Background
When better automobiles are built – Buick will build them.
So said Buick’s rather restrained advertising back in the day.
In the 1930s, Buick was pitched as one of General Motors’ more luxurious marques, and, just as the designation of this model suggests, everything about it was really pretty super.
Only Cadillac was on a higher pedestal in the GM hierarchy of the time. Chevrolet, Pontiac and Oldsmobile were distinctly lower in the pecking order.
As far as the company was concerned, ‘The ideal Buick customer is comfortably well off, possibly not quite rich enough to afford a Cadillac, nor desiring the ostentation of one, but definitely in the market for a car above the norm.’
One of the things that helped Buick stand out in the 1930s was its straight-eight engine, introduced in 1931. While many rivals were still using four- and six-cylinder engines and V8s were generally only found in much pricier machines, the Buick Eight was a great compromise: more power, flexibility and smoothness but without the V8’s extra expense and complication.
The new Series 50 cars were launched in 1930, albeit with somewhat conservative and upright styling. They started out with a straight-six engine, but the straight-eight was shoehorned in when it became available.
In 1933, the great Harley Earl, of GM’s Art & Colour department, introduced aesthetic revamps to make them look far more voguish, with dramatic, flowing aerodynamic lines and grilles that screamed Art Deco. Available with a variety of bodies, the reworked models proved a big hit with customers. However, their popularity was dented when their entry-level Series 40 ‘Special’ siblings underwent a similar facelift in 1936.
Buick is, of course, a US marque, but as General Motors’ global influence grew, examples were exported around the world.
King Edward VIII owned a specially-commissioned Buick during his brief reign. And Fidel Castro had a Buick Eight during his considerably longer career.
