Three Designs, One Major Facelift in Four Model Years: Buick 1956-1959

General Motors dominated the American automobile market in the 1950s, as it had for most of the previous 30 years.

Part of this dominance was due to its styling unit led by Harley Earl.  Market share and design features fed on one another, forcing other carmakers to at least pay strong attention to GM's designs.  Happy days on Detroit's West Grand Boulevard.

Suddenly, change happened.  Chrysler Corporation's new 1957 designs created under the leadership of Virgil Exner were sensationally successful, whereas new-for-1957 GM designs were comparatively heavy looking.  It seemed that the once-magical Harley Earl touch was gone (note that he was nearing compulsory GM retirement age when those design were gestating).

Today's post considers styling of GM's Buick brand during those years of reacting to the collapse of styling dominance.  As the headline notes, the introduction of completely new bodies was rapid, given that three or four year production runs per body design were typical for the corporation during the first two thirds of the 1950s.

Buicks were radically redesigned for the 1954 model year, a futuristic (at the time) feature being wraparound (panoramic) windshields.  These cars sold well during the body's three-year production run.  Then came the '57 redesign that was less exciting than Chrysler Corporation's new 1957 offering.  So Buicks were given a crash facelift for '58.  And the 1959 model year saw GM launching another redesign.

As things turned out, Chrysler's post-1957 facelifts resulted in weaker sales.  Meanwhile, General Motors styling remained in the doldrums until 1961, when Bill Mitchell, Earl's successor, was able to create new designs.

Cars pictured below are all four-door sedans to facilitate comparisons.  Examples of 1954 and 1955 Buicks are included for some historical context.

Gallery

1954 Buick Century - Hessney Auctions photo
This is the least-sexy model of the very futuristic (as of release date in the Fall of 1953) new design.  Buick Specials and Centurys were based on GM's B-Body.

1955 Buick Special - Hemmings photo
This model year's Buicks received new grilles and revised rear fender tips.

1956 Buick Special - car-for-sale photo
Again, another new grille.  Rear wheel openings are enlarged, rounded.

1957 Buick Special - Mecum Auctions photo
Harley Earl's unfortunate new design.  The A-pillar is more crisp, but the the rest of the greenhouse is heavy-looking -- especially the backlight window segment dividers (seen in profile here).

1958 Buick Special - car-for-sale photo
Here is the massive facelift that was a crash-reaction to the 1957 Chrysler Corporation design.  Front and rear ends were redone (not seen in this profile view).  Lots of new chrome.  Real wheel opening reverts to '54-'55 style.  The large spash in the rear fender zone does not relate to the traditional (at the time) Buick Sweepspear also seen in the images above.  Tasteless.  Especially coming from a styling studio that once led the industry.

1959 Buick Invicta - photo via driveshare.com
Special and Century names were replaced for '59.  This is the new body with Chrysler-inspired tail fins.  A lot less unnecessary chrome decoration.  Interesting sculpting, but not a very successful design.  As mentioned, Bill Mitchell's influence did not really kick in until the 1961 models arrived.

Vauxhall's L-Series Facelifted Prewar Cars

When World War 2 ended in the Summer of 1945, carmakers in the victorious countries struggled to begin making cars again instead of war-related products.  Aside from essentially new companies such as the USA's Kaiser-Frazer, manufacturers started building prewar designs with varying amounts of facelifting.

There were exceptions, but new designs essentially did not appear in America until the 1948 and (especially) 1949 model years.

General Motors' British subsidiary Vauxhall did not introduce new designs until mid-1951.  It made do with a major facelift for 1948.  The Wikipedia entry for Vauxhall is here.  Scroll down to "1940s" for some background for today's post.

I find it interesting that GM used unit-bodies for its mainline Vauxhall models starting in 1937.  (It didn't introduce unit bodies on its American lines until 1960's Chevrolet Corvair.)  So the 1948 facelift and renaming of its models had to deal with a body structure that was expensive to greatly modify.

Details are in the Gallery captions below.

Gallery

Pre-war Vauxhall Unitized Body - General Motors image
This is what Vauxhall stylists and body engineers had to work with.

c.1946 Vauxhall Twelve-Four - car-for-sale photo
Warmed-over prewar design.  The most obvious change is its grill bars are oriented horizontally rather than vertically.  Wheelbase is 101.25 inches (2572 mm).

1949 Vauxhall Wyvern - car-for-sale photo
Its replacement model.  It and the Velox have a 97.75 inch (2483 mm) wheelbase, as did prewar Ten-Four models.  The Wyvern's doors and A- and B-pillars are the same, indicating that much of the basic unitary body was retained.  Note that the forward curve lines of the rear fenders are the same in both designs.  Otherwise, fenders are more "suitcase" style, as seen on 1941-vintage cars from several American carmakers.

c.1946 Vauxhall Twelve-Four - car-for-sale photo
Front quarter view.  Note the windshield.

1950 Vauxhall Velox L-Type - car-for-sale photo
It was retained in the facelift for structural reasons.  What's changed is forward of the cowling/A-pillar.  The new design is in the spirit of circa-1942 American styling.  The result is a car seeming different, not really English, but more "modern."

c.1946 Vauxhall Twelve-Four - car-for-sale photo
Rear-quarter.  Very 1930s.

1950 Vauxhall Velox L-Type - car-for-sale photo
The aft part of the passenger compartment unibody structure was altered to create this more rounded shape.  The trunk (boot) is greatly enlarged.  The spare tire is now stored under the trunk's floor: note the access panel above the bumper.  Also changed is the backlight window.

1939 Vauxhall Ten-Four - car-for-sale photo
To tidy things up, before-and-after side views of cars with the same 97.75-inch wheelbase.

1951 Vauxhall Velox L-Type - car-for-sale photo
The changes resulted in a much more up-to-date (for the late '40s) profile.

Profile Evolution of Buick Roadmaster/Electra Sedans, 1949-85

I seem to post a lot about American car styling in the post- World War 2 decade or two.  One reason is because I was alive then, and remember those cars when they were new.  Another is that such styling was quite interesting, sometimes even significant.  Besides, body forming technology had reached the point where interesting shapes could be mass-produced.  And government regulations forcing wind-tunnel influenced shaping had yet to occur.

Today, side views of Buick's line-topping Roadmaster and successor Electra over ten generations are presented.  (Buick's Series 90 Limited, its prewar top dog, was not revived after the war -- aside from 1958, when a Series 700 Limited on a Roadmaster chassis was marketed.) 

Until 1957, General Motors was widely considered the American car industry's styling leader under the helm of Harley Earl.  His pre-retirement designs indicated a loss of design touch, as can be seen on 1957-1960 GM products.  His successor Bill Mitchell righted the ship during the 1960s.  But his skills began to show decline in the early 1970s, and the effects of the 1973 oil crisis and government regulations lessened design quality.  He retired in 1977, and by 1980 or soon after, GM styling became largely mediocre.

General Motors' declining market share was another problem, in that it had to economize when developing new models, with examples from different brands often looking more similar than they needed to be.  I was keenly aware of these budget problems by the early 1980s when I became a consultant to the firm.

All that said, looking at examples of Buick sedans (hardtop and B-pillared, according to what was being marketed) might be interesting.

Unless noted, images below are of cars listed for sale.

Gallery

1949 Buick Roadmaster
The first postwar design for Buick on GM's C-body shared with Cadillac and Oldsmobile 98s.  A pleasant design, though the rear fender seems heavy in this photo.  Note the cascading shapes at the aft end of the car.  Plus the first appearance of the brand's trademark "portholes" on the front fender; Roadmasters got four of these, lesser models fewer.

1950 Buick Roadmaster - factory photo
GM's 1948-49 C-bodies were replaced for 1950.  I don't think this was a design improvement -- especially the busy fender treatment and overall bulk.

1954 Buick Roadmaster - via curbsideclassics.com
1954 Buicks were considered futuristic due to wraparound (panoramic) windshields.  The fenderline was raised, hoods and trunk lids flattened.  Note the Sweepspear chrome trim on the side.  This first appeared on some 1949 Roadmasters and were common on Buicks in the early 1950s.

1957 Buick Roadmaster
This design is nice, but seemed heavy compared to the new, sleek, tailfinned Chryslers.

1958 Buick Roadmaster
So it was given this crash-job facelift for '58, a strong argument that Harley Earl was losing his powers.

1959 Buick Electra
All GM brands got new bodies for 1959.  Buick models were renamed , a bad marketing decision in my judgement -- I never thereafter could keep track of Buick's model hierarchy.  No portholes, no Sweepspear.  Barrowings from Chrysler included flatter roofs and tail fins.

1961 Buick Electra 225
Panoramic windshields and tail fins disappeared for 1961's redesign (or possible drastic facelift).  Here the front fender is extended to a pointed form to provide additional physical and visual length.

1965 Buick Electra 225
Same 126-inch (3200 mm) wheelbase, but visually and actually (4.9 inches, 125 mm) longer.  The passenger compartment greenhouse seems quite short, the hood and trunk lid quite long.  Simple shapes, horizontal trim and character line, "porthole" strips neatly aligned to the latter.  Nothing wrong from a professional design standpoint, given the "package" styling staff had to deal with.  Bottom line: package too long, shaping and ornamentation too bland.

1971 Buick Electra 225
Slightly longer than the 1965 generation car, but softer shaping: subtle improvement.  Interesting that the side chrome trim is similar to that seen on the 1959 Roadmaster.  This is the last of the long Roadmasters/Electras.

1977 Buick Electra 225 Limited
First of the shrunken Electras, and the last styled under Bill Mitchell.  Simple, like the 1965 version.  Perhaps too simple for a top-of-the-line car positioned at the lower edge of the Cadillac brand.

1985 Buick Electra
Shrunken further, to the point it doesn't seem like a luxury Buick (on the outside, anyway).  GM's styling director was Irv Rybicki, under whose leadership GM styling reached a possibly budget-influenced low point.  The Buick design team was led by the competent Bill Porter, who did the best he could given the package he had to work with.  1985-1990 Electras were the last of the line

Continental Mark II Walkaround

Seventy years ago, Ford Motor Company's Continental Mark II was a big deal.  It was a luxury car intended to evoke the classic Lincoln Continental of the 1940s, especially the original, prewar version.

For the public at large, a more sensational feature was its publicized price: $10,000 (actual list was $9,695).  A lot of money in those days.  Google AI has consumer prices increasing 12.24 times, making the publicized price $122,400 in 2026 dollars.  Put another way, a 1956 Ford Victoria hardtop coupe listed at $2,194, so the Mark II cost more than four times as much as that fairly standard car.

I wrote about the Mark II here, and presented competitive alternative designs here.

However, rather than evaluate the Continental's styling in reference to the original, classic Lincoln Continentals, for today's post I'll try to evaluate it as an independent effort.

The color of the featured car below is not very attractive.  I selected its photo series because the colors and lighting show body forms better that can be seen on the usual images of black-painted Continentals.

Gallery

1957 Continental Mark II - Broad Arrow Auctions photos
The Mark II debuted in the Fall of 1955 when panoramic (wraparound) windshields were at the height of their American fashion.  More will be said about it below, but for now I'll assert that its design was unique in its day.

Wheelbase is fairly long at 126 inches (3200 mm), same as '56 Lincolns, but not as long as those of contemporary standard Cadillacs.    Regarding proportions, the passenger compartment greenhouse strikes me as being too short for the car's length.  A slightly shorter hood/front end, say 6-9 inches (150-229 mm) worth might improve matters.  Also, a similar reduction in rear overhang would be useful stylistically.  That said, large, long trunks were becoming accepted practice then, so that overhang was a marketing consideration.

The backlight window curve echoes the windshield's.  Salient rear feature is the rounded cover over the spare tire's interior space (it was mounted at that angle, placed behind the trunk's floor.  It was a major linkage to the original Continental's appearance -- spare tire mounted behind the trunk.

Another mid-1950s feature is the engine exhaust venting in the rear bumper ensemble instead of the usual pipes set below the bumper.

The angle of the spare tire shape seems about the same as that of the backlight, a subtle, unifying touch if so.  Rear fenders are strongly defined at their tops and aft ends.  Tail light assemblies are discretely done.

Side character sculpting related to the fenderline except at the very front.  Its upkick by the rear wheel opening is a subtle, useful detail.  However, the rear fender upkick is too close to the forward anchorage of the C-pillar, creating a small zone of fussiness.  I wonder if the C-pillar is too wide.  Note the A-pillar angle.  Similar to '55 Chryslers and DeSotos, but wrapped farther aft.

The crisp, nearly-flat, nearly-linked windshield and side window tops was unusual; most American windshields were taller than the side windows in the mid-1950s.  Headlight assemblies are "frenched" and aggressive, another '50s thing.

The grille's shape is wide and bold, but the "eggcrate" mesh is subtle by comparison.  Turn indicator/running light assemblies mimic the rear end's engine exhaust ports.

1956 Continental Mark II - Daniel Schmitt photos
Bonus images showing the design from a higher perspective.  From here, the hood/front still seems too long, and the greenhouse too short.

The after part of the design flows better than the frontal.

1956 Continental Mark II - Broad Arrow photos
Now seen from near-overhead.  This clearly shows how window/windshield tops and adjacent roofline form a coherent visual unit almost unique in 1955 America.  (Studebaker was the other main exception to that norm.)

From above, the hood/front doesn't seem too long.  So maybe it's the fender length with those protruding headlight assemblies that's causing the visual problem.

1962 Buick Skylark Walkaround

In my 10 September 2018 post "The Outstanding 1962 Buick Skylark Sport Coupe" I wrote:

"I suspect that most readers of this blog have warm places in their hearts for some of the cars their families had when they were young.  That's certainly true for me.  One of those cars was the 1962 Buick Skylark Sport Coupe with the body painted black and the top painted white.  Plus having a red interior."

Today's post is a Walkaround regarding that design.  Some Skylark background is here.

As noted in a caption below, subject car photos were taken using a wide-angle lens.  That made the car look longer, sleeker than actuality.  Yet I used that set because the expected eight viewpoints were available (decent images sets of 1961/62 Skylarks are still rare on the Web).  Also, because the car had monochrome paint, the photos provide a better feeling for body sculpting.

Gallery

1961 Buick Skylark Coupe - General Motors photos
First-year Skylarks were coupes with fixed B-pillars.  For 1962 they became hardtop coupes with no visible B-pillars.

Most 1961/62 Skylarks were two-tone.  The 1962 model my parents owned had a black-and-while scheme such as the one shown here.

1962 Buick Skylark Hardtop Coupe - car-for-sale photos
Frontal styling is quite similar to that of standard-size '61 Buicks.  The main differences are grille bars and small pseudo-bumper guards on the larger cars.

This image is a test of the preceding one that was probably taken with a lens set in the wide-angle direction.  Nowadays many car photos seen via the Internet are wide-angle.  Sometimes that is necessary -- when the subject is in a cramped area where the photographer cannot stand away far enough that a normal setting can include the entire car.  The GM photo here was taken by a professional and can be considered essentially accurate.  The previous photo shows the car as being longer.  Try to ignore the distortion and focus on design details.

Buick's "compact" Special line included coupes with the same body as seen here.  Skylarks can be distinguished from mere Specials thanks to the wraparound tail light assemblies.

Rear detailing is horizontal-rectangular, unlike the multi-shaped sculpting on many of today's cars and SUVs.

The rear deck flares outward over the rear fender zone, a continuation of a form beginning at the front end.

That unifying sculpting is seen better here.  The lower sculpted line subtly hints at Buick's classic SweepSpear side-chrome motif such as found on 1953 Skylarks.  Front fenders sport rectangular echoes of Buick's 1949 "portholes."

The pointed fender fronts found here and all 1961 Buicks disappeared on standard-size 1962 Buicks, but were retained on Specials and Skylarks until 1963.

And an example of the red interior.