Text by Patrick Bell.
Today we are going to wish David Dunbar Buick a belated Happy Birthday. He was born on September 17, 1854, in Scotland, and moved to Detroit with his family when he was two. He began what became the Buick Motor Company in 1899, and resigned and sold his stock to William Durant in 1906. Durant bought a few other car companies and merged them together to form General Motors.
Instead of dealing with 171 candles, let’s take a look at some Buicks that Mr. Buick never knew about.
Our first shot was a lady posing with a new looking ’55 Century 2-Door Riviera. Perhaps it was her new car. The Century was Buick’s ‘performance’ model as it shared the short wheelbase body of the Special coupled with the senior series larger 322 cubic inch V8. Parked across the street was a ’51 Ford Victoria.
It was a warmish winter day in Connecticut, with some melting occurring, but there was still lots of snow. The Buick was a ’56 4 door that could have been a Super, Century, or Special trim level. Next to it was a Metropolitan of ’59 or ’60 vintage as both license plates appear to have been dated 1960. I would imagine the Metropolitan did not get out much in the winter, as small tires and low ground clearance do not work well in deep snow.
The Special name was always used for the low priced series, so it made sense for Buick to use it on their new compact offering that came out in ’61. This Special Deluxe 4 door sedan was a ’62 model, and looked good in its two tone paint treatment. Plus there were a couple of two wheelers in the shadows for any bicycle fans.
LeSabre became the low priced full size nameplate, and this ’62 4 door sedan was also the most popular of all models for the year. It may have been a trailer tower as there was a hitch on the front bumper commonly used for backing.
Here was the aftermath of the Blizzard of ’66 in the Syracruse/Oswego, New York area. A man was marvelling at the depth of the snowdrift, along with a ’64 Wildcat 4 door sedan, which, of course, was equipped with snow tires on the rear.
A lady was holding on to a ’64 Skylark Sport Coupe at some sort of scenic overlook or park. It was the newest car in the crowd. On the other side of it was a ’60 Pontiac Star Chief Sedan. Over to the right was a light blue ’61 Ford Falcon Tudor, and what looked like a green ’63 Ford 300 4 door sedan.
A man in uniform was caught with his eyes closed while standing with a ’67 GS 400 Sport Coupe. It looked good with two tone paint and road wheels. It also had a trailer hitch, and a license plate with the letters ‘DV’ which I presume indicated Disabled Veteran. However I cannot read the state of issue. In the background may have been a ’59 Chevrolet El Camino.
There were two Buicks in this image, along with what appears to be three generations of a family. On the left was a ’66 LeSabre 4 door sedan from Illinois, and on the right a 4 door hardtop that could have been a ’65 or ’66 LeSabre or Wildcat. In the background was a brown ’62 Dodge Dart 4 door sedan.
This one was a ’70 Wildcat Custom 4 door hardtop, which was the final year for the Wildcat. It was renamed the Centurion in ’71. It had the optional but common vinyl roof, and it looked like they were taking a break while traveling through the desert.
And our final shot is another ’70 model, a Skylark 2 door sedan, which was the entry level model in the Skylark line. It came with a 250 cubic inch 6 cylinder and a 3 speed manual transmission as standard equipment, but I doubt many were actually ordered that way. The blonde looked like she was in pain from bending her leg back, and the dude didn’t look too happy either. They apparently were traveling with a loaded roof rack, and had made a stop at the beach.
In the center background was a blue ’72 Ford Gran Torino Squire wagon, with a tan ’64 or ’65 Rambler American 4 door sedan in the rear. In the right background a ’71-’74 Ford Econoline or Club Wagon van on the right edge, with a ’69 or ’70 Chevrolet C-20 Fleetside with a cabover camper further back.
For a different view of these travelers, go HERE.
Thanks for joining us and have a great day!
fun phots and excellent identification of all of the cars in the photos. Thanks.
Thank you for your service, sir!
Inherited Grandpa’s 1970 LeSabre HT, much like the Wildcat. Great car until the first gas crisis, even with the smaller 4v350.
I got my grandfathers 69 Wildcat with the 430 4 barrel, 340 HP. I was a poor college kid & it drank premium. I got hit by the second gas crisis in 79 and bought a Honda Civic.
The 1966 snow photo shows a clean vertical wall, probably cut by an airport sized blower rig. The airport sized blowers were required on many roads in that storm as the biggest V-plows were getting stuck. 50 miles west of Syracuse an airport blower was used to clear the state highway through my small town where the snow was only 3 feet high but was packed solid from several days of gale force wind driven snowfall. The snow was so dense you could walk on top and not sink in with just boots, no snow shoes required, and that is what was the biggest problem for plows.
Thanks for some real life experience. I was wondering how that wall was formed!
It looks like the antenna has a small piece of cloth at the tip. Maybe in case it gets completely except for the tip of the antenna?
The Blizzard of ’66 dropped just less than 3 feet of snow over three days of gale-force winds where I was.
“32 inches” of snow buried houses under the drifts. My mother had to stand on the back of the sofa to see out a tiny uncovered area at the top of our picture window. Our neighbors had to dig a tunnel through the drift to get out their front door. And next to the drift, there’d be bare or nearly-bare ground. The drifts moved like they were alive during those three days–our back yard filled-up, and then emptied except for a drift around the fence.
For years thereafter, you’d see cars with small orange/red Styrofoam balls on the top of the radio antennas–“just in case” there was another big storm. The idea was that if that car were mostly submerged in a drift somewhere other than it’s driveway, DIG IT OUT because there could be people (or bodies) inside.
NOW, the National Weather Guessing Service has a conniption every time there a gust of wind and six snowflakes in the air. They’ve done a superb job of training people to ignore “blizzard” warnings by the simple expedient of pretending every snow shower is a storm, every storm is a blizzard, and we haven’t had an ACTUAL blizzard in years.
This just showed up on my feed a 1948 Buick Super convertible. Yes, not quite 1950, but an unrestored car in great condition. Showed up because I know the fellow as he owned the Ambassador wagon before I bought it from him.
’64 Skylark Sport Coupe appears to be at Grand Canyon National Park.
Buick left his company in 1906 and had a net worth of about 4 million dollars. He died penniless in 1928 after a series of poor investments. With the loss of the Oldsmobile marque, I believe Buick (formed 1903) is the oldest US automobile brand.
Ford also dates back to 1903.
I think the Disabled Veteran license plate in Picture #7 is a 1970-71 Colorado plate, like the one below. In addition to the color matching, Colorado used pretty distinctive dies, and that number “4” in the vintage plate matches the “4” that Colorado used.
Thanks, Eric!
I’m new to posting JPGs here and the 1st attempt – a link to Flickr – came out too small. So I’ma try again
1941 Buick full line
That “lil, Nash” tucked in the corner of the driveway is just “cute”!
I have been a fan of many different Buicks since the 1950s. My favorite aunt & uncle in SC started buying Buicks in the late 50s, he had wagons, she had convertibles. Uncles wagons continued until he died in the mid 90s, aunt switched to Riviera’s in the 70s and continued into the early 20s.
It was 1963, we were stationed at Warner Robins AFB, in GA. My family had a new 1963 T-Bird (Heritage Burgundy), best friend across the street his parents had a new 1963 Buick Electra (dark blue), second best friend a few houses down his parents bought a new 1963 Mercury Comet convertible (med. blue).
I remember the Electra with the most elegant fabric upholstery. I also remember his mother was somehow related to Duesenberg’s, but at that young age I didn’t know anything about Duesenberg’s.
I inherited my aunts last pearl white1998 Riviera, and it was a wonderful car.
Wow. Mr Buick and myself has the same birthday and I’ve had several Buicks in my lifetime(good cars) and I still own a Buick which is a Grand National.
Such lovely cars .
In the 1960’s it seemed to me that most Buick owners were 40 + years old, they tended to be die hard Buick Men, a thing I didn’t ‘get’ until I was in my 50’s .
-Nate
A few Buick pictures from my past, this one shows. Y mom, pregnant of me when she was 22. Back in the fall of 1976. The car was a 1976 Century Custom
My great-uncle and his ’69 LeSabre hardtop sedan