I had a friend of mine now deceased who's family was in the service station business in one of the bedroom communities where they lived in Fairfield County, CT . Jackie Gleason had a home over in the Peekskill NY area during the 50s, not far from where he lived over the CT border and he would occasionally see him around his hometown, driving his Buick. He always admired the fact that the man actually used the product his show was sponsored by.
Seriously a rolling mechanical piece of art. This Buick is from a time when cars were built to last and aesthetics were considered. Now, most cars you can't tell from each other and just have problems left and right. That profile shot of the car near the end is just stunning.
In 1956, a car that had reached 100,000 miles was considered a clunker. My daily driver in 2023 is a 1992 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon (the more modern equivalent of the Vista Cruiser). It has almost 242,000 miles and is still going strong!
You can thank roger Smith for that when he got behind the wheel of gm in the 80's. Fortune magazine put all the current mid 80s gm midsize cars on the front page. They looked almost exactly the same. That's what happens when you hire bean counters instead of engineers to run a company.
My Dad Had A 1956 Buick Special 4 Door . Two Tone Blue And White..My Grandmother Had A 1950 Midnight Blue Buick 4 door Special..Both The 1956, And 1950 Buicks Had Dynaflow..
We had one of these only black. It was soooo nice! Us kids loved playing in it and undoubtedly ran the battery down over and over playing with the windows! And the electric seats!
Rommel.. Vintage cars , they were actually metal works of art , unlike the cars of today , they're all alike , no individuality , which is why you can buy them out of a vending machine, If you've seen one , you've seen them all !
I love the way during the 50's you could actually option these babies. Allowing you the owner the ability to choose whatever you wanted to put on your automobile. End result a car that was an extension you the buyer.
I grew up with my father driving Buicks, and now I drive Buicks. Great, comfortable, reliable autos that don't nickel and dime you to death. I don't understand the negativity of alot of people about this Brand. All the auto manufacturers now make cars overseas, it's called globalization, brought to you by the powerbrokers of the world!
But those of us who buy their products need jobs here in the States! As for Buick's products today, I'll take Dad's old 1980 Electra 4 door burgundy sedan over anything from Buick today! Or my brother's old 78 Le Saber 4 door! Or Brad Hamilton's blue 1960 Invicta!
Considering the Roadmaster and Super models shared the basic body of the Cadillac 62 and deVille models, Buick buyers got almost a Cadillac at less than the price of a Cadillac
And to think I get annoyed at how integrated ads have become with our television today. These shows were married to their sponsor to make what almost seems to be a seamless transition between ad and show. The ads were literally part of the show in reality. What a nice car that is, though.
My mother owned one equipped with factory air conditioning that was integrated into the dash. I remember the car as being incredibly reliable, never gave us any problems. I learned to drive using that Buick, and I soon learned that the brakes would fade if you had to stop from a high rate of speed. Teenagers!!!
Ford only used integrated dash air conditioning in the 4 seat Thunderbirds and Lincolns until 65 when they redesigned the full sized Ford and Mercury which had the integrated Air conditioning in the dash. In 66 the Fairlanes, Falcon and Comets acquired it and finally in 67 the Mustang and the new for 67 Mercury Cougar.
That's right! The one in the commercial doesn't have AC because if it did it would have a long narrow outlet in the middle of the dash, as well as louvers on the lower sides of the dash. Last year for trunk-mounted AC in Buick was '55. My father was a Buick dealer from '49 to the end of '57. He was operated on on 1/1/58 and found to have inoperable lung cancer. We lost him on 3/17/58 at only 59. The last car he drove home from the dealership was a '56 Special 4-door sedan with trunk mounted Novi dealer installed AC, blue/white/blue. The vast majority of Roadmasters in '56 were 4-door hardtops, you hardly ever saw them in post sedans.
@@larryhawkins3294 just FYI my Froend has a 1957 Ford with factory AC. The vents are at the base of the windshield. Ford started in 1956 with vent on the top of the dash.
The amazing thing about General Motors in the 1950's was not only their fierce competition against Ford, Chrysler, American Motors, Studebaker etc. but also the rivalry that existed between their own divisions and dealership arrangements e.g. Pontiac/Buick vs. Chevrolet/Oldsmobile
R. Crompton Pontiac and Chevrolet competed against Buick whose branch competed with Cadillac while Oldsmobile was always the best with all the qualities until GM decided to use Cadillac as their signature staple for the luxury line..
g bridgman They had to make up for all the company's losses so they pushed the Cadillac out front and used false claims to sell the worst thing the company has ever backed. They added style to make it more elegant to increase sales but because of power and handling difference it barely kept up with Pontiac & Chevrolet sales. A lot of people don't know it, but Cadillac started out on it's own and use parts from GM that came from the Buick and Oldsmobile line that the company had a larger excess of " then from the Pontiac or Chevrolet line " because those two were actually their fastest selling car's aswell as test models for the Buick franchise which supplied the groundwork for the Oldsmobile line.
Cadillacs have never been my favorite car. I like some of them, but am always disappointed compared to other cars in the GM lineup. What leaves me incredulous is all the engine problems they had going back to the V16 of 1930. The 4100s of the 80s were a disaster. Cadillac enthusiasts don't even want them. Even the newer Northstar V8 didn't turn out to be all it was hyped up to. There's one model in the 90s, I'm not sure which, that blows out main bearings every 40,000 miles. Supposedly it's a quick change out, but why should you have to do that to any car? I understand a lot of people who got screwed on the Northstar were told to go to hell by GM. They wouldn't make good on anything. That's from a friend who was a service manager at a Cadillac agency. Quality control in the 70s was awful; lots of plastic parts that broke and deteriorated. In 1980, when the radio antenna broke, which happened about once a year, the right front fender had to be removed to fix it. The plastic headlight adjuster screws broke leaving the headlight pointing to the ground; the list goes on. It's stuff like that which turns me off to Cadillac.
@@marshalllsmith2095 Rarely did Chevrolet and Pontiac compete with Buick for customers in the 1950s. And you need to seriously review the history of GM cars in general from the 30s through the later 1950s. In doing so you'll learn that Oldsmobile seriously lagged Buick in many areas, including engine and chassis design. Ditto for Pontiac and Chevy. For example, Buick was using coil springs and control arms suspensions on all corners while Olds was still playing around with rear leaf springs. Buick was using overhead valve heads while Olds was still screwing around with flatheads. Buick was using a strong, full perimeter frame with a center cross brace while the others typically offered greatly inferior designs. Buick was using advanced torque tube drives, which none of its competitors bothered with. Buick also typically specified larger brakes and introduced their exclusive 12" aluminum "finned" front brake drums when the others were playing around with small, cast iron variants that lacked the Buick's superior heat dissipation qualities. All of this becomes clear when visiting oldcarbrochures.com and going through the various brochures. In many cases Buicks were more advanced that Cadillacs. I'm a senior mechanical design engineer who had the good fortune of spending a lot of time in a Buick garage as a kid with my "car nut" dad. I therefore know what I'm talking about. Back in the day, Buicks were special cars. (That began to changer by the earlier to mid 1960s.)
On the filmed "HONEYMOONERS" episodes sponsored by Buick (1955-'56), only ONE commercial was seen during the episode- a two and a half minute "intermission ad" in the middle, featuring announcer Jack Lescoulie. Jackie usually ended the show with a 30 second "curtain call", plugging the "Best Buick Yet" and their current models.
My parents had a 49 Super, a 54 Super and a 56 Super which was really snazzy with white leather seats and a padded dash which I think was kind of new at the time. My father loved that dyna flow transmission. He later had more Buicks and a Cadillac. I lost track of all his cars once I left home. He also had an Oldsmobile, a Plymouth and a couple of Chevys. He wasn't rich. Some were new but some were used.
My father had a ‘57 Chevy, 2 tone in baby blue and white. Of course it was a 4-door because he was a family man, plus he never believed in 2-doors. Too difficult for old people to get in the back seat.
They certainly were great cars. I've owned several of them. They're getting hard to find these days. You got a lot more car for the money than you did in a Cadillac.
@@bighands69 Rot! American cars, particularly of that era, were all show, little substance. By 1956 Mercedes already had unburstable / unjammable door latches and the passenger safety cell. Yanktanks of the era were under-handling death traps.
@@21stcenturyozman20 Then why did people buy them, and why don't the people who own these cars nowadays call them "deathtraps", why are they praising them?
..im in New Zealand and there is 2 56 i think rusting away on a farm in Levin ..about 10 mins from my house ..the owners passed years ago and the kids wont sell them ..every year they get worse ..they have had it now been sitting at least 12 years now 😭
I loved that car! Buick had 4 models in the mid 50s- special, century, super and roadmaster at the top. In those days society (and especially the auto makers) pressured people to buy the best car they could afford to indicate their financial status. People judged your worth and occupation level largely by the car you drove, and the automotive pecking order was well known, even to kids.This commercial clearly ascribes to that notion. Fortunately a few people had minds of their own in those days and didn't give a damn. Today the correlation is much less defined.
in 1956 one expected 100,000 miles was the max you could get from a car....now its 200,000 minimum....300,000 if you keep up with maintenance.....the iron was heavier back then, and it took longer to rust them out....I did like Buicks as a kid in 1956....the holes in the front fender especially....cool
Buick's had "Dynaflow"Transmissions, the Chevy's had "Powerglide" Transmissions, and the Oldsmobile's had Hydra-Matic Transmission's. That's what I remember for selling transmission parts back in the day.
Omg. What a great video. My collection of buicks from 49' s to 56's all roadmasters from woody's to converts. To drive one is to know no other motorcar.
But man that Dynaflow transmission was bad. That was widely recognized back in the day. And regardless of how many improvements Buick made, it remained highly flawed until the bitter end.
@@brucewiemer255 "Feel this way?" Are you joking? Google "Buick Dynaflow inefficient" and you'll be bombarded with a host of solid supporting links. This transmission's inefficiency has been widely recognized from the time it made its debut. The primary issue was the transmission's reliance on a 5 element torque converter. While later resigns marginally improved performance, the Dyanflow always lagged behind the Hydramatic (used by Cadillac, Oldsmobile and Pontiac) during the same period, realizing that Chrysler's TorqueFlite was superior to both. I spent a lot of time in a privately operated Buick garage back in the later 60s and early 70s. (The owner was a former service manager for the local Buick dealership.). I still distinctly recall conversations between him and my dad about how lousy the Dynaflow was, and what a "saving grace" the later Turbo-Hydramatics were. At the time my dad was driving a 1964 Buick Wildcat (425 cubic inch "Wildcat 465" coupled to the then new TH400 transmission.)
@@brucewiemer255 Have you ever walked on the moon? That you haven't in no way disproves that others have. Google "Dynaflow Buick inefficient" and see what comes up. That transmission was widely recognized as inefficient and "stodgy" from nearly the moment it made its debut. The problem initially revolved around the 5 element torque converter. Subsequent redesign efforts proved only marginally effective. The Hydramatic used by other GM divisions was always superior as was Chrysler's TorqueFlite when it made its debut.
Buick pretty much ruled the upper mid-price class for about 50 years. That all fell apart when the old men retired, and the carefully constructed hierarchy of the GM brands went to hell.
What a gorgeous car. Sporting a lot of Cadillac sheetmetsl that year, too. I wonder what the price difference between the Roadmaster and the Cadillac was for 1956. It couldn't have been very much.
Yes ANY DAY IM A BUICK OLDSMOBILE GUY IT WAS LIKE GOING FIRST CLASS W /O PAYING DA FULL PRICE AND JUST IR SMOOTHER RIDE THAN A CADDY. MY UNVLE JIMMY RIP HAD A 1956. THEN I HAD A 69 -1970,1974. AND A OLDS #MODEL #98 1974. Watt comfort all A FROMT FULL BENCH SEAT.
They WERE BUILT LIKE A TANK BIG STRONG CARRY THE STRONG IF ARR ABLE TO FIND A 1999 & UP 2000S BUY IT AND ENJOY THEY WERE STILLNBIENG BUILT BIG &.VERY GOOD AN STRONG.
@@hankrogers8431 are you serious? Go to Russia and then decide which country needs to be invAded. The USA has been sold out or bought out. Relax the same assholes will buy out Russia.
We had one , the we got a 58 Buick wagon, good, smooth runner, miss the. Old cars my dad had a fondness for. The style of front grill , the top fender gunsight trim and false exhaust ports, just begging to let loose on our new highways, the whole package . And... gas was incredibly Cheap!!
A working man's "church on Sunday" car. Business people and the more affluent (or showy, keep up with the Jones) types drove Cadillacs if GM oriented. Both were fine cars for the era.
We had a lot of cars Dad was a car trader,he had a blk& white 56 Buick nice car dynaflow transmission,starter was???? Yes kiddies on gas pedal, old Studebakers had braket on clutch pedal....One old car you pulled back on shift lever???. Forgot....
Chrysler was well known for selling their high technology. Their powerful engines and their torsion air ride suspensions. There is a video about that on RU-vid somewhere.
Oh man, I owned that very car for a time back around '87 or '88. I needed a good used car as mine had broken down beyond repair. I was in my mid 20's and saw this Electra at a used car dealership. It had dings, some rust, faded paint spots, but I test drove it and it seemed fine so I bought it. If I remember right, I paid $ 800 for it. It was white on white leather and I absolutely LOVED that car. I drove the hell outta that thing. Concerts, road trips, you name it. Not only being large enough to house a family of 12, it was remarkably fast. That car lasted me for nearly 10 years and even though I ended having to sell it, it remains one of my favorite cars I've ever owned. Thanks for bringing up that memory.
