Video: Bob Hope Introduces the 1960 Buick

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See the 1960 Buick, and a nice little fleet of vintage Buicks, too, in this spot  starring America’s favorite ham, Bob Hope.

 

There’s no shortage of vintage Buicks to check out in this 1960 Buick spot featuring Bob Hope. Here, the star of the Bob Hope Buick Show on NBC TV (1958-81) drives a 1904 Model B, a 1910 four-cylinder Touring, a 1924 Four-Passenger Coupe, a 1938 Convertible Coupe with a snazzy rumble seat, and a stately 1941 Sedan. In each one, he’s dressed in the appropriate period costume and mugging for the camera in the inimitable Bob Hope style. For the finale, staged on a Southern California dry lake bed, he zooms past all five antique Buicks in a new Electra 225 Convertible

The top line in Buick’s marketing for 1960 was “The Turbine Drive Buick ’60.” All automatic-transmission Buicks still had a Dynaflow behind the Nailhead V8, but when the gearbox was redesigned in ’58 the Dynaflow name went into hiding. For 1960, the operative term was Turbine Drive. And yes, it’s true: the Electra 225 really was four inches longer than a regular Electra on the same 126.3-inch wheelbase. The full 225,9 inches in overall length was achieved with a stretch in the deck lid and quarter panels. Video below.

 

6 thoughts on “Video: Bob Hope Introduces the 1960 Buick”

  1. Looking back, it’s hard to understand why we thought Bob Hope was funny. The Buicks still look fine, though

    • What? You must be a sad sack if you don’t think Bob Hope was funny. Sure, a lot of his jokes and gags are dated now, but put in their proper time frame they were pretty doggone funny. He had a way of getting right up to or crossing the lines in a subtle way without being vulgar like most of the so called comedians of today. His comedy lasted better than the design on those 60 Buicks….

  3. The sweep back on the front wheel wells sure shows a lot of under-carraige, looks odd to me.

  4. My 1960 Buick LeSabre 2dr HT was a gorgeous black beauty and a total lemon. Went through 3 of those turbo trannys. On our honeymoon trip the aluminum timing chain cover wore out and pumped coolant into the oil pan. The damage was remedied with a used engine. A year later gas leaked into the oil pan one winter night and blew the gaskets out of the valve covers. By the time I got it parked it had lost enough oil that not long later it collapsed a piston on the second engine. Many years later I passed up a good deal on a partially restored convertible because of the lemon I had. Regret that now, I think I missed a good car.

  5. I do not even know how I ended up here but I thought this post was great I dont know who you are but definitely youre going to a famous blogger if you arent already Cheers

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