The 1957 Buick Lido: A Lost (?) Pininfarina Show Car

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Here’s a little-known but fascinating show car from Pininfarina in 1957: a low-slung, Buick-based hardtop coupe called the Lido.

 

In the 1950s, the partnership between General Motors and Pininfarina of Italy was a productive one, resulting in the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham production cars of 1959-60 and the Buick Skylark III concepts, among others. Here’s a more obscure product of their successful collaboration, the 1957 Buick Lido. Relatively little seems to be known about this show car project, including its ultimate whereabouts. 

(At the time, Battista Pinin Farina’s famed Turin design house was known as Pinin Farina, but in 1961 he legally changed his name and that of his firm to Pininfarina, and we are are following his preference here.) 

 

Although it was based on a standard ’57 Buick 122-in wheelbase chassis and drivetrain, complete with 364 CID nailhead V8 and Dynaflow gearbox, the Lido shared little resemblance with any current or future Buick production models. After all, it was a 2+2 hardtop coupe, and it seems doubtful that Buick had any plans for a nominal two-seater. However, the Buick did share a number of styling features with another Pininfarina project in the same period, the Cadillac Skylight, including the tail lamp and quad headlamp themes.

 

It’s not entirely clear how much direct support the project received from General Motors, but we can conclude that GM president Harlow Curtice was enthusiastic about the result. Curtice was photographed behind the wheel (above right) with Battista’s son, Sergio Pininfarina, looking on. While Curtice served as GM president from 1948 through 1958, he had previously headed Buick and he was known to be a Buick man at heart. Battista Pininfarina reported that Curtice wrote to congratulate him on the car.

The interior photos also show an unusual Lido feature: the hardtop roof panel was articulated, allowing it to rise several inches at the front when the door was opened to make entry and exit more graceful. The cabin itself was classic Italian for the period, with bucket seats, rich leather everywhere, and an Enrico Nardi-style steering wheel.

The Lido got considerable exposure in Europe, appearing at the 1957 Turin Auto Show, and it was featured in a number of magazines on the other side of the Atlantic, including Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport. But it seems the car received considerably less fanfare in the United States, becoming one of the lesser-known of the GM-Pininfarina collaborations. (There was no GM Motorama in ’57, one potential venue.) From there the Lido quickly faded from view, and as far as we could determine, it hasn’t been seen in public in decades. But it may still be out there somewhere, you never know.

 

6 thoughts on “The 1957 Buick Lido: A Lost (?) Pininfarina Show Car”

  1. It was far too European for the Motorama. If anything A,mericvan, it looked like the Continental Mk II, and GM was not into doing anything Ford-like.
    Just another design dead end.

    • Not so much a dead end as ahead of its time. That car basically encapsulates GMs look, and the look of American cars in general in the following decade.

  2. Similar in concept to the (Chrysler-powered) Facel Vega, in limited production at the same time.

    • I was about to mention the resemblance to the Facel Vega from the rear. Doing some Googling, I found that Facel partnered with Pininfarina in the mid ’50s to create some bespoke Bentleys. Those cars had a definite resemblance to the forthcoming Facel Vega. So there may have been some borrowing of design by Facel from their prior partnership with Pininfarina.

  3. I guess they felt they would have to move the roof out of the way for Buick clientele.

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