Curbside Classic: 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 – More Buick For The Buck

Buick badge and grille bars on the nose of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

In recent decades, mid-price cars and mid-price makes have often taken it on the chin, caught between cheaper makes moving upmarket and luxury brands moving downwards in search of greater volume. This is sometimes also true for middle-tier models of the same brand, like the old Buick Super, which was squeezed between the popular entry-level Buick Special and the fancier Roadmaster. In 1950, Buick found a new way to generate interest in the mid-level Super: a stretched-wheelbase four-door model called Super 126, which offered more car for not a lot more money. Rich Baron spotted one of these cars in 2024 — let’s take a closer look.

Front view of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

Rich shot this red Buick in Marin County, California, in December 2024. (Except as otherwise noted, all the photos in this post are by Rich.) Identifying it as a 1950 Buick wasn’t too difficult — the controversial “buck-toothed” grille, designed by former Buick styling chief Henry Lauve, is hard to mistake even if cars of this period aren’t your bag — but I had to read the badge to determine that it was a Buick Super, not the cheaper Buick Special, which was built in greater numbers. (Both the Special and Super had three “VentiPorts” on the sides of the hood, while the pricier Roadmaster boasted four.)

VentiPorts and Super badge on the left front fender of a 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

The Series 50, as the Buick Super was known in the catalog, dated back to 1930, when it was for a time the cheapest Buick model line. In 1934, Buick had added the cheaper Series 40 (later called Special), which slotted below the Series 50 in price, and the Series 60 (later called Century), positioned above it. This was more model and price gradations than the late ’30s market could really support, so the Series 50 disappeared for a while, returning for 1940. In a practical sense, the revived Super was essentially just a fancier Special, sharing the same wheelbase and 248 cu. in. (4,065 cc) straight eight, albeit tuned for a bit more power. However, it wasn’t that much more expensive than the Special and offered a nicer interior, so for a while, the Super outsold the cheaper model.

Front 3q view of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

After Buick resumed civilian production in late 1945, the Super became the volume model. With raw materials in short supply and the public clamoring for new cars, the cheaper Special was a low priority. (When the first “all-new” Buicks debuted for 1949, the Special actually kept the older body and older styling until late in the model year.) However, it was a different story for 1950: The restyled Special and Super now about looked the same, and they still shared the same wheelbase and exterior dimensions. If you were content with more basic interior trim, the Special was a good deal cheaper than the Super, and bystanders or nosy neighbors would have to look close to tell them apart. For a bit more money, there was also now a Special Deluxe sub-series that gave you most of the Super’s exterior brightwork and some of its interior appointments.

Front 3q view of a gray 1950 Buick Super Model 51 four-door sedan with an external sun visor and whitewall tires

1950 Buick Super Four-Door Tourback Sedan, Model 51 / “Old Buick, 1950” by born1945 – licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

So, you might well ask, “Why would people buy a Buick Super at all? Wouldn’t it make more sense just to stick with Special Deluxe?” Many people did just that: The Special became the best-selling Buick line in 1950, with the Deluxe models outselling the plain versions by about 2 to 1. The Super did now had a bigger 263 cu. in. (4,315 cc) engine, with 124 hp to the Special’s 110 hp (on manual-shift cars — cars with Dynaflow had 120 and 128 hp respectively), and it was available as a convertible or Riviera hardtop, which the Special was not. The convertible and hardtop were expensive, though, and the sales figures suggest that not many contemporary buyers thought the bigger engine and slightly better trim were worth the $156 price difference between the Super and the Special Deluxe.

Buick F-263 straight-eight engine in a 1950 Buick Super Model 52, with the words "Buick Valve in Head" painted in red on the turquoise valve cover

The 1950 Super’s new “F-263” eight displaced 263.3 cu. in. (4,315 cc) — this one is in a Dynaflow car and has 128 hp rather than the standard 124 hp / Mecum Auctions

 

Front 3q view of a yellow 1950 Buick Super Riviera two-door hardtop with a black roof and whitewall tires

1950 Buick Super Riviera, Model 56R / Mecum Auctions

 

However, Buick had one more trick up its sleeve: the new long-wheelbase Super 126 sedan, known in the catalog as the Model 52 four-door Tourback. (“Tourback” is what Buick called its notchback models to distinguish them from the fastback “Jetback” body styles.)

For the Model 52 to make sense, it’s important to understand the peculiarities of Buick’s 1950 body program. While Buick offered an assortment of wheelbases in 1950, there were really just two basic bodies (sometimes described as the B-body and C-body, although see J P Cavanaugh’s “The Mystery Of The Missing B Body” for more on that convoluted subject), and the bigger of the two was essentially just a stretched version of the shorter body. Buick combined these body shells with two different front sections, one of which was longer (shifting the front wheels forward by 4.75 inches) to accommodate the bigger 320 cu. in. (5,247 cc) straight-eight used in the Roadmaster. These pieces were mixed and matched on the different 1950 models, as shown in the following table:

Buick Bodies, 1950
Model Body Shell Front Section Wheelbase, Inches Overall Length, Inches
Special, all body styles B-body Short 121.5 204.0
Super, all styles
except Model 52 sedan
B-body Short 121.5 204.0
Roadmaster, all styles
except Model 72 sedan
B-body Long 126.25 208.75
Super 126
Model 52 sedan
C-body Short 125.5 208.0
Roadmaster 130
Model 72 sedan
C-body Long 130.25 212.75

 

Depending on how you want to look at it, the Super 126 was either a longer Super or a short-nosed Roadmaster 130, but either way, it was a significantly larger car than the B-body Super or the cheaper Buick Special.

In an ideal world, I would illustrate the size difference between the Super 126 Model 52 and the shorter B-body Model 51 sedan with a side-by-side comparison, but the brochure doesn’t show them both in profile, and Model 51 survivors are now pretty thin on the ground. (The gray Model 51 pictured above was the only half-decent photo I could find without contacting GM Archives.) Since the Special Deluxe used the same body and was the same size, that will have to suffice:

Side view of a turquoise 1950 Buick Special Deluxe four-door Tourback sedan with a black roof

1950 Buick Special Deluxe Four-Door Tourback sedan, Model 41D / Bring a Trailer

Right side view of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

1950 Buick Super 126 Four-Door Tourback sedan, Model 52

 

You’ll notice that the rear sail panels of the Super 126 were a very different shape than those of the smaller B-body Buick. In addition to its longer wheelbase, the C-body sedan had a longer roof whose C-pillars intersected the rear deck farther back than on the B-body. This required an additional quarter window behind the rear door, creating what’s called a six-window (or “six-light”) profile. (The B-body was considered a four-window design; its front vent windows weren’t counted separately.)

Closeup of left rear window and C-pillar of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

Unlike some of the stretched-tail big cars of a few years later, whose extra length benefited only trunk space and bragging rights, the Super 126’s longer body provided a significant increase in rear legroom. The brochure proclaimed that the long-wheelbase car had “the rear seat roominess of a limousine—with the extra side windows for good looks and good looking out.”

Back seat of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

The shorter-wheelbase Special and Super had drawn some criticism from consumer publications for offering mediocre legroom for their exterior dimensions, but the Super 126 had the kind of interior space you’d expect from a car this size, and it had nicer interior trim as well. Since the C-body weighed 125 lb more than the B-body Super, performance suffered a bit, but I doubt many contemporary buyers had high expectations in that regard.

Front seat of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

Unfortunately, the front-seat shot is a bit blurry — not quite enough light for best results — but it does reveal that this car has the standard Synchro-Mesh transmission rather than Dynaflow. Dynaflow was standard on Roadmaster by this time, but it was still a pricey extra on the Special and Super (around $200), so not everyone opted for it. (I unfortunately don’t have installation rates for 1950.)

The bigger body put the Super 126 in an interesting market position. With a base price of $2,212, it was by no means an inexpensive car for 1950 — it was $683 more than a Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe four-door sedan — but it was only $47 more than an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight sedan, and just $73 more than the smaller four-window Model 51 Super sedan, which Buick buyers apparently considered a bargain: The Model 52 outsold the Model 51 by about 2 to 1.

Rear 3q view of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 sedan

Although it was still 0.75 inches shorter than the B-body Roadmasters, the C-body Super Model 52 was roomier than the B-body Roadmaster Model 71 sedan, which cost $421 more. In fact, the Super 126 offered size and interior space comparable to a Cadillac Series 62 sedan (which shared the same body shell and was only a half-inch longer in wheelbase) for about $1,000 less. If it wasn’t quite as lavishly trimmed as the Cadillac, the Super 126 was no bargain-basement special — it was still a luxuriously appointed car with an eight-cylinder engine and an upscale badge.

Right side view of a Cypress Green 1950 Cadillac Series 62 four-door sedan

1950 Cadillac Series 62 four-door sedan was 214.88 inches long on a 126-inch wheelbase, but it shared the same six-window sedan body as the Buick Super 126 and Roadmaster 130 / Connors Motorcar Company

 

Offering the Super 126 obviously carried some risk of cannibalizing Roadmaster sales, but Buick also offered an even bigger C-body Roadmaster 130 sedan, called Model 72 in the catalog, which combined the bigger six-window body with the longer Roadmaster front end:

Right side view of a black 1950 Buick Roadmaster Model 72 six-window Tourback sedan

1950 Buick Roadmaster 130 Four-Door Tourback sedan, Model 72 / Mecum Auctions

 

However, while the Roadmaster 130 was 4.75 inches longer than the Super 126, both overall and in wheelbase (which was actually 4.25 inches longer than a Cadillac Series 62), the Super 126 was just as big inside. If you didn’t need (or didn’t want) the Roadmaster’s bigger engine and fancier trim, the Super 126 gave you about as much car for significantly less money. (A 1950 Roadmaster 130 listed for $2,854, $642 more than the Super 126.)

Composite right side views of a red 1950 Buick Super 126 Model 52 six-window sedan and a black 1950 Buick Roadmaster 130 Model 72 six-window sedan

Side-by-side comparison with the Super 126 reveals the Roadmaster 130’s longer nose, but the bodies are the same aft of the cowl

 

Although the cheaper Special Deluxe remained the best-selling Buick model for 1950, the C-body Buicks were very popular: The Model 52 Super 126 sold 114,745 units, 17.1 percent of total 1950 Buick production and by far the best-seller of the Super line, while the Model 72 Roadmaster 130 sold 54,212 units, about 8.1 percent of 1950 production and by far the best-seller of the Roadmaster series.

Close-up of the buck-toothed grille of a red 1950 Buick Super Model 52

It was a winning formula, despite Buick’s controversial 1950 styling. (The peculiar grille treatment was a divisive point even at the time.) Buick ranked fourth in U.S. new car sales in 1950, falling short of Plymouth by not quite 12,000 units. Clearly, for a lot of middle-class Americans back then, bigger was better — and, judging by the abundance of giant pickups and gargantuan SUVs on today’s roads, that hasn’t really changed.

Related Reading

Automotive History: General Motors 1949-50 – The Mystery Of The Missing B Body (Part 1) (by J P Cavanaugh)
Automotive History: General Motors 1949-50 – The Mystery Of The Missing B Body (Part 2) (by J P Cavanaugh)
Automotive History: General Motors’ 1950 Body Interchange Program (by VinceC)
Curbside Classic/Design Analysis: 1950 Buick Special Sedanet – The Full-Sized Fastback Problem (by Paul N)
Vintage Snapshots: Buicks – In Their Best Decade, The 1950s (by Paul N)
Vintage Snapshots: Buicks On The Road In The 1950s (by Rich Baron)