1941 Buick Century Sedanet With Compound Carburetion – Buick's First Muscle Car

If you think the first muscular Buicks were the GS400 and GS455 of the late ’60s and early ’70s, think again — more than 25 years earlier, the Buick Century offered America’s most powerful engine in a “trim and swift-paced sports coupe.” Let’s take a look at the early Century and its novel Compound Carburetion engine.

Century badge on a maroon 1942 Buick Century — 1942 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / ClassicCars.com

Buick’s Series 60 Century was first introduced for 1936, mounting the big straight-eight from the Roadmaster and Limited in a shorter, lighter chassis. Since the Century weighed around 400 lb less than the Roadmaster, it was a fast car for the late ’30s — with enough road, it could conceivably touch 100 mph.

Left side view of a Trouville Blue 1936 Buick Century rumble seat coupe — 1936 Buick Century Model 66S four-passenger sport coupe with rumble seat / Mecum Auctions

By 1940, the Century had been bumped closer to the Roadmaster by the introduction of the Series 50 Super, which was a better-trimmed version of the entry-level Series 40 Special. The Century now shared the same 126-inch wheelbase as the Series 80 Roadmaster; it was a bit shorter, stretching 213.5 inches overall, but no longer any lighter. (The Roadmaster would be restyled and enlarged for 1942, leaving a bit more space between it and the Century than in 1941.)

Front view of a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century — 1941 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

The big claim to fame of the 1941 “Cyclonic Century,” as the brochure called it, was sleek new fastback styling. The blue car shown here — whose trim plate indicates that it originally left the factory in the more conservative shade of Sienna Rust with two-tone tan Bedford cord upholstery — is a Century Model 66-S Sedanet, which other manufacturers would probably have called a club coupe, since it had nominal six-passenger capacity. Buick called it a “perfect car for the socially-active couple or the small family.”

Left side of a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century Sedanet — 1941 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

For larger families, there was also the Model 61 Century four-door sedan, which didn’t look quite as sleek in the metal as it did in the catalog.

Left side view of a silver over black two-tone 1941 Buick Century four-door sedan — 1941 Buick Century Model 61 four-door sedan / Mecum Auctions

By the standards of later decades, one couldn’t really call the 1941 Century an intermediate like the Skylark GS of the ’60s and early ’70s — this was definitely a full-size car. However, within the Buick lineup, the Century was still the midsize offering, packing the biggest and most powerful engine Buick offered in the smallest body that could accommodate it.

Left front 3q view of a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century Sedanet — 1941 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

For 1941, the biggest version of what Buick breathlessly called the Fireball Valve-in-Head Dynaflash Eight still displaced 320.2 cubic inches (5,247 cc), third biggest among domestic passenger car engines, but it had an exciting new party trick: a progressive dual-carburetor setup that Buick called Compound Carburetion.

Red-painted Buick straight-eight engine under the hood of a blue 1941 Buick Century — 1941 Buick 320 cu. in. Fireball Dynaflash engine with Compound Carburetion / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

The four-barrel carburetor with which most CC readers will be familiar was really a development of the 1950s, and in the ’30s and ’40s, multiple carburetors were still mostly for racers, hot-rodders, and speedboats. Engineers Adolph Braun and Joe Turlay, who designed the Compound Carburetion setup, had experimented with some fairly exotic setups, including one with eight single-barrel carbs, but Turlay eventually developed a very effective dual intake manifold that could easily be adapted for either one or two two-barrel carburetors.

Engines with dual carburetors also got a thinner head gasket (raising compression ratio a half point, from 6.5 to 7.0:1) and dual exhaust manifolds …

… plus a new air inlet system, drawing air from a screened intake behind the grille and passing it through a flexible hose and intake silencer to the oil-bath air cleaner:

Braun designed the control mechanism for the dual carburetors. Like the middle carburetor in a later Oldsmobile J-2 or Pontiac Tri-Power engine, only the front carburetor had all the usual circuits and an automatic choke; the rear carb was unchoked and had only main metering, idle, and float circuits. The rear carburetor was connected to the throttle linkage by a pick-up lever that delayed opening of the rear throttle valves, although the engine idled on both carburetors. (Incidentally, Buick used both Carter and Stromberg carburetors with these engines; both were considered standard, although they couldn’t be mixed and matched on the same engine.)

You’ll notice in the above diagram that there was also a damper valve between the rear carburetor and the intake manifold. This valve was normally held in the closed position by an offset weight. In this position, it was loose enough to allow idle airflow, but it prevented the rear carburetor throttle valves from opening below about 15 mph, even if the accelerator was abruptly floored. At higher speeds, increased airflow would open the valve and allow the rear carburetor to cut in, giving a boost in performance.

Instrument panel of a 1941 Buick Century — 1941 Buick Century dashboard had full instrumentation and lots of Streamline Moderne style / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

Even at full throttle, the delayed action of the pick-up lever meant the front and rear carburetors weren’t completely in sync until 35 to 40 mph. With a light foot on the throttle, it was possible to run only on the front carburetor up to about 75 mph, returning respectable fuel economy — Buick claimed that with Compound Carburetion, the big engine could nearly equal the high-speed gas mileage of a 1940 Buick Special, which had a smaller, much less powerful eight.

Engine and air cleaner in a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century — Compound Carburetion air cleaner drew air through a flexible hose from an intake behind the grille / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

Both Braun and Turlay would have preferred to offer Compound Carburetion only on a limited basis until there had been more time for testing and debugging. However, their boss, Buick chief engineer Charles A. Chayne, invited three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Wilbur Shaw to sample a pre-production car with the Compound Carburetion engine, and Shaw’s enthusiasm convinced Buick general manager Harlow Curtice that the dual-carburetor setup should be standard on all models except for the Special (where it was optional for an extra $15.39). As a result, nearly all 1941 Buicks had Compound Carburetion, including about 85 percent of Specials.

Buick Fireball Dynaflash Eight engine in a black 1941 Buick Super — 248 cu. in. Compound Carburetion engine, optional on the Special and standard on the Super, had 125 hp and 217 lb-ft of torque / Connors Motorscar Company

On the Super and Special, which used the smaller 248 cu. in. (4,065 cc) eight, Compound Carburetion gave 125 hp, which was good but not spectacular for this class. (A Hudson Commodore 8 had 128 hp, while a contemporary Chrysler Saratoga had 137 hp.)

Left front 3q view of a black 1941 Buick Super Model 51C convertible sedan — 1941 Buick Super Model 51C convertible sedan / Connors Motorscar Company

The 320 cu. in. engine in the Century, Roadmaster, and Limited was a very different story. With Compound Carburetion, the big straight-eight was good for 165 hp, making it the most powerful engine offered in the U.S. at the time. For comparison, the 356 cu. in. (5,833 cc) Packard eight boasted only 160 hp, while the Cadillac 353 cu. in. (5,791 cc) V-8 made 150 hp, albeit with a bit more torque than the Buick engine (283 vs. 278 lb-ft). A contemporary Ford or Chevrolet had only 85 to 90 hp.

Buick Fireball Dynaflash eight in a black 1941 Buick Century — The 320 cu. in. Compound Carburetion engine in the Century, Roadmaster, and Limited had 165 hp and 278 lb-ft of torque / Mecum Auctions

To put it another way, the bigger Compound Carburetion engine was actually more powerful than the 1949 Cadillac and Oldsmobile OHV V-8s that kicked off the ’50s horsepower race (both of which initially used two-barrel carburetors). This wasn’t really a huge surprise: The Buick Fireball engines had overhead valves and wedge combustion chambers, not asthmatic L-heads, and Compound Carburetion engines had excellent manifolding as well as dual carburetors. The postwar OHV V-8s had bigger valves, lower piston speeds, and shorter crankshafts, so they had more rev potential, but they weren’t more powerful out of the box, at least not at first.

Dashboard of a 1941 Buick Century Sedanet, viewed from the right — I don’t think the upholstery is correct, but the Century dashboard is spectacular / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

Since the UK had already been at war for more than a year, I don’t think The Autocar or The Motor ever got a chance to road-test the 1941 Buicks, and there weren’t yet any U.S. publications doing instrumented performance tests. However, a contemporary manufacturer test found that a bigger Roadmaster with Compound Carburetion was capable of 0 to 60 mph in just under 12 seconds and a top speed of over 101 mph, which was scorching performance for this era. GM president William Knudsen (father of Bunkie) told Curtice he was building “a goddamn racing car!” Even Consumers Union (publisher of Consumer Reports) said the Century was “rugged and exceptionally fast.”

Right side view of a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century Sedanet — 1941 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

With flashy looks and racy performance, the 1941 Buicks sold very well, with production reaching 377,428 cars for the model year. However, Century production totaled only 20,907, including exports and a few bare chassis. The Century was expensive — the Model 66-S Sedanet started at $1,241 (a relative worth of about $52,300 in 2025 dollars), only $20 less than a Packard One Twenty sedan — and most Buick buyers were content with the cheaper Special and Super, which weren’t as fast as the Century, but were quick enough for most. (With Compound Carburetion, they were still substantially more powerful than any Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Dodge, or DeSoto of this time.)

Right rear 3q view of a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century Sedanet — 1941 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

Unfortunately, Compound Carburetion soon acquired a bad reputation. Most of this actually had nothing to do with the carburetors: Curtice and Chayne had insisted on adopting the latest AC spark plug development, a smaller 10mm plug that supposedly had a much greater heat range than existing 14mm plugs. The smaller plugs performed well at high speeds, but fouled very easily in urban driving, causing poor running. Since the problem coincided with the new carburetor setup, Compound Carburetion often took the blame, although because the problem was with the spark plugs, removing the second carburetor (or not ordering Compound Carburetion in the first place) didn’t help — the solution was to re-tap the head to take standard 14mm plugs. The 1941 cars also suffered problems with defective oil filters, which didn’t have anything to do with the dual carburetors either.

Rear view of a metallic blue 1941 Buick Century Sedanet — 1941 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / Theodore W. Pieper – RM Auctions

Compound Carburetion WAS fussy to tune — I think getting the idle set properly was probably the biggest headache, although some mechanics were confounded by the complicated linkage. There were also some hiccups that were fixed by 1942, including a tendency to stumble when cold and the air cleaner inlet picking up crankcase blowby from the road draft tube.

Right front 3q view of a two-tone gray over Royal Maroon 1942 Buick Century Sedanet — 1942 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / ClassicCars.com

Buick continued to offer Compound Carburetion on all models for 1942, although the smaller engine lost 7 hp due to the adoption of heavier cast iron pistons, a response to new federal limitations on strategic materials. Civilian automobile production was restricted in the fall of 1941 and then shut down “for the duration” in early February 1942, less than two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 1942 Buick production ended after 94,442 cars, with the Century accounting for only 4,571 of those.

Left rear 3q view of a two-tone gray over Royal Maroon 1942 Buick Century Sedanet — 1942 Buick Century Model 66-S Sedanet / ClassicCars.com

During the war, a lot of Compound Carburetion cars had their rear carburetors removed. Compound Carburetion wasn’t necessarily any thirstier than a single carburetor IF it was properly adjusted and IF you could restrain yourself with the accelerator, but it had a reputation for profligacy, and with fuel rationing, the extra horsepower was a needless extravagance. I think some owners also substituted the earlier, thicker head gasket to lower the compression ratio and limit the need for scarce premium gas.

Blue-painted Buick Fireball engine in a 1942 Buick Century — The 320 cu. in. engine retained aluminum pistons for 1942; Special and Super switched to cast iron / ClassicCars.com

Neither the Century nor Compound Carburetion returned when civilian production resumed after the war, although starting in 1952, Buick added a four-barrel “Airpower” carburetor to the venerable 320 cu. in. straight-eight, bringing its output to 170 hp. The Series 60 Century was eventually revived from 1954 to 1958, offering Roadmaster power (from the new, more compact “Nailhead” V-8) in the smaller Special body. Like its predecessor, it was a hot number for its time: A 1954 Century had 200 hp and was capable of 0 to 60 in 10.6 seconds, with a top speed of 112 mph.

Right front 3q view of a Titian Red 1954 Buick Century two-door hardtop with an Arctic White roof — 1954 Buick Century Riviera / South Jersey Classics

The later A-body Skylark GS was faster, of course, and the last G-body GNX was faster still, but most performance cars can only be judged by the standards of their time — and in the early 1940s, there was very little that could touch a Buick Century in a straight line.