similarly grenade the transmission. But Buicks of the era were never designed to be driven like this. Their mission was to waft in serenity and the were rather good at that.
This is why the Olds and Caddy guys swore by Hydra-matic. Yes it was a rough shifter and required plenty of maintenance but at least it would last the life of the car.
Buick even worked up a THREE torque converter version of the Dyna-SLOW but it was even too mushy and too complicated for production.
This was somewhat similar to Chevrolet’s Turboglide. The main problem with torque converter automatics was they were horribly inefficient. This was not a big deal early on in the production of automatic transmissions but as good designs like Torqueflight came out, it was clear the planetary gear systems were the way to go.
The main reason GM stuck with this things was cost. It was simply cheaper to make a Dyna-Slush than a Hydramatic. By 1963 it was pretty obvious torque converter transmissions were a dead end.
One reason Buick preferred the torque converter transmissions was that until the early sixties, they still used a torque tube rear axle. Buick had adopted the torque tube around 1938 or thereabouts, in large part because it allowed them to adopt rear coil springs for a softer ride — Olds, Pontiac, and Cadillac all used Hotchkiss drive. Hydra-Matic shifted pretty hard, particularly the early ones, and the torque tube would transmit that jolt to the frame. Chevrolet, which also used a torque tube into the mid-fifties, adopted the similar Powerglide for the same reason (although in 1953 they reengineered it to start in low and shift automatically to high, which Buick never did), then stuck with it for cost reasons.
By the late fifties, GM was developing workable trailing link suspensions that would allow rear coil springs (or air springs, although those didn’t work out too well) with an open driveshaft, so Buick eventually conceded that the torque tube had had its day. Also, the Turbo Hydramatic (which Buick was the first division to adopt) was a good deal smoother than the early Hydra-Matic. (The dual-coupling H-M was also much smoother, although it was quite complex and very expensive to build.)
A good friend had a 63 Wildcat, metallic blue 2 dr HT with a white roof, no vinyl. A really nice car, he paid $ 700 in 1972. He drove it until 1974, when it was stolen in front of his house.
A year later, it was found stripped in a city 30 miles away. The city sent him a bill for impound and storage fees. His lawyer got him off the hook. I guess the city disposed of it.
The Wildcat was my favorite Buick from these early-mid 1960s years. I will also second your nomination of “Invicta” as one of the greatest names of the 60s that was never given a chance. Buick is crazy to not resurrect it. Ditto “Centurion”.
You are right – every brand seemed to think in terms of 3s. Mainline-Customline-Crestiline, 150-210-Bel Air, Plaza-Savoy-Belvedere and so on. It seemed to work for awhile on the low-priced cars when the bottom end model was a complete strippo and the top end model was fairly luxurious. But in a Buick or a Chrysler, there just wasn’t room for “good-better-best” when you had Oldsmobile and Cadillac there too.
The only one I can think of in later years was after Chrysler canned the Imperial for 1976-78. The Newport stayed pretty much the same, the New Yorker name was put on the Imperial, and the Newport Custom had a nice niche in the middle with what had been the New Yorker the year before. Maybe the base Newport was one of the things that killed the big Gran Fury, though, so maybe it didn’t work out so well after all.
As always, love the imaginative photography.
I always thought the ’63 Wildcat had one of the best looking faces of the 1960′s, versus the overly aggressive face of the ’59.
Those canted headlights just dial up the crazy.
And Jesus sat at the right hand of the Father.
And Jesus’ giant magnet sat at the right hand of Jesus.
Amen.
“While Chrysler did a rather rare name debasement of by adding the 300 Sport series, Buick brought out its own B-body bomber for 1962 in the form of the Wildcat coupe. Long a show car name for Buick in the 1950s, the name was dropped on a rather undistinguished 2 door hardtop with bucket seats, and didn’t sell as well as the other two specialty B-Body coupes, the Grand Prix and the Starfire. So for the encore season it followed the example the 300 Sport set.”
To add to the confusion over exactly what the Wildcat was supposed to be, I believe it later switched to the larger C-body for a few years (maybe 1965-68?) before returning back to the B-body.
“Sprouting a 4 Door hardtop sedan for 1963, the Wildcat ate the Invicta for breakfast, leaving only the den mother of a wagon for one more season.”
IINM, the middle trim level had been the main focus of Buick’s fulll-size wagon marketing over the previous few years, and the Invicta had been the only full-size Buick model available as a wagon in 1962. This probably explains why the Invicta name continued on the wagon for ’63 when it had otherwise been replaced by the Wildcat. Buick apparently didn’t want to call the wagon a Wildcat, but wanted it to remain at that middle trim level. So it remained an Invicta, even though the Invicta otherwise no longer existed.
For ’64 Buick tried a different approach, badging the wagon as a LeSabre but still VIN-coding it as part of the Wildcat/(former) Invicta series. Following that model year, Buick dropped full-size wagons for several years, relying on the A-body-based Sportwagon as its entry in the segment.
In that way it’s interesting that Buick gave the luxury wagon market solely over to Chrysler in those years, as the 1963-64 New Yorker Town & Country was pretty lavish and expensive.
But as you point out, Buick had long moved away from the posh Roadmaster Estate series (last being offered in 1953). Which is a market that Chrysler never seemed to abandon, even if sales were relatively low (although with Cadillac like prices it must have been profitable). It’s interesting that Buick never continually offered an all out luxury wagon, nor saw the continuous halo effect of one. I don’t see the marketing difference of a New Yorker versus a Electra 225.
And That brings into question of where the Clamshell Estates were marketed (or the Custom Cruiser) since they didn’t get all of the Brougham-y detail of their other C body relatives.
In ’64 Buick had the new long-wheelbase A-body Sportwagon (mate to the better-known Olds Vista Cruiser. One uncle had the Sportwagon and it was very plush. There was a waiting list for those, so the B-body Buick and Olds wagons didnt sell very well those years.
Our Neighbors had a gold 63 Buick Wagon. IIRC, Full size , these taillights. The Dad Was a NYC Bank President, I Remember They Previously had a 62 Country Squire, but they kept the Buick For 7 Years or So.
I Think They also had a olds 98 Conv or An Electra 225
~
I Think our 63 Grand Prix in Maroon Holds Up / Beats this Wildcat/LeSabre, but The Buick is Quite Attractive for a one year only style.
Another neighbor had a succession of Lesabres, Inc, a Yellow 63, a 66 in Yellow, Maybe the 63 was White…. after this The Bought a 70 Buick but They Moved to a New Street.
GM is stupid for not resurrecting the Invicta and Electra names. Unlike many well-remember names of the past, they actually still sound fresh in today’s market. Regal…not so much. “LaCrosse” is a clunker, and “Verano” and “Enclave” sound like the results of the world’s dullest focus group.
As for “Wildcat”…Buick is a long way from offering a car worthy of the name.
The other uncle bought a Wildcat coupe in ’65. It was “sporty” looking for such a boat, even in dull tan, but why? After the ’64 A-bodies came out, B-body cars with bucket seats seemed stupid.
I REALLY love me some 1965 Wildcat. One of my dream cars. I’m still dreaming. And I consider the Wildcat to be anything but stupid. It was gorgeous. The 1966 took the gorgeous down a notch or 2.
When I was in high school a friend had a new 1965 red Wildcat convertible that I got to drive occasionally. It had the “465″ engine (425 cu in with 465 pound-feet of torque) and four speed. The 465 did a good job of moving that large car. Most people were surprised when they looked in and saw the four speed – I imagine production numbers were pretty low for that setup (the friend’s father owned a Buick dealership and special ordered the car for her).
These Taillights Belong on a Predicessor to the 71 Olds 98….
My Grandfather Who Could easily afford a Cadillac, Preferred a Buick in 68, and 74 No Less…LeSabre Customs at best Not Limited, though in 65 it Had Been A Fleetwood Limo…
Centurion Made NO Sense I guess It Sounded More Seventies ?
A suggestion for a future thread: go through the 1960s full-size lineups of the various GM brands and discuss what purpose each model served. The basic structure is pretty straightforward (Biscayne/BelAir/Impala/Caprice, Catalina/Bonneville, 88/98, LeSabre/Electra, DeVille/Fleetwood) but where some of the oddballs fit in (like a Wildcat or Jetstar 88 or Executive) is less clear, at least from today’s point of view.
The Jetstar, especially, drives me nuts, because it basically made Oldsmobile have 5 different models of the same B-Body car in 1964, 5 if you count the blossoming of the Delta 88 for 1965. Did Oldsmobile really need 5 variations of the same car, from oversized F-85 (Jetstar 88) to flamboyant Thunderbird wannabe (Starfire).
I think it was something that was confusing as the A-body intermediates gained prominence in the Pontiac and Oldsmobile lines in particular. Ironically the Dynamic 88 actually moved up a rung (or was undercut, depending on how you look at it) before they died.
I think the Executive/Star Chief makes more sense, if you think of them as spiritual successors of the Buick Super (More actual car, less fancy than the line topper). The Dynamic/Super 88 were throwbacks in name to the 1950s, and I can see how Oldsmobile wanted to rename them with more “Modern” series names. They just kept too many names with the only key differences being interior trim and compression ratios on the market.
My Grandad had a ’63 LeSabre wagon, and I loved the ‘footprint’ or ‘clothes iron’ shaped tailights. As a lil kid then, the Wildcat was the ‘fast Buick’, and wanted one when I grew up. 63 or 64.
When Buick dropped the full sized wagons [65-69], Grandad went to Chrysler Town and Country wagons, but my Grandma hated the Mopars, compared to her Electras. Mostly that starting the T&C was touchier, and easy to flood. “I wished he got a Chevy!”
“…No true survivors or winners [big sporty cars] save the Impala SS”
One other thing, the full size Pontiac GP survived at least until ’68, Impala SS last year [original run] was ’69.
But by sales Volume the Grand Prix slacked off in 1965-66 (and even changed focus quite a bit, to not really having one. I’d actually say the Starfire at Oldsmobile projected a sportier image that the optionally fender skirted Grand Prix). Like the Jetstar I to the Starfire, the Grand Prix had internal competition from the Catalina 2+2 package. The Grand Prix only survived by being the game changer and introducing a more accessible package of personal luxury.
The only one in the traditional “gussied up bucket seat” category that had a consistent following was the Impala SS. Ford did offer Galaxie XL’s for years too, but weren’t as popular as the SS, or the LTD for that matter.
I always liked the Wildcats and Skylarks from the ’60′s. And a friend’s dad had a ’71 Centurion with the 455. Sweet ride. I was sad when he traded it for a ’79 Caprice. The Caprice wasn’t a bad car, but it just didn’t hold up next to the Centurion.