Buick was in the same price class as Chrysler and the lesser Lincolns.
Yes, in fact, Rolls-Royce’s first V-8 was a fairly good copy of the Buick V-8. But, the transmission–although incredibly smooth–had a huge amount of slippage. That makes the ad copy stating that Dynaflow was “really easy on fuel”… laughable.
One of the “accessories” that JC Whitney sold (for a while, at least) was a kit with small red light bulbs to insert into the portholes, in order to simulate fire from the exhaust. Apparently, some drilling was required, but I wonder about the capacity of the anemic electrical system when additional bulbs were added.
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I had a '61 Buick La Sabre for a short, very short while… It had a 364ci engine and a “two-speed” dyna-flow transmission ( I had also heard it called a “Turbine-Drive…”).
Drive was only one gear and the Torque Converter allowed a lot of “slippage” to compensate for the one gear. Low was only low and it only worked when the selector was in Low…
The speedometer was mounted flat on the dash and the dash had a cover over it with a mirror that you adjusted to see the speedometer/odometer. There was also a sliding scale that you positioned under the speedometer numbers and when you reached that speed, it sounded an alarm.
It was not a fun car to drive and the 364 ci engine only held 4-quarts of oil. The first time I changed the oil, I put in the “normal” 6-quarts and started it up to circulate the oil before checking the level… When I started it, it sounded really weird. And when I checked the oil level, WoW, the dipstick was wet a long way up… Called a friend who checked a Chiltons and that was when I found out I had over filled the crankcase. Luckily the oil was not yet hot and I played with the drain plug and a funnel on a quart can to slowly drain out the two excess quarts. I guess the strange noise I heard previously was the crankshaft splashing the excess oil…
Nope, Buick was not my favorite car… Not only that, my Buick only had 3 “exhaust ports” on each side, something my Dad was quick to point out… L o L . . .
I bought a 67 Buick wagon in 76 when we were building. Sold the corvair. It was the vista cruiser type whatever Buicks name for it was. Paid $250 for to a woman where the guy had split and just trying to keep the house. I don’t know what engine but it ran terrible. Guy at work did the top end and said the rest looked new. Went like heck after that. $350 for the engine work, $100 for new tires and it was a pretty good lumber and cabinet hauler. There was evidence that the guy who owned it liked to weld everything. It either had posi traction or he welded the rear end to lock it. Terrible on ice but good in snow. Sold it after about five years for $250.
I think that car played a role in the movie “Every Girl Should Get Married”. A marriage-minded young, single office-worker woman is offered that car for free, if she’ll help an insurance salesman sell a policy to her supposed boyfriend & corporate CEO.