(EXPANDED FROM 8/23/2021)
Over more than a century General Motors has produced a broad range of cars and trucks. However, if I had to pick one single vehicle that best summed up GM’s design approach, it would be the 1950 Buick. Here we have big, bold Hollywood styling that may not have withstood the test of time, but it sold a lot of cars.
The 1950 Buick flaunted major sheetmetal changes from the previous year. That was remarkable because the 1949 models had received an all-new body. To make things even more confusing, the new front end first showed up on “second-series” 1949 Specials, which were introduced in April of that year (Flory, 2008). The rest of the Buick lineup was redesigned for the 1950 model year.
Curbside Classic’s Vincec (2019) argues that the rapid-fire redesign may have reflected a fear that the 1948-49 models looked too conservative compared to dramatically redesigned competitors. The 1950 restyling also had the imprint of William Mitchell, who wanted a “lower, wider and more substantial look.”
Out the window went the 1949 model’s clean styling in favor of a bulky and gimmicky look. This was particularly apparent in the front. The lovely rounded contours of the 1949 gave way to what strikes me as one of the most outrageous grilles of all time.
Designer Henry Lauve has reportedly taken credit for the “bucktooth” look, but it was more likely a “joint effort of Buick’s best design, production, and engineering minds at the time, including — but not limited to — Lauve” (auto editors of Consumer Guide, 2014).
The 1950 Buick anticipated some design trends
To be fair, GM did come up with an integrated bumper and grille a good 60 years ahead of when that approach became commonplace in the U.S.
In addition, the Buick’s scary face anticipated a recent design trend in both cars and trucks. Buick could have headlined its ads, “Suddenly, it’s 2019!” (go here for further discussion).
Another way the 1950 Buick foreshadowed design trends was with its sheetmetal sculpting. For years hood and grille styling primarily distinguished American cars. Buick went a step further by adding character lines on the rear quarter panels. This was the forerunner of Buick’s sweepspear used two decades later.
The rear-quarter treatment of the 1950 Buick did not come off very well. The character line drops off awkwardly near the base of the C-pillar and then takes an odd turn south near the taillights.
Car buyers really liked the 1950 Buick
Buick’s output for the 1950 model year more than doubled to almost 668,000 units if you include second-series Specials introduced mid-year. This pushed the premium-priced brand into third place past Plymouth and behind Chevrolet and Ford. If you don’t include the second series, then Buick stuck to its more typical fourth-place standing (Flory, 2008).
Our featured car, a Super convertible, saw a production run of under 13,000 units in 1950. That was a substantial drop from the previous year, when production surpassed 21,000 cars. In 1950 overall Super output increased 14 percent to almost 252,000 units, so the culprit may very well have been the introduction of a Riviera two-door hardtop. Almost 56,000 hardtops were produced.
For 1951 Buick reverted back to a more conventional grille. This was reportedly due in part to complaints from dealers and insurance companies. The 1950 grille had nine pieces, “making it difficult to stock and expensive to replace,” according to the auto editors of Consume Guide (2014).
In 1951 Buick production fell 40 percent. This was substantially more than overall domestic production, which was down only 12 percent. J. “Kelly” Flory Jr. (2008) partly blamed Buick’s fall on a cooling economy that hurt sales of more expensive cars, but by my number crunching premium-priced brands saw only a 9-percent drop compared to almost 15 percent for low-priced brands. In addition, Buick saw the biggest decline of Big Three premium brands, with Oldsmobile only down 30 percent and Chrysler 9 percent.
Also see ‘1963-65 Buick Riviera shows GM’s struggle with personal coupes‘
Flory also blamed Buick’s extended 1950 production run, but I don’t see how that would have been an issue for model-year figures because 1951 models were introduced in January of that year and had a full 12 months before 1952 introductions (Flory, 2008).
The revised front end was one of the few changes made on the 1951 models, so perhaps the public preferred the bucktoothed look.
Rear fenders distinguished Buick from GM siblings
The most understated part of the 1950 Buick was its rear. The Cadillac’s jutting fins and Oldsmobile’s missile-shaped taillights were eschewed in favor of small twin-bullet lenses placed fairly low on rounded fenders.
Whatever else one might say about GM’s styling in the early post-war era, the Buick did have a unique look. Styling head Harley Earl had a flair for differentiating GM’s five brands.
In the late-40s and early-50s each brand was given primary identifiers, according to Michael Lamm and David Holls (1996). The Buick’s were portholes, vertical chrome bars in a horizontal grille, and a side sweepspear.
To give you a better feel for how differentiated Buick’s styling was from its closest corporate rival, Oldsmobile, below are photos of a 1950 Ninety-Eight.
Richard M. Langworth and Jan P. Norbye noted that in the early-50s the Buick looked “flashier” than its premium-priced sibling, the Oldsmobile 88. Even so, the Olds had performance advantages — a V8 and the Hydra-Matic transmission (1985, p. 189). Buick had more leisurely straight eights and a Dynaflow automatic transmission.
This shows how GM divisions still had quite a bit of autonomy when it came to engineering. As discussed here, that autonomy would decline in the 1960s and 1970s.
NOTES:
This story was originally posted July 4, 2014; expanded on July 21, 2020; updated on Aug. 23, 2021; and expanded on March 14, 2024. Production figures were drawn from the auto editors of Consumer Guide (1993, 2006) and Wikipedia (2020). The data sometimes varied between sources. In those instances, I added up the Consumer Guide’s production numbers of individual models.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide; 1993, 2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- ——; 2014. “1950-1952 Buick.” How Stuff Works. Accessed July 4.
- Flory, J. “Kelly” Jr.; 2009. American Cars, 1946-1959: Every Model, Year by Year. McFarland & Co.
- Lamm, Michael and Dave Holls; 1996. A Century of Automotive Style: 100 Years of American Car Design. Lamm-Morada Publishing Co.
- Langworth, Richard M. and Jan P. Norbye; 1985. The Complete History of General Motors 1908-1986. Publications International, Skokie, IL.
- Vincec; 2019. “Automotive History: General Motors’ 1950 Body Interchange Program.” Curbside Classic. Posted February 20; accessed July 24, 2020.
- Wikipedia; 2020. “U.S. Automobile Production Figures.” Accessed July 24.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Buick (1950)
- oldcarbrochures.org: Buick (1949, 1950, 1951, 1970); Cadillac (1950); Oldsmobile (1950)
Excellent article thank you for writing it .always loved shoe boxes and caddies but recently discovered the 50’s buicks and love them .
Excellent article on one of the most…vivid…grille designs of the 1950s!
Regarding the 1950 model year output – the Special, which had retained the old-style body at the beginning of the 1949 model year, debuted in mid-1949 with the new body, ahead of the other 1950 Buicks. It was thus the first Buick to sport the restyled body, and enjoyed a longer-than-normal model year. This could have inflated Buick production numbers for the 1950 model year – and also resulted in the large decline for the 1951 model year.
That’s useful to know about the extended production run. I wish I could get better production data on the 1949-50 Buick.
It it is my understanding (and I wish I could cite my source), that Harlow Curtice, the Buick G.M. and close confidant of Alfred P. Sloan, objected to Buick adopting the G.M. C-body and B-body for 1948 and 1949, and wanted to stick with the older structures until Harley Earl could revise the proposed styling, hence the late 1949 (1950) Buicks.
There was another reason why the 1951s grill bars were cut back: The Korean War imposed restrictions on “chrome” (shortages of nickel ?) I have read in several old car magazines (“Collectible Automobile”, Hemmings “Special Interest Autos” and “Classic Car”) that the quality of chrome-plating in 1951-1952-1953 was not as good as in previous years and would pit or deteriorate more quickly than older examples of chrome. The police action also affected overall sales of new cars due to shortages of raw materials diverted to the military action.
Interesting. During my… more youthful years, I really liked the ’50 Buick’s grill design, and eschewed the ’49 as too plain looking. Now I am over 30, and by far prefer the clean look of ’49… especially 2dr HT & convertible. A pity that by now both got almost impossible to find for reasonable money, ha-ha.
My future wife’s paternal grandfather owned a gray 1950 Buick Special aerocoupe between 1950 and 1964 with DynaFlow, toothy grill and all. Somehow, when he sold it in 1964, replaced with a 1964 loaded Special four-door, the grill was in pristine condition. But the new Special had power-drum brakes and power steering. The power assists over-boosted the driving, as there was no feel to the steering or brakes. Even though he kept the ’64 Special until a few months before he passed at age 88, he always wished he had his toothy ’50 Buick !
The was one other item I forgot to mention: All G.M. Fisher Body cars had separate rear outer fenders that were welded to the body structure and inner fenders, so separate rear fenders for Pontiacs, Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs were not a major stretch for the 1949 through 1956 models.
The Buick grille fit the public mood. After the war years, buyers were ready for the “latest and greatest,” and this Buick certainly gave it to them.
The 1950 Oldsmobile and Cadillac front ends were hardly modest, but they also sold well.
And the contemporary front ensemble that matched the Buick for outrageousness – the 1950-51 Studebaker – was also popular, judging by the sales figures. Studebaker sales hit record levels during those years.
From design aspects.
The 1950 was a major change in how the rear fender was treated. The previous version, as continued in other GM brands, was a tacked on rear fender. 1950 was a welcome integration that was on the pathway for the upcoming full bodyside treatments. Even the character line that made the bump under the C pillar was an attempt in making the fender a continuation of the design theme.
Steve, you have correctly noted how the ’50 made a design advancement on the front bumper treatment. 1949 had the hung on bumper while the 1950 was doing first efforts in integration. The buck tooth look was not one of their better solutions but it did contribute to the ultimate trend.