Buick 50 Super
The Buick Super was born from the Series 50 model that ran from 1930 to 1935. In 1940, the model was reintroduced as the Super and would be churned out for another 18 years. The Super was designed by the legendary Harley Earl.
Earl would become famous for the building the industry’s first concept car: the Buick Y-Job which was first produced in 1938. The Y-Job featured hidden power-operated headlights, a gunsight hood ornament, and power windows. Later Buicks would take styling cues from the Y-Job, and the Super was among those that looked to the Y-Job for inspiration.
The 1940 Super featured a cutting-edge torpedo style body that was directly inspired by the Y-Job known as the C-Body. The C-Body was also used on Series 70 Roadmaster and several other cars in GM’s retinue including Cadillac Series 62 and the Oldsmobile Series 90.
Unlike most Buick’s the Super featured a smaller engine coupled with a voluminous cabin to get the perfect blend of size and fuel economy. The Super easily seated 6 passengers with ease but did so with the smaller and lighter straight-eight engine which gave the Super a smaller engine compartment.
The Super itself shared the same 121-inch wheelbase of the Special, but it would get larger in subsequent years. Sales stretched to over 120,000 units.
In ‘41, Buick did not make many changes to the overall design of the Super. Under the hood, however, the compression ratio was raised to 7:1 from 6.15:1. Buick also introduced Compound Carburetion which became the forefather of modern 4-barrel carburetors. It consisted of two two-barrel carburetors. One unit operated all of the time while the other only operated when the Super was accelerating. Despite the upgrades under the hood, sales of the ‘41 Super slumped to just over 90,000 units.
In ‘42 Buick began making fastback Supers based on the widespread success of the Century and Special. The Super was introduced again in 1946 after a successful campaign in Europe and the Pacific. The ‘46 special combined the size of the Roadmaster with the economy of the Special. The second generation Supers introduced things like turn signals and automatic chokes. Mostly, however, the Super was scaled back in terms of power. Its horsepower fell 110. Nonetheless, the Super accounted for over 76% of Buick’s sales that year.
Sales of the Buick Super continued through 1958. At this point, confidence in Buick vehicles was diminishing. In ‘57 sales of the Super dropped to just over 70,000. A year later they were reduced to 42,000. The once proud company was having difficulty selling customers on its approach to engineering cars. Throughout the 50s, the Super was offered with Buick’s V8 Nailhead Engine. The Super remained extremely popular throughout the early ‘50s, but sales began to taper by ‘56 and then drop suddenly.
In ‘59 Buick dropped the Super from its lineup. But in 2008, the Super name was resurrected as the performance trim level the LaCrosse and Lucerne.
