(first posted 4/11/2016) Last week, I mentioned Harlow Curtice’s Buick-bias during his tenure at General Motors. That bias was a result of his years as the head of Buick, years which arguably culminated with the 1942 Series 90 Limited. The Limited, in most respects, out-Cadillacked Cadillac, which may have led to its postwar demise.
I’m not sure if that’s totally true, but one could present an anecdotal argument; after all, not only was the Limited gone by 1946 when automotive production resumed, but Compound Carburetion was also no longer on the books. Compound Carburetion was the trade name for Buick’s twin-carburetor intake manifold, atop which sat two Carter or Stromberg two-barrels. With Compound Carburetion, the big 320 Buick peaked in 1941-’42 at 165 horsepower, easily cresting Cadillac’s 150.
Photo Courtesy of Buick Heritage Alliance
Compound Carburetion was a precursor to the more modern four-barrel carburetor (which Buick also pioneered, in 1952). The engine cruised on the front carburetor most of the time, but the second carburetor would kick in under full throttle and/or speeds over 75 miles per hour. Like many four-barrels, such as the Rochester Quadrajet and Carter AFB, there was a damper to prevent the second carburetor from operating too suddenly, causing hesitations and flat spots. In this case, the damper was underneath the second carburetor, unlike on the aforementioned four-barrels. The concept, however, was similar.
As evidenced by the picture above, Compound Carburetion also included a split exhaust manifold with two outlets. This is a popular upgrade for later Buicks, but involves some modification because later Buick Eights had a motor mount directly where the head pipes would go.
With Compound Carburetion on the 320, Buick was the quickest and fastest 1942 model in America, trumping Packard and Cadillac. Much later, General Motors wouldn’t allow any other brand to encroach upon the Chevrolet’s halo model, the Corvette, and similarly, crowding the big Caddy was a no-go in the 1940s. After the war, the 320 was reduced to 144 horsepower (thanks to single carburetion), but would peak with the ultimate 320 in 1952, which cranked out 170 horsepower but also had to power a Dynaflow, which definitely sapped some of the Roadmonster’s accelerative force. By that time, of course, the straight-eight had become passe’, its reputation clouded by so many overhead valve V8s, and it was soon replaced with the “nothing quite like it” Nailhead.
And there was never really a direct replacement for the Limited; in fact, it’s one of the few Buicks on the Classic Car Club of America’s list of recognized “Full Classics,” a Cadillac fighter if ever there was one.
For two years in the early 1940s, however, rich GM fans could buy a beautiful, hot rod Buick limousine with its glorious grand piano hood and waterfall grille. It’s just another car that makes me, as a Buick owner, all gooey inside, and I’d love to take one for a spin.
I’ve read more than a couple of accounts about how Curtis was “slapped down” by top brass at GM when he built “a better Cadillac” while heading up the Buick division. IIRC Arch Brown, writing in Special Interest Autos over 25 years ago, had an excellent story about this.
In particular, Curtice envisioned a whole line of special-bodied Limiteds for 1941 which included town cars, landaulets, and convertible sedans. It was these cars that caused Cadillac to cry foul. Here’s a surviving 1941 town car.
John Delorean wrote about Cadillac complaining to Corporate when Chevrolet division came out with the Caprice. Too bad Cadillac did not respond to the other division’s challenges by making their own products a little better, maybe Caddy would be in a better place now.
There was a story of some Chevy boss complaining that that an employee was driving a Cadillac; he told the employee that since he was working for Chevrolet, that he should drive a Chevrolet. Allegedly the employee responded that if they made a Chevrolet that was like a Cadillac, then he would drive one.
That supposedly inspired the creation of the Caprice.
Please don’t regurgitate that silly urban myth. The Caprice was a direct response to the 1965 Ford LTD, which was an instant hit. The Caprice was announced some 5-6 months later, just as long as it took to get the trim and such geared up for production.
Actually your version of the story is even more ridiculous than the more commonly told one, that the GM execs on the 14th floor wrote an edict that said that the executives in each division had to drive (company) cars from their respective division.
That’s utterly absurd too, as no exec or junior exec or anyone else wanting to advance their career at GM would dare drive anything not from the division they worked in. That would have been the kiss of career death. Chevy execs drove Corvettes mostly, or an Impala SS. That was plenty good enough for them.
Companies like GM don’t invest in the creation and marketing of a new car line because some employee complained. They do it to stay competitive.
You’re right. I just think it’s interesting how many stories come up about these things and have no factual basis. They’re amusing…but silly really.
It wasn’t my intention to perpetuate a myth, just to relate another “fable”.
Buick pushed the limits again in ’57 – ’58, with their Roadmaster, and Roadmaster Limited (’58). They were just a couple of hundred dollars less than a DeVille.
Somehow, possibly a bit more tasteful than the Roadmonster model just below it.
It seems pretty obvious that GM knew its last gasp of Harley Earl style had gone a bit past its sell-by date with their 1958 models so they trimmed the heck out of everything. Kind of horrible then and kind of awesome in their own very special way now. Right around mid-century and the polar opposite of Mid Century Modern.
It is rather odd that American car fashion was so out of step with American home fashion in 1958, whereas they were very much in step by 1976-78. GM’s only concession to Bauhaus-like mid-century modern style was on their Frigidaire appliances, which sported the squared-off “sheer look” (as they advertised it even back then) years before it showed up on the ’75 Seville and then the downsized B/C bodies, again called the Sheer Look.
Many Australians of my father’s generation regarded Buick as the ultimate American car. I remember passing a ’46 on the way home from school every day (it was never there in the mornings), and telling Dad about it. The way he said “You saw a Buick!” said it all. Since post-48 Buicks were very thin on the ground (imported to order) it would be cars like these that were responsible for that reputation.
Yes my dad was GM to his boot straps and reguarded Buick as top of the tree Cadillac was just a Cadillac nothing spectacular
Several years ago I contributed an article to Old Cars Weekly on the Buick engineer creating the four barrel carburetor, a decade after the dual compound carburetion. Buick was always ahead of the game with OHV engines when many others were flatheads. Yes, Caddy cried to the GM hierarchy when the ’41 Buicks surpassed the Caddys in horsepower, and they also caused the squashing of the ’41 Buick custom models as mentioned by tonyola, several of which where shown in literature but never (“allowed ” to be) produced.
Interesting, however, how the four barrel carburetor was adopted by everyone
after Buick (and later Packard) offered it on their straight eights.
It’s not hard to see how the Buick 8’s efficient overhead valve design could be outfitted to outperform Cadillac’s much larger (346 cid vs Buick’s 320) flathead V8. It makes me think that there was still untapped potential in the old Buick 8 when they followed the trend to V8 power in 1953. The OHV straight 8 may have been the perfect configuration except for the extreme length. Imagine that engine bored out to 370 cubes or so with a double compound carburetion setup.
I have long loved those prewar Limiteds.
One of the problems with the straight-8 is the small bore and correspondingly small valves. To get to 370, you’d probably have to add a quarter inch overbore, and that may be outside the realm of possibility.
I have an old reprint of “California Bill’s Speed Secrets” or something like that, and it talks about the 320 just a little. Someone had put a 320 in an old Hudson, bored it about 1/8″ and worked some magic, and it ran 98 mph in the quarter.
Some guys still use these engines at Bonneville, but the real speed secret is a blower.
Good point on the limitations on bore diameter. But it is fun to contemplate what might have been had Buick invested in a newer, larger straight 8 block with the same kinds of modern engineering that went into competitors’ V8s. Free breathing, big bore, high compression and good carburetion would have made for a real fire breather. (And, of course, the longest hoods in the industry. 🙂 )
I recall someone commenting about the 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix having the longest hood.
Imagine how how a 1971-72 “boat tail” Buick Riviera with an elongated hood to house that updated, modernized straight-8 would look.
Wow. It’s almost like Curtice saw Buick as a Bentley to Cadillac’s Rolls-Royce. Imagine if GM had allowed that friendly competition to play out for a few more years…
Yep. You could also argue they saw a chance to move up with the demise of LaSalle after 1940.
Buick had a real cachet as a quality car that wasn’t as ostentatious, even back then. Edward VIII used a 1936 (Canadian) Buick Limited limousine as his personal transport before, during, and after his brief reign and abdication – fun faact, it was delivered at the same time as a similar one for his wife-to-be’s ex-husband!
Robert-many Australian Prime Ministers and State Premiers had Buicks as their official cars.The Governor General,The Queen’s appointed representative in Australia, used Daimlers and Humbers as official vehicles to maintain links to Britain.Later they used Rolls Royce Phantom limousines.The Edward and Wallis Simpson Buicks were impressive looking cars.
I’ve just been watching the BBC’s tribute to HM Queen’s 90th birthday, and it featured footage of the Queen’s first tour of India in the early 1950s. Big black Cadillacs and Buicks – with HM travelling in one of the latter.
There is another ultra-high-end example of Buick being chosen by a prominent European for its prestigious but unostentatious nature during the 1930s: Pope Pius XI had a Buick as his official limousine. Nicola Bulgari has mentioned seeing the Pope in his Buick as a significant influence on his own adoption of Buicks as his favorites.
Yet another reminder of a time when it seemed that GMs biggest competition was internal.
It would be interesting to see what some enterprising car company could engineer creating a modern straight 8 throwing all of their technical expertise at it. Those straight 6 and straight 8 engines were so inherently smooth…
The silly thing about such mgmt. “halo brand protection” was that refinement, not performance, was until very recently the priority of the American luxury car idiom, so why should Cadillac buyers care if Buicks were quicker?
An early example of the American penchant for “dumbing down,” here in the private sector.
Performance wasn’t a priority for luxury cars in those days. It was simply assumed and expected for that sort of money. Think of Ethel Merman’s famous line from It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World….
“WE’RE the ones in the Imperial and WE’RE running last?……”
Or perhaps The Playmates’ 1958 novelty hit “Beep Beep”. It wasn’t a Ferrari that the little Nash Rambler was up against!
Maybe, yet Cadillac reverted to side valves for their late ’30s V-16 because it was more refined than the earlier OHV version.
Must be an interesting story there. On the surface it would seem a retrograde move.
I wouldn’t say that going for more refinement was a retrograde move. The 1940’s Cadillac flathead V8 might not have been innovative, but it sure was refined. Find one of those cars today and listen to the engine running. At idle it is more like a fine watch than an internal combustion powerplant. Yet it wasn’t lacking for grunt when needed — after all, the Caddy flathead was used (in pairs, one for each track) to power tanks in WW2.
I think part of the reason was to lower the engine height, although with the carburetors on top of the engine I am not sure that it was much lower. The first V16, with a 45 degree angle between the banks, had OHV to make it easier to service the valves. Neither design really makes much sense to me, why not a 90 degree V16?
Why Buick didn’t go for a V8 with a 45 degree angle is also curious.
[… why not a 90 degree V16?]
Takes 2 revolutions to complete a 4-stroke cycle, so 720 degrees between ignition firings for each cylinder. Divide 720 by 8 you get 90, by 12 you get 60, by 16 you get 45. Hence these are the natural, even-firing vee-angles for V8, V12 and V16.
Kita Ikki: Yes for a 16 cylinder engine a multiple of 45 degrees works, hence the flathead V16 was 135 degrees (3×45).
None came here some fool started a war in 39 that interrupted shipping.
Beautiful car. Instead of bitching about it, Cadillac needed to up their game.
Aaron 65- When I returned to live in Tasmania in 2002 my father was then 87 years old.After a lifetime of he and his father owning Buick cars,my father bought his last Buick in 1965,a 1965 Buick Skylark sedan with a V6 engine.The Skylark had only completed approx 60,000 miles,always garaged in the country and city,when in the late 1990s he shipped the Buick to Western Australia and gave it to my elder brother.One day we were discussing Buicks and he told me his favourite was the new 1930 Buick tourer my grandfather purchased.During World War 2,they owned and worked in a timber mill in the bush and a fierce fire destroyed the mill and huts,leaving them with the clothes they were standing in.Miraculously,the Buick was untouched by the fire.He told me that because of the fire he no longer had a photo of that car.No computer in 2002 so I wrote a letter to Buick in the USA and asked if they could possibly send me a photo of a 1930 tourer and I also listed the Buicks the two men had owned since 1924.About a month after sending the letter we met the postman in the street in that small country town and he said he had a parcel for us.A cardboard box embossed with Buick all over it.Inside the box was the 2002 Buick catalogue,a very friendly letter from the head of public relations and a large book with hundreds of colour and black and white photos of Buicks and the complete history of Buick cars and other vehicles Buick engines were used in.It was the most detailed book on Buick I have read and must have been costly to produce.When my father died at 92 years,my brother grabbed the book.I only tell you this in case you haven’t seen one of these books and I wonder if GM/Buick still reward lifelong customers with such an extravagant present.
Great story Roderick, thanks for sharing it!
The first series 90’s are found in 1932, but it is 1936 when the Roadmaster and Limited (as well as Special) names are attached to the series numbers. One should not forget that Cadillac had the V16, which was rated at 180 HP. The Buick series 90 was basically the same car as the Cadillac series 75.
My understanding is that the 320 cubic inch straight eight’s design was not robust enough (crankshaft) to handle much more than the 170 HP it put out at the end.
Here’s a really great looking, beater ’41 Limited in the possession of Sloan Museum in Flint. I’d love to fix just what had to be fixed, slap a flat black paint job on it, and drive it around for the rest of my life.
With the compound carby setup, wouldn’t there be an issue with uneven mixture when running on a single carb?
Yes, there were problems with uneven mixture distribution especially to the cylinders farthest from the carburetor, common to all straight eights to a degree. With Compound Carburetion there were problems with keeping the linkage in proper adjustment, turned out to be headaches for garages trying to keep things in sync. Buicks were powerful with a regular two-barrel, impressively more so with a Compound Carburation 320 in their lighter Century models, a real factory hot rod. Good thing gas was cheap then, mpg wasn’t their strong suit.
Wonder what a four-barrel would do to one of these? No doubt it’s been tried.
Yep. The factory used one in ’52 on the 320. Adapting one to a regular two-barrel manifold would require some creative engineering. Even a later model two-barrel would require an adapter, because the base is smaller than more modern two-barrels.
For a four-barrel, you’d be better off fabricating a new manifold.
True, gas was cheap, but of course it would soon be rationed.
I wonder how many of these had the second carburetor disabled, once the U.S. entered World War II?
October 1941 ad: mentions critical “defense” production, but still a time when most Americans hadn’t yet heard of Pearl Harbor:
President Roosevelt signed the Lend Lease Act in early 1941, so although we were not yet in the fight, we were very involved in supplying our allies with what they needed to fight the war that they were involved in.
Also, the Selective Service & Training Act was signed even before, in 1940, and the British Purchasing Commission had made its rounds & jump-started American warplane manufacturing.
Contrary to many historical accounts, the US wasn’t really neutral, at least with respect to Asia. It had effectively declared economic war against Japan with increasingly restrictive trade embargoes, which backed Japan into a corner. If anyone thought Japan would take this lying down, they were very foolish.
FWIW, here’s the top half of that (almost-) full page ad:
NZ and Oz were already getting lendlease equipment by 41 WW2 began in Sept 1939 for most of the world.
It began for China in 1937, & demographically that’s a big chunk of the World. Britons like to say America was “late for the war,” but that’s unfair since the US didn’t have the same diplomatic commitments (Belgium in 1914, Poland in ’39).
There is a school of thought that the internal competition between Cadillac and Buick pushed each division to strive to create better cars. Having two aspirational makes targeted at somewhat different demographics contributed to GM’s top position then.
In the immediate postwar market, faced with unprecedented demand and limited material supplies, Buick management dismissed what had been a peripheral segment for their pre-war business. Whereas Specials had accounted for the majority of sales then, management adroitly limited Special availability, placing primary production and sales emphasis on the C-body Supers and Roadmasters. In a smart marketing move, not only did it take advantage of the higher unit profits from the two upmarket series, it also tapped into the pent-up prosperity widely held by war-time workers. Legions of pre-war Buick Special owners moved up, aspirational buyers finally got their first taste of the Buick good life. This set the stage for Buick success in the 1950’s.
Of the long wheelbase segment, it shook out to two very separate markets: one the coach-lines, livery, taxi utilitarian usage; the other the remains of the ‘carriage’ trade i.e. limousines. On our recent survey found on the PackardInfo Forum, a decade after the war’s end, only Cadillac was left to serve the luxury segment, Packard had faded away, Imperials were simply vanity efforts. The aftermarket stretch limousine business was a decade or so in the future.
This is from the first announcement of the CC (compound carburetion) “effect”–September 1940. Any idea how the compression ratio can vary between single-carb mode and CC-mode? (see last part of the column)
You’re misinterpreting it. It’s just saying that the single carb engines have a lower compression ratio than the ones that have the dual carbs.
^^^^^Thanks kindly, Paul—*now* it makes sense.
The announcement says that the higher compression ratios take advantage of high octane fuels (premium grade). The lower compression ratio base engines without CC use regular grade fuels.
Buicks of the 1940’s-’60’s were always popular with conservative professionals, who felt uncomfortable with the ostentatiousness of a Cadillac. Recall a few ’50’s Specials and Supers in the neighborhood when I was a boy. Was always fascinated with their quirky features, like the side opening hood, starter under the accelerator and radio antenna in the middle of the windshield connected to a knob inside that you could turn. This compound carburetor fits in nicely with Buick culture.
These are great cars–somehow, I had never paid attention to them until this article, which is great that you guys write about various things, because sometimes there are the non-converted out there. As mentioned by others here, GM’s competition was often themselves, and you wonder how many great ideas were squelched because of it. I miss the days where their individual brands had more autonomy to do things, including their own specific engines.
Remember that Buick (the founding brand for GM), Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland were independent automobile makers before GM. Chevrolet was also independent before Durant took over and brought it into the GM lineup. Designing the cars to use the same parts as much as possible was going to reduce costs, and this eventually makes most of the divisions redundant.
This Buick is basically a Cadillac body, an upper end Cadillac body, not the basic 60 series Cadillac body.
No, the 90 Series Buick is not “basically a Cadillac body.” In fact, when Harlow Curtice and Buick rolled out the all-new 1941 90 Series, Cadillac management had a collective heart-attack and quickly grabbed the car for their own, renaming it the Cadillac Series 67. It was bigger than the Series 75, had a longer wheelbase, better suspension, and an opulent interior equal to the 75, and even in Cadillac form, it was a far better car than the Series 75. Cadillac continued to use leaf springs in back, while the Buick used coils all around, which, combined with a torque tube, offered a superior ride. And there’s no arguing that the Buick 320 with dual carbs was the most powerful engine you could buy in America in 1941.
A lot of people think the two cars were developed jointly or that Buick got a hand-me-down from Cadillac, but if that were true, why was it killed after just 15 months of production? If the Buick 90 was truly a Cadillac design that Buick borrowed, why did the Cadillac Series 67 die with the Buick 90?
No, the Buick 90 is most certainly NOT a Cadillac, and that’s what made Cadillac management so furious. It was a bigger, faster, more powerful car for less cash than anything but the Cadillac Series 61. It should be no surprise they wanted it dead.
I should note that I’m a little biased–I own a ’41 Buick Limited limousine, but having driven the Cadillac Series 67, they’re really quite different cars in terms of personality. The Cadillac is probably smoother but the Buick is notably faster.
That’s for posting this. I knew about the Cadillac Series 67 and its kinship with the Buick Series 90, but not the birth order as it was. It all makes more sense now, and why both were so short-lived. I’m sure someone at GM made sure those dies went to a wartime scrap drive.
Do you know if Cadillac keep the four-coil rear suspension, or use their own leaf springs?
I love this car!! Mrs. JPC and I were watching an old movie on TCM within the last week or two (Now, Voyager with Bette Davis, 1942) that included a scene of a wealthy person emerging from the back seat of one of these cars. It was perfect casting, as a car presumably owned by a conservative, upper crust Boston family. I think this is the older 1941 version.
I wonder how many former Buick Limited owners might have purchased a 1950’s Jaguar Mark VII. Traditional styling combined with an advanced DOHC dual carbureted, dual exhaust, straight six. Manual four speed transmission was standard. It was a high performance sedan similar to the pre War Buicks.
Thanks for mentioning a Bette Davis film, JPC; I was waiting to cite “The Letter” (1940), a story set on the Malay Peninsula and containing scenes of a contemporary Buick four-door convertible (at night, light-colored top up), making its way slowly down a narrow pedestrian-filled alley, a local driver grasping that huge ivory-colored wheel and occasionally honking the melodious horn(s) using the big chromed horn ring, the close-set headlights piercing the evening gloom.
Buicks have been favored in China, and elsewhere in what used to be called “The Orient,” for decades, I believe . . .
Jhou En-Lai, Mao’s right hand man, had a Buick when he was based in Shanghai at the start of the People’s Republic. So when the GM Shanghai joint venture was set up in the 1990’s, GM asked which brand it should produce, and Buick was the answer. They sell far more Buicks in China these days than they do over here.