Buick offered all-new styling and a bigger, more powerful V8 for 1957, but sales only continued to decline for GM’s oldest brand.
Special Convertible
Like all the Motor City’s automakers from time to time, Buick didn’t land on a single, unified selling message for 1957, but rather developed an entire catalog of slogans in its sales materials to pitch the new product. The most prominent top line for ’57 was “The Newest Buick Yet,” an air-tight claim in that every year the new Buick is the newest Buick yet. Another was “Success Achieves a New Summit,” which seems like more than a mouthful. The best, we decided, might be “Designed for Distinction.” It’s simple and straightforward enough.
Climate wind tunnel
The exterior look of the ’57 Buicks is clearly of a piece with the Wildcat III, a 1955 Motorama show car, right down to the checkmark side trim. (See our feature on the Wildcat III here.) The styling theme was readily expanded from the fiberglass show roadster to two production General Motors platforms: a B-body package for the Special and Century on a 122-in wheelbase, and a C-body for the Super and Roadmaster (two series, 70 and 75) on a longer 127.5-in wheelbase. In the Buick tradition, models were easily identified by the number of portholes (“ventiports”) in their front fenders. For ’57, the Century, Super, and Roadmaster sported four on each side, while the Special struggled along with three.
A modified ladder frame with a robust X-member supported Buick’s signature torque-tube drive and coil springs at the rear, while up front the kingpins were replaced with ball joints for ’57 to reduce steering effort and improve road feel. Meanwhile, the unique Nailhead V8 was enlarged from 322 to 364 cubic inches with an increase in both bore and stroke to 4.13-in x 3.40-in, and the intake valves were enlarged as well. The Special (Series 40) received a 250-hp version of the improved V8, while the Century, Super, and Roadmaster V8s were rated at 300 hp, thanks in part to a half-point bump in compression ratio to 10:1.
Roadmaster (left) and Special interiors
With Buick’s price range for ’57 spread from $2,660 to $4,066, there was a broad disparity in equipment as well, naturally. The premium Roadmaster’s interior rivalled Cadillac’s, while the base Special was closer to Pontiac level. However, the Special was offered in a full range of body styles: two-door and four-door sedans and hardtops, a convertible, and a wagon. And as the top seller it typically contributed a major share of the Buick division’s total volume—1957 being no different. In the Century line appeared a new specialty model, the sport-luxury Caballero wagon (read about it here).
Despite the new styling and more powerful V8, Buick sales tumbled nearly 24 percent in 1957 to around 407,000 cars. In fact, Buick was now in a major slump from its 1955 peak when it climbed to third place in U.S. sales, and in ’57 the brand slipped to fourth behind Plymouth. Things would only get worse from there, as Buick slid one more spot down to fifth in 1958 with a total volume of only 240,000 cars, and you can read about that here.
Century Riviera Hardtop Coupe
The ’57 was the best looking of the mid-50s Buicks with one exception: the harebrained idea of dividing the coupe rear window into three parts. It did nothing for the styling and impinged on visibility…and possibly sales. In ’58 it was gone (though what replaced it in ’58 is something for another day.)
One of the basic hallmark rules of Buick in those days: The Special is always marked “special” as being the cheap Buick. Anything else got a distinctive mark that clearly showed you’d spent more money.