Since it’s 2022 now, you would think it would be much harder to find authentic Curbside Classics from the 40s-60s “in the wild” (i.e. not at car shows), but they still keep popping up on street corners, in parking lots, behind gas stations, in the woods, etc.–cars you’ve never seen before. That’s why you need this website–because you’re probably not going to see a Buick like this at a car show.
The scene as I approached it . . .
So there’s this parking lot near me, and as I’m driving ’round the bend, what do I see?
1955 Buick Special–3 portholes. (“Ventiports” if you really want to be correct).
According to the paint charts, this is a 1955 Buick Special 4-door sedan, Dover White over Temple Gray. The Special was the lowest priced car in the Buick hierarchy, followed by Century, Super, and Roadmaster. Incidentally, my favorite years of Buick are 1955, 1958, and 1959.
Since the car was wedged against a juniper bush, I couldn’t get any rear shots, so I decided to focus on fascinating little details which are often overlooked . . .
Last inspected in 1972 (expiring in ’73).
Those “Dagmars” are BIG (but not as big as Cadillac’s)!
Standard-equipment plain hubcaps (not the fancy optional wheelcovers). You rarely see these anymore.
Take a look inside. Love the horn ring–rocket fins!
Yup, it’s a MANUAL! No newfangled Dynaflow for this customer!
I started fantasizing about what it would be like to pilot this big, imposing gray battleship of a Buick down the road. No power steering or brakes, manual “3-on-the-tree” transmission; that broken round hood ornament leading the way. Buicks at this time had their own personality and unique characteristics–the foot pedal starter, torque-tube drive, gentle coil springs at all four wheels, “Nailhead” V-8; that intangible sense of solidity and Buick prestige.
My conception of the original owner. They don’t make Buicks like this anymore, and they don’t make men like this anymore either.
Or maybe someone like this?
Yes, what kind of person would order a car like this back in 1955? The cheapest Buick sedan in gray (thankfully enhanced by the white two-tone), and no options except radio and heater. Thus it was possible to drive a Buick while just paying slightly more than deluxe models of the “low-priced three” (Chevrolet, Ford, Plymouth). It may be a no-frills “stripper”, but it’s still a Buick!
I’ll let Mrs. Sherwood here explain (in that elegant voice) why this Buick Special is such a great bargain. (This is actually 1953, but you’ll get the idea):
Our featured car is a true “out-of-place” artifact: an unlikely survivor that appeared suddenly and unexpectedly, and Here It Is. Seeing this somewhat dull-looking gray Buick from a lost era actually brightens our day!
Manual! I’ve never seen a ’50s Buick with a manual. You’d think GM would just use Chevy pedals for the dozen people who ordered manuals on non-Chevies. But those pedals are not the same as Chevy pedals. So GM kept making specialized Buick manual-size pedals. Same with the rare small hubcaps.
The cigar correlation is appropriate. But oddly, Buicks of this era had delicate little ‘ash receivers’, not suitable for ‘receiving’ cigar ash.
Wow, you may have found one of the top ten CCs – I have never in my life seen a manual transmission Buick from the 50s.
We all have our mental vision of what a 1955 car should look like – one given is that it was colorful. Finding one of the most popular prestige barges of the time in battleship gray paint with a stick shift makes this a real unicorn.
That interior looks gorgeous! I love the rubber floor mats that have gotten hard and cracked into little pieces. I had also never thought about how Buick was still using through-the-floor pedals in 1955. Didn’t Ford introduce suspended pedals in 1952?
Use persisted for a few more years. I seem to recall the ’59 Buick still had a through the floor brake pedal while the ’60 Buick had a conventional firewall located master cylinder.
Apparently, Buick Olds and Pontiac all had through-the-floor brake pedals until the late fifties, unless power brakes were ordered. Interestingly, the cheaper Chevy had 100% suspended pedals starting in 1955 and Ford had them starting in 1952.
The original owner would likely be saying “I told you all that fancy stuff was just more things to break. I bought a plain-jane Buick and it’s still going nearly 70 years later. Not so much for those dollied up Buicks.”
As the proud former owner of a full-size sedan equipped surprisingly similar to this Buick, piloting them around town isn’t too bad, but you do need to pay closer attention to what you are doing – which isn’t a bad thing. The bigger problem is other drivers, as is typically the case while driving anything.
These are my favorite kind of cars: low rent, survivor status, just doing the job they were designed to do decades after their useful lives should have ended. These are the kinds of cars that tell a story, and there is a certain honesty about them that i really love.
Lots to unpack here. The condition of the beast, the colour (which suits it very well, especially in this condition) and the manual… But also, how did you manage to take that picture of the pedals? Inquiring photographers want to know!
Another smiling face here, you’ve found the grandson to my 1937 Special (often wondered what happened to that car, it was sold to a fellow AACA antique enthusiast). If my memory is good, those are the same pedals that came in my ’37, so that’d explain why they’re different from the Chevrolet’s – who knows how many Buick had in inventory?
Re: The Buick Berle Show: Of Milton’s guests that night, Maria Riva (daughter of Marlene Dietrich) is still alive at age 97; Carol Channing lived to be 98 and died in 2019; Milton himself lived to be 94; not sure about Jan Sherwood.
Cool car, you did get something in these years moving up to Buick from the “low price field.” A nice level of trim and 8 cylinders under the hood.
Admittedly, without a Dynaflow, I would not invite this into my garage. Too easy to find an automatic, perhaps the same reason this car has not been used up over 70 years.
That steering wheel, on the end of a non energy absorbing column gives me the willies. The first thing I thought of…..
The dreaded cookie cutter!
Yep, the interior features of this car were a focus of car safety experts back in the day. See at 7:37
I got to briefly drive my grandparents’ ’56 Roadmaster sedan c.1980, long after they had sold it. Black with red/black interior, it made this one look svelte and unadorned.
I didnt even realise a manual trans could be had by then from Buick, that car is in remarkably good condition for its age, hope it survives another few decades.
I think your first conception of the original owner fits perfect. Nice find anyway.
Great find and write up!
Battleship. Maine license plate. I think I see what you were going for! Remember the (battleship) Maine? 😉
That’s an amazing find; the manual transmission has to be extremely rare! I would guess the take rate in 1955, even on the base Special, to have been in the single-digit percentage range.
Here’s its near-twin, a convertible in the same color parked curbside in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn in 2014. The badge says Super on the passenger side, but the driver side one says Special, which agrees with the number of portholes and the slanted A-pillar.
One of my favourite cars of the 1950’s, possibly of all time. The ‘right size’, nice mid-50’s pontoon front end, dramatic profile & tail lights, beautiful badging details, big wheels – it has it all.
Too bad the rear wasn’t visible – I remember as a kid seeing a jewel-like ‘Buick Special 1957’ emblem on the trunk of a 1957 model, and it made the car seem special indeed – although it probably also worked well from a planned obsolescence perspective.
I don’t know if the 1955’s had it as well – probably not. It would have made sense as a 1957-only marketing ploy to make the last year in Buick’s tri-five era identifiably ‘new’.
The ’56s did, at least on the grille of our neighbor’s Century, not sure about ’55.
My good old buddy Paul S. drove his Dad’s 55 4 door Buick Special sedan faithfully to high school for 2+ years in Chicago and it was a Maroon exterior and medium green interior with STICK SHIFT. It rode smoother than a CTA bus as all that weight was a promise of a very comfortable ride. Once we graduated I kind of lost track as to what he used for transportation as I now had my own car, but I remember that Buick still being seen in the neighborhood. The “marvel” of starting the car with the gas pedal always amazed many who rode with him, Great memories of life in much easier time.
You opened the door and went inside!??
It’s kind of interesting that Buick chose to use Art Deco lettering on the hubcaps and badging as Art Deco was not so in style anymore in 1955.
From what I recall it was the low priced Special that gave Buick their big boost in sales in the 1950’s. Didn’t Buick come in ahead of Plymouth? Fancy nameplate, low buck specs. Funny how many new trucks cost more 60,000.00 and way up. You could drive a compact Mercedes for less.
As I recall, Buick was no. 3 in sales (ahead of Plymouth) in model years 1954-56. If you look at period photos of the day, Buicks were common sights on the roads and in parking lots.
It’s thrilling to come across a car like this parked in an everyday setting. I love the 1973 inspection sticker… there’s definitely not too many of those still on their original windshields, and this one doesn’t seem cracked or faded at all.
Last year, I found this 1954 Buick Special, also randomly in a parking lot. I wonder if 1950s Buick drivers always back in?
Big green Buick! Here’s its 1953 counterpart that I shot a few months back:
Nicholas Rossolimo won a brand new Buick Special for his victory in the 1955 United States Chess Open in Long Beach, California. Rossolimo sold the car immediately for $2,250 as he needed the money to make ends meet!
Another great survivor .
I’d love to drive this with the manual tranny, I hate Dyna-squish boxes .
Nice color too, I like pastels and the white top makes it stand out .
These were every where as beaters and daily drivers all through the 1960’s then slowly petered out as the $100 repair became more than the $50 car was worth .
The starterator was a nifty thing, maybe just a gimmick .
In the early to mid 1970’s the Atlantic Richfield station I worked at had a ’55 two door to run the Customers home in, it only ran on seven cylinders but always started right up, unrestored of course .
-Nate
I wonder if this 3 speed manual transmission model was quicker/slower/about the same as the Dynaflow transmission model?
Great find, beaten only by the Special badge, that is truly “special”
Have to ask about the throttle and brake pedal alignment though, or is the angle of the photo?
My Grandfather bought a new 1951 Chrysler Windsor new…it had a semi-automatic transmission, despite being a Chrysler (with the flathead 6 you could argue that he bought the low end of Chrysler….but I think even a Windsor would be about the equivalent of a Buick…no? It was his only car (never had one before nor after) and I think my Mother helped him learn to drive it…she learned on it herself, but to this day has never been comfortable driving a manual (not sure about semi-automatic, but I guess she had to..). Neither of my Grandmothers ever drove a car.
I know especially on luxury marques, automatics became increasingly popular very quickly in the 50’s, to the extent that by the early 60’s it would have been tough to find one of them with a manual, even though automatic persisted as being an option instead of standard well into the 60’s. But some people are like me, they want cars the way they want them, and don’t want to be deprived of otherwise luxury items just because they prefer to drive a manual. Resale be damned, maybe they plan to keep the car its whole life, so the car really should be to their taste, even if most would disagree.
I would argue this is happening with cars now, with packages instead of individual options, and even disappearing (or pretty rare, or only in expensive models) body styles…like wagons (that are not an SUV nor crossover) or even cars in general.
I’m a fan of manuals, having owned nothing but the last 41 years, mostly because I really like engine braking, don’t get the feeling with a torque converter…that being said my next car will be an automatic, mostly because no one else in my family can drive my car, and as I get older, that “no compromise” becomes less practical…so I keep my 22 year old car going a big reason being denial, which includes not wanting to buy/sell during covid, but that’s only an excuse for delay..but my car runs fine, am scared that next car I get might end up more trouble than the one I already own (another stall tactic).
I’ve never had to drive a manual car with a foot emergency brake, and that would be my biggest challenge with one of these on a hill….I’m pretty quick with brake/clutch/gas (for my age) but on really steep hills, having a foot brake rather than a handbrake would give me pause.
Otherwise….I’d identify as someone who might have bought one of these (I’m overdue in buying a Buick…or other car someone my age “should” own by now)…but 20 years ago in my 40’s would have considered manual, at my current age, I’d be advised to get an automatic…but I’ll bet in 1955 a lot more members of my family would have known how to drive a manual (not just my mother…as much as she tried to avoid it (she stopped driving last year, so it is academic for her at this point).
For Sale!
https://newjersey.craigslist.org/cto/d/boonton-1955-buick-special/7547586212.html
My grandfather had a ’55 Special I coveted as a kid. He wrecked it at age 82 when I was 16 and waiting for my Dad to relieve him of his keys. I was bereft. I swear, I’d still have it if it came to me.