Everyone is to some degree a hypocrite, although some forms of hypocrisy are admittedly harmless. Take mine, for example. Much of my automotive picture catalog consists of wallflowers, oddballs, four-door sedans, and the one-time mundane, including this fantastic 1963 Buick Special. My garage on the other hand is rife with two-door hardtops and convertibles, with only one exception (the Dart wagon). Therefore, the wide chasm between what I ogle at shows and what I take home smacks of false pretenses.
I too own a Buick Special (seen here). Of course, nice ’53 Special sedans are out there, but I fell in love with this one: a 45R Riviera, Buick’s code for a Special two-door hardtop. It’s not as practical as the sedan, but when I roll all four windows down it simply looks spectacular, if you like cars from this era. You may not like cars from this era, but it’s hard to deny that my hardtop is flashy – you can see why someone hung onto it for years (I’ve had it for 18 years myself). Of course, I’ll take pictures of hardtops and convertibles at shows, but more often than not, I’m racing toward the well-preserved sedans and four-door hardtops. Few saved them, so it’s a special treat to see one that’s been cared for.
Such is the case with this ’63 Special. It’s a sedan in Bronze Mist, an inexpensive Buick in an inoffensive color intended to reliably get you back and forth to work, perhaps even at the Buick plant. A glamour boat it is not. But I ran around this thing like an idiot, taking pictures, delighted that it still exists. Seeing great old Buicks is nothing new in Flint where they were built, but it never gets old for an inveterate Buick lover such as myself.
I too own a ’63 Buick (seen here). It is at the other pole of the Buick lineup from the Special, one of the most expensive Buicks one could buy and certainly one of the best-looking American cars of the 1960s. It also might be one of the most commonly seen 1963 Buicks today, since many buyers took care of them from new. They were costly and coveted, and therefore they are arguably not as rare an event as the Special sedan is today. But is it a Special sedan that I coveted for years?
Perhaps it should have been. I sometimes think about how much money General Motors spent on dead ends in the 1960s. The platform for this Special, along with its Tempest and F-85 contemporaries, hung on for a mere three model years, earning a major restyling for the third. General Motors knew they were completely revamping their compacts into body-on-frame intermediates in 1964, and they still spent the money on a total reskinning for the unit-body compact’s ultimate interpretation. Perhaps the most attractive of the three model years, the ’63 Special is Mitchell-era clean in a compact package that is perfect for just driving around, enjoying the old car life. And it has traditional Buick ventiports, which is more than I can say for my Riviera.
The highlight of this Special, however, is its engine, the 198 cubic-inch “Fireball” V6. This is another example of what could have been a dead end but wasn’t. According to Norbye and Dunne’s Buick: The Postwar Years, Edward Rollert (Buick’s General Manager) asked his powertrain engineers to design a cheaper engine for the Special, since its expensive aluminum 215 wasn’t (go figure) as profitable as it could have been. The odd-fire V6 was a compromise in many ways, but Buick engineer Joe Turlay had already done the math, allowing Buick to tool up and introduce it as standard in the Special for 1962, an unbelievably short amount of time.
Two digressions:
1. The original aluminum 215 hamstrung Buick in its small-block V8 efforts for years. Since the 215 (and the V6) were designed around bore centers of only 4.24 inches, they were forced to increase displacement (even after switching to cast iron construction) by way of an increased stroke. The eventual 350 was an undersquare engine, with a 3.8 inch bore and a 3.85 inch stroke. Compare that to the Oldsmobile 350 with its 4.057 inch bore and 3.385 inch stroke. That doesn’t make the small-block Buick a bad engine (I have a 300 in my Skylark, and it’s been great), but it limited its ultimate performance potential and future growth.
2. I once asked the owner of a ’62 Special convertible if the V6 in his car idled as roughly as its reputation suggested. He started the engine to show me and my dad how it ran. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an engine rocking so hard in its mounts; whether the engine was running poorly or if that’s just the way they run is lost to time. Also lost to time is the owner’s opinion of what constitutes a smooth-running engine. I still don’t know if he was trying to prove that they run smoothly or roughly; I simply went “oh” and thanked him for his time. He said nothing else.
Regardless of whether the Special was V6-or-V8-propelled, the dashboards of all GM compacts were clean and tidy. This Special has the fairly well-regarded Dual Path Turbine Drive transmission, another GM dead end from the time just before they streamlined their transmission operations. GM in the early 1960s was fascinating because they had the volume and therefore money for a good bit of divisional autonomy, for good or for bad.
Buick temporarily left the compact market behind after 1963 for the more lucrative intermediate market, and the success of the 1964 Chevelle, Tempest, F-85, and Special show that that was a wise decision, even though the restyled tail on this ’63 Special is very well done.
That left the GM compact market to Chevy with its Nova and Corvair for the time being, which is probably as it should have been in regards to the traditional Sloan Ladder.
I too own an updated GM intermediate (seen here), the slightly upmarket successor to our featured Special. Of course, I could have bought a nice Special or Skylark four-door sedan when I was young, poor, and wanted another old car. But no, I had to get the flashy two-door hardtop. Maybe I’m being a little hard on myself for being a bit of a hypocrite; after all, it’s not like I’m showing up in an LS-powered ’69 Camaro or anything like that. I’m still a bit off the beaten path, right? Still, what I’m snapping pictures of and what I’m driving home in are often a little bit divergent. Maybe next time.
The one thing I liked about the early, compact Specials/Skylarks was they looked like Buicks. Smaller for sure, but the family resemblance was definitely there. And, as there was no doubt that a full-size LeSabre or Electra was a premium choice over a big Chevy, the same could be said for these compacts. The Special just seemed far more upscale compared to the Chevy II or Tempest.
Aaron, last summer I came across a very clean convertible Special (Skylark?) Most unimpressive Buick. Compared to my Mom’s 62 Special. In my view it looks very dowdy and and uninspired, that is until you get to the instrument panel – it’s lovely. Odd to me how a timeless design like your Riv was made by the same co.
I think I might like the instrument panel on the ’62 F-85 even better.
My cousin had a Buick Special, a 1962 I think. I had forgotten about that spaceship steering wheel hub until I saw your pictures. Such a nifty detail.
This is very familiar, as a high school friend of my older brother had one almost identical to this, a hand-me-down from his father. Same basic 4-door sedan, with the V6 and automatic. Yes, the engine shook on its soft mounts, and yes, it didn’t sound or feel like the typical inline 6 or V8 when riding in it, but it wasn’t really objectionable either.
They were both hams (amateur radio operators), and he had a portable radio, IIRC. And we rode in it to a hilltop on field day.
He replaced it with a brand new Volvo 144S 4-door sedan. That seemed rather fitting too.
Amazing to me that Buick, which always emphasized “smoothness” would offer its customers such an un-smooth running engine. ?????
It was an expedient compromise. The aluminum V8 was an expensive dud, effectively. There was no other good choice. And it wasn’t really all that bad. And it appealed to a different set of buyers. And it offered surprisingly decent performance along with good mileage. objectively,the V6 Special was the best of the GM compacts, in terms of offering a reliable, economical well-performing compact. And its automatic was really very effective, and made up for some of that lack of smoothness.
Stylistically, my favorite part of this car is the steering wheel design, which looks like a leftover from the 61-62 Specials. I think most ’63 Specials had this more modern wheel with a wide horizontal bar:
The rest of this car is kind of “meh”: watered-down ’50s design. Which is probably why so few were preserved. Enthusiasts who like ’50s Space Age will get the Real Thing–a 1954 to 1960/61. Even the 1st gen. compact Specials had more charm than this.
However, like you, I’m glad someone preserved this one.
The brochure shows the steering wheel you showed in your picture, so I’d say you’re correct. Who knows if that’s an original wheel to the car or simply what the owner could find or what the owner preferred…
The ’63 wheel looks very similar to my Riviera’s wheel.
Aaron ;
I don’t think you’re hypocritical in any way .
You buy, use and like to look at what _you_ enjoy and that’s what our vehicular madness is supposed to be all about .
You shouldn’t give a rat’s patoot what others think of your vehicles .
I’ve never owned one but I do remember older guys when I was young who owned and loved their Buicks including these basic four door models .
Not a one was a bad car .
-Nate
Thanks Nate! 🙂 I really do like most old cars, although I’ll usually skim past the more typical car show fare that you see all the time. I don’t know what got me into Buicks, but they make up a fair percentage of the fleet.
Hypocrisy, as La Rochefoucauld is supposed to have said, is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
In our taxi company we used mostly Olds Delta 88s. Dad got the idea that V-6s would save fuel as well as wear and tear, so he looked for them exclusively.
The odd fire motors were just plain weird. The strangest part was the sounds they made, along with the harmonics that came off them. The even fire motors solved these problems.
The V-6s didn’t use any less fuel over the 307 because they required the driver’s foot to the floor to get anywhere. They were also notorious for breaking motor mounts.
I understand why GM went with the odd fire crank on the Fireball but it too far too long to go with a split pin crank.
Reading about the decisions they had to make regarding firing order and how “odd-firing” the engine was going to be was a hoot.
I think Paul might have posted this here before, but nothing like an odd fire V6 with open manifolds. 🙂
A flywheel or full torque convertor would smooth it out considerably.
I always thought Buick should have just cast the 215 in iron. Sure it would weigh a bit more but who cares. Buicks were premium cars, and premium cars should have a V8.
That’s an interesting thought, John. What would have happened if they would have just originally built an iron 215? Would they have even bothered building the V6? And what would that have meant for over 40 years of V6 production, eventually leading to the 3800?
Interesting car. A brown four door sedan that old in that great condition. Somebody really loves it. Personally I prefer the 1964 – 1972 GM intermediates but the 1961-1963 models were the beginning for them. That steering wheel hub is fantastic. Never seen one of those and love it.
My Dad was looking for a compact and one of the candidates was a 1963 Buick Special four-door…but it was a V8 so it didn’t have the vibration and shake of the V6. But he was a Chevy man at heart (except when buying Cadillacs) and the Buick had a multitude of door dings. He wound up with a 1962 Chevy II 300 of which I have written negatively here before (HINT: it spun a bearing in its mighty inline Six). The Buick was no roomier but was better appointed, more comfortable and quieter; the Chevy II droned and transmitted a lot of road roar.
I wish I was older and could enjoy the years that GM made cars like this. I hear and read about good GM cars and wish they hadn’t dropped the ball about the time I started driving.
This Buick looks so sweet. I like my cars honest, and this one fits me to a T. Easy to understand, a handsome design, some quirky details to give it personality, and a dependability GM lost about the time I showed up with my learner’s permit. Nuts!
Olds Cutlass – 1963, cousin to the Buick Special
Yeah, that’s a good looking Cutlass, especially in two door hardtop in that color. I started driving in 1981, so missed out on a lot of these great 60s cars.
The “little brown, sedan” needs some white stripe tires; maybe make the roof the color of the dashboard too.
Neighbors, across the street, had this same ride in beige. Had spiffier wheel covers, white stripe tires.
They had an ancient garage (with no garage door I can remember) to keep the car in.
Really kept the finish in good shape. Theirs could a been a “64”. They had a “waay cool, cat” too..lol
The top is a lighter color than the bottom; it’s just hard to see in my pictures (space was a little tight at the show).
I will confess that I think a lot like you do. As much as I ogle the stripper time capsules like this Buick at shows, I have gravitated towards flashier stuff when it has come time to put money on the line. I have bought a couple of old sedans over the years (59 and 66 Furys, 68 Newport) but those were bought as daily drivers more than as hobby cars.
I always shied away from these when I was younger and they were still around, mainly out of avoiding what I called bastard syndrome. They were little automotive islands with very little in the way of common parts shared with other models. This was why I also avoided station wagons – I always feared having to search out a piece of glass or a tailgate if I got hit, back in the days when I relied on local junkyards for such things.
On the discussion of the steering wheel up above, I have seen this wheel in pictures of low-trim F-85s and Specials built in 1962-62. Maybe this was the base wheel in 63, or maybe this car was an early build. It is certainly unusual.
I can imagine parts availability for the three BOP compacts is pretty bad, although I just looked at Fatsco Transmissions and you can get a Dual Path rebuild kit. Unfortunately, it costs even more than a Dynaflow kit. A quick look at Rock Auto shows almost no Tempest suspension parts, although they may be available from a more specialized source.
Smart call on wagons…I fell into that trap with the Dart. I recently found a link for a ’65 Dart wagon in a salvage yard in Pontiac, MI (about 75 minutes away), but by the time I found it, the quarter glass and tailgate gear had already been picked.
I’m a sucker for hardtops too, but this would get my attention.
Audi also drops in 90° V-6s. They’re just as smooth-running as any 60° version. This was made possible, through offsetting crankthrows.
A retrofit into a Buick would be possible. Though, not economically feasable, unless mass production of these were to take place. An offset camshaft grind would, in this case, also be necessary.
Compliments of https://www.autewo.de/059105019e-audi/vw-a4-b5/8e/a6-4b/a8-d2-2.5l-tdi-kurbelwelle-156000km