It was a typical Thursday–no car shows, just people running their usual errands. As I pull into the Arlington Plaza shopping center in my ’60 Dodge, what do I see but this mint green Buick convertible–just sitting there like it’s a pleasant spring morning in 1953. I park my car behind it, on my way to Staples to pick up some CO2 cartridges for my Sodastream. That’s where my cute little story begins.
As I’m parking, an older gent drives by in his c.2010 Chevy Malibu and gives me a big thumbs up. He gets out of his car and starts telling me how beautiful the Dodge and the Buick are; and how modern vehicles can’t compare with these classics in terms of color and style. I hear this sentiment often, and of course I agree with it. He then goes on to tell me about all the cars he’s owned, starting with a 1953 Pontiac sedan, followed by a ’57 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight convertible, a ’59 Cadillac Fleetwood in black, and I don’t remember what else. All beloved and fondly remembered. What is it about seeing cars of the ’50s & ’60s that brings out such strong emotional reactions in people?
If you owned this top-of-the-line Buick convertible in the early ’50s, you were really living. The Roadmaster was built using a Cadillac body shell, but with Buick-exclusive styling, engine, transmission, suspension, and interior trim. Actually, some people considered the Buick more luxurious than the Cadillac–Buick’s 4-coil suspension was super-soft, and Dynaflow had no perceptible shifts, resulting in dream-smooth driving. The Roadmaster’s flowing lines seem to reflect that dreamy smoothness.
In fact, Milton Berle drove this exact same model in the opening sequence of his popular prime-time TV variety show:
This grille and front end–so elaborately wrought–was made for close-up shots like this. “It crawled from the sea.”
Harley Earl and his boys sat around all day dreaming up Buck Rogers-inspired chromium hood missiles, colorful badges, and vicious-looking grille teeth. Pictures are one thing; standing next to it and seeing it in three dimensions is quite another.
V’s are prominent, representing the all-new Fireball V-8 in top models, replacing the old straight 8. In the Roadmaster, the “nailhead” 322 CID V8 was rated at 188 hp.
The same motifs appear on the optional factory wire-wheel-look wheel covers. The three symbols along with the “V” are part of founder Scotland-born David Dunbar Buick’s ancestral coat of arms.
The interior is furnished in a highly-atmospheric two-toned green. I used Paul’s ingenious method of placing the smartphone camera directly against the window glass in order to eliminate glare. As you walk around this car and take in all the details, you quickly realize that “Buick Quality” was real.
Well, that was fun. Now I’m off to Marshalls in the same shopping plaza, looking for clothing treasures. I found a pair of Levi’s XX Chinos in an unusual color, “Roan Rouge”, which is a kind of pinkish brown–I think it will go well with some of my shirts and sweaters. And a Ricky Singh Denim & Flower white cotton short-sleeve shirt, made of jacquard fabric with a subtly raised floral pattern. Yes, I like my clothes the way I like my cars: tastefully colorful, nicely-detailed, well-made. And low-priced: $42 for both items.
Each day as we are out and about, we never know who we will meet, what we will discover, and what experiences we may have. For me, these “unexpected pleasures”–little things that bring us joy–are what keeps life interesting.
Further CC Reading:
Rte 46 Parsippany NJ, I’d recognize that ShopRite anywhere. The more I think about it, I think I saw your Dodge the other day. Must be fun…
I very rarely see those early-1950s Buick (or Olds or Pontiac) cars at shows, but they do have a lot of presence.
October 1953, Buick Special: Interesting to see corporate ads naming the “locally delivered price.” This is Washington, DC; it’s a little more in Los Angeles (similar ad, $2550):
Thanks for the report and the commercial with Uncle Milty. In my days in The Bronx, it was 1953 when I was in a soda fountain (candy store). I was all of nine years of age. I remember the owner blubbering (he had a speech impediment) that he wished that he could buy “A big Buick Special four-door.” As for that lady in the commercial, what a laugh! She is the old garde finer lady who knows just what we want. That speech is a screech. Did she go to radio school to learn how to affect that? Nice automobile, by the way. Yes, I would like to drive a Buick. “When better automobiles are built, Buick will build them.”
Jan Sherwood was born in 1923, and many people at that time spoke that way. When that’s what you grow up hearing, it becomes a naturally adopted speech pattern. So I’m not sure how “affected” it is. I personally find it rather charming. It shows you how much the English language in America has evolved (degraded?) since then.
Here’s a picture of Jan taken in 1961, when she would have been 38.
As far as Wikipedia knows, Ms. Sherwood is still among us at roughly age 103. This proves that fine diction and driving Buicks correlate with longevity. (Or something like that …)
Could be. Milton himself lived to age 93; his two guests that night–Carol Channing lived to be 97, and Maria Riva died a few days short of her 101st birthday.
Lovely!!
I find nothing unusual about Jan Sherwood’s speech either. Actually sounds very much like other female celebrities in the 50’s. Such as What’s My Line.
https://youtu.be/AMPo37UhNfo?si=9r8CWzC0CMhtc3AP
Actually, Uncle Miltie’s Buick was not a Roadmaster, but a Special. Only three ventiports.
When I turned 16 my Dad had a 53 Buick Special 4dr,3 on the tree. I thought it was ugly as hell with those black walls and of course 4drs were very uncool. But it was all I had to drive when I was allowed to do so…One night coming home from a high school basketball game a 56 Ford Fairlane pulled in front of me and we collided just a bit left of dead center head on. It was a relatively low speed impact but the Ford had to be towed away..The Buick had only suffered the slight separation of one of the vertical bars in that toothy grill..I had to tell my Dad because there was a police report,but a simple bit of muscle on a crow bar fixed the grill..That Buick was a tank….
Beautiful Buick and your pictures are great. Someone spent a great deal of money and time to restore it to this condition. Too bad you were not able to talk with the owner to hear the backstory. One reason I love going to car shows is the opportunity to talk to owners of these cars and hear the backstory.
Watching the ad video I instantly knew Jan Sherwood was a trained theater performer. Theater actors are trained to speak in many dialects. My companion of 20 years was an actor, made a living filming industrial’s, and voice overs. He would voice over foreign films into English, he could play a doctor selling pills, or a Dad selling some lawn care products.
Funny, one night he was in a shoot for a French commercial for some phone commercial. Late night hours spent in fake produced rain, running to get to a phone, all shot in NYC but was suppose to be in Paris. He couldn’t speak French, so there was a voice over. I remember him coming home wet at day break.
I remember one commercial ad. It was an ad for some kind of European fragrance. The setup was a beautiful women, meets a man, with the NYC skyline in the background. and yes artificial fog. It was filmed in Brooklyn because that is the only way you are going to get the NYC cityscape in the background. I don’ remember why, but partner suggested I could play a part. I was not an actor, had no speaking part, so I didn’t’ have to be in the Union, saving production expenses. I was offered $2000 (early 1980s), bleach my hair and just stand there with my back turned to the Camara wearing a tux. So five seconds on Camara, back view only, paid $2,000, but it took me much longer to get my hair back to normal after the bleach job. The less than one minute commercial took many hours to shoot. Thankfully the shoot ended before the fake fog made my bleached hair frizz!
Sorry for going a bit off topic, but the mention of Jan Sherwood, and the Buick commercial sent me down a rabbit hole.
Stunning car and color.
What a contrast to Buick of today and the past 8 years where they offer nothing but ugly boxes on wheels. It’s really too bad because Buick used to be something.
What a beauty .
-Nate
They do turn heads when you unexpectedly see one in the wild. I saw this one yesterday, in a shop, four doors down from my mechanic yesterday.
All that polished stainless, chrome, and new paint make it look better today than most did when they were daily drivers.
Actually, the Buick driven by Milton Berle in the program intro is a Super. The Special didn’t have the dip in the door. Rather, the fender line went straight through to the quarter panel. Through 1954, Specials and Supers both had three ventiports. The Century, introduced in 1954, had four. In 1955, the Super graduated to four, as well. My Dad owned both a 1955 Century Riviera two-door hardtop and a 1955 Super Riviera four-door six-window sedan. Fred
I’ve always found the styling on these interesting – it captures the prevailing aesthetic halfway between the old-look bulging pontoon fenders and new-look smooth envelope body.
Yes, it’s like GM were determined to come into the future when Harley Earl was good and ready for it, standing at the studio door defiantly shaking his pencil against the oncoming rush of time!
What always gets me is how long they held onto the bulging hoodline and heavy curvaceous fenders; the look is so dated for 1953. Nicely integrated, I’ll grant you, and beautifully-detailed, but obsolete.
Which car would win a drag race? Would the Buick be hobbled by the Dynaflow?
1953 was the first year for the Twin Turbine Dynaflow, which was not quite as snappy as the later dual-stator Turbine Drive version, but was a lot less soggy than the early Dynaflow. The trick with these cars, if you’re in a hurry, is to start in Low and shift manually to Drive at around 50 mph. They’re not bad in Drive, for their time, but using Low gives better pickup at lower speeds. For the health of the direct drive clutch, it’s better not to make a habit of that, but it is available in a pinch.
Some Cadillacs also used Twin Turbine Dynaflow after the Hydra-Matic plant in Livonia was destroyed by fire in August 1953.
“Jane Wyman’s”, character drove one in “Magnificent Obsession”.
Stephen: Thank you for including the Milton Berle excerpt, it made a fine article memorable.
Who says it’s not easy being green? This ’53 Buick is stunning in the color, both inside and out. We need more green in cars today!
Confusingly, the Roadmaster convertible did NOT share the Cadillac body in 1953: The big Roadmaster 72R sedan did, but the convertible was the same 207.6 inches long as the Model 50 Super, on the same 121.5-inch wheelbase. That made it more than a foot shorter than a 1953 Cadillac convertible, which was 220.8 inches long.
J P Cavanaugh covered this confusing GM body program here:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-1949-50-the-mystery-of-the-missing-b-body-part-2/
It is hard to imagine that only 7 years separate this Buick from your Dodge. Car styling was really moving fast in those years.
This Buick just oozes a feeling of old-time sumptuous comfort, while the Dodge is all about a steel-and-glass kind of modernity. I love them both!