Buick's "Mistake" of 1958: An Overly Gaudy and Garish Design Leads to Dismal Sales

1958

was a somewhat tragic year in Buick history, as total

1958

sales

for Buick were only 24,65390 limited lineups, which was an abysmal result, especially compared to 1957

sales

, which were 44.4 units and in just a few years before Buick. It sold about 700,000 units and was in third place, even ahead of Plymouth, so what was really happening in 1958 and what caused Buick sales to fall so quickly, one element was certainly the styling of these Buicks. 1958, which was especially, I guess, you could call heavy. and dumpy and doughy, especially if one assumes that Buick's styling is compared to other vehicles on the market, primarily those from Chrysler Corporation.

Chrysler had introduced its new advanced look in 1957 and by 1958 the look was really taking hold with customers; in fact, it helped Propel. Plymouth returned to the number three spot in 1957, actually taking you guessed it. Buick, which had the number three spot in 1956, sold 726,000 cars in 1957, but you have to remember that just a few years earlier, in 1955, Buick actually sold 738,000 cars. so its drop to just 240,000 units in 1958 was a precipitous drop and it is true that 1958 production was relatively low for the industry as a whole, partly due to the economic climate of the time, but that really was no excuse for Buick division sales were a third of what they once were, plus Buick division sales actually reached that level even though a new nameplate was added to the lineup.

The vehicle you see here, the 1958 Buick Limited. The Limited was the long-wheeled Buick that had a shared wheelbase of 1272. with the Super and the Roadmaster, by the way, the Special and the Century Road to overcome the distance smaller 122-inch wheelbase, but the Limited was introduced to really restore some of Buick's glory and luxury. It had a base price of $5,000 $5,100 or the equivalent of about $55,000 to $60,000 today, so it was a very expensive car, in fact, Buick had priced it a few hundred below the comparable Catalac and what It seemed like a good decision overall and when the vehicle was planned, this was a period of time when really a lot of things that you saw on the market had some element of flash, well the limited one, as you can see here, has a number clearly big flash, not only does it have the sweep lance, which was admittedly toned down slightly from the 1957 version, but it also has these strakes I guess you'd call them three sets of five each for a total of 15 a rear bumper super heavy and thick and equally thick taillights a rear panel Billet molding and rocker panel moldings the only thing this vehicle is missing is It has portholes, but other than that, there is talk of putting the Chrome with a TRL, that is which happened on these 1958 Buicks.

In fact, the Chrome in the rear looks so heavy that it almost looks like it could sink the entire car in that area under the strakes. It's especially heavy with chrome and the overall vehicle looks old and tired compared to what Chrysler and in particular were presenting to the public at the time. I will say that on the front there is a cool grill that has 160 beveled chrome squares that look a bit like oversized cufflinks and I think it's a unique detail that looks cool, of course you also have the gun sights on the back top of the front fenders, for the 1958 Buick the hated triart rear window would be eliminated, but overall I would say that the 1958 look was not an improvement over the 1957 models now, if you're wondering how the heck the Buick turned out so dazzled in 1958, well, that was actually a decision General Motors styling chief Harley Earl made at the time this happened.

In the later years of Harley Earl's career, he would retire after 1958 and apparently entered the Design Studios and was unhappy with the amount of so-called paraphernalia that the

design

ers originally proposed for the body size. Let's listen to this audio interview with Hank Haga, who was then a stylist at Buick Studio working on the 1958 Buick, as he describes an interaction with Harley Earl regarding his styling. HEK would later become the head of Chevrolet 2 and 3 Studios from 1963 to 1974 and worked on several sports vehicles for Chevrolet, including the 1968 Corvette, 70 and Camaro A2, the Monza, and mid-engine Corvette concepts such as the Vet Ring He would also run the opal

design

studio in Germany.

Let's hear Hank's recollection of this interaction with Harley Earl. regarding the 1958 Buick, I remember one time at Buick and this was later when Harley Earl came along, this is after Chrysler's clean line with the fins and the problem here was a new Buick and a 58 5 59 was forming but you still had LIF live through '58 you had the old body style that was quite bulbous and heavy and not Fleet like the Chryslers. I remember Harley coming in and saying no now, guys, I want you to do a spear sweep and I want you to do it. some hoops Scoops bubble bombs dagmars uh Port holes uh and rockers and chrome wheels and I want you to do all that then I'll come back and then we'll decide what we're going to do and then it's gone clip clap clip clap clip with these huge wingtips you know clap dress mully you can always hear his beat clip clap clip clap and everyone freeze slow beat right he came back the next day and said g Jesus Christ, you guys, you, you, you didn't listen to me.

You just swept up where all the other paraphernalia is and of course it was hanging on the boards everywhere. He said no, no, why do you do what I tell you? He pulls everything so we can put every type of chrome piece we can on that side. see rendering and it says there guys, now you have it, applause clip, clip we come out and we all look at each other, he's serious, this is it, this is it, go to press and if you remember the '58 Buick had everything, well, he was uh. he never explained his marketing philosophy, he didn't have to, he dealt with the higher ups, you know, we were just his servants, so yeah, sure, and I guess who knows if it helped sales or I guess it could have because there was enough.

Dash and glamor on it, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, all you guys know all about, they just loaded up the good stuff and there you have the story of how the 1958 Buick's styling came to be almost accidental if you take the story from Hank to the letter. apparently the designers never intended to have all these dads on the vehicle but that's what Harl said he wanted and that's what he ended up getting and consequently now you get a vehicle that looks like this, that's not to say While the 1958 Buicks are bad cars, in fact they are generally quite pleasant vehicles to drive and in fact there were a number of innovations introduced in 1958 for these Buicks that were quite interesting.

The first was that the 1958 Buick was the first year that Buick had its aluminum fins. The drums are standard across the line, they were actually introduced on the 1957 Roadmaster, but by 1958 they were fitted across the Buick line and for those not familiar with these Buick aluminum fin drums, they were made of aluminum and the exterior had a cast iron base. coating and dissipated heat quite well, they were actually some of the best brakes to use on vehicles, certainly the best drum brakes of the time and Buick used them for many years until the early 1970s, so was truly a great invention that was unique to Buick until the end of its career, a less successful feature in the 1958s was the introduction of the so-called Poise air suspension or suspension system which had dual rubber bellows that were filled with pressurized air. a system that I believe was developed by Cadillac and the air pressure in the bellows was controlled by several valves that helped maintain a level driving posture in the front and rear of the vehicle, so the air routing was not just at the rear but also at the front, air springs now took up the space where coil springs would normally be mounted.

There were no coil springs on these Poise air cars so it was really the entire suspension system and unfortunately it was prone to leaks and failures, they just didn't work. well, and for 1959, the Air Poise Ride was only available in the rear instead of being front and rear like in 1958, then it was dropped completely after the 1959 Buick model under the hood got a great V8 engine for 1958 , this would be the 364 cubic inch nailhead V8: This was the second generation nailhead engine in the Buick V8s which was introduced in 1957 and was produced through the 1966 model year in various displacements including the 364 cubic inch nailhead V8. 364 cubic inches which was found under the hood in the 1958 Buick and the later 401. which was introduced in 1959 and produced until 1966 and later the 4 25 which was introduced in 1963 and produced in 1966, the 364 was actually an excellent engine.

Here you can see that Buick humorously called it the B2000 engine and you know, I guess they had some. The reason for this is that it says in the brochure that it was called B1 12,000 for the fact that it develops a thrust of 12,000 PBS behind each piston, since that shoots well, whatever it is, is an interesting nomenclature, although these Buicks were known as Airborne. b58 Buick clearly there was some kind of flight inspiration in these vehicles, well at least Buick tried to associate the vehicles with flight so to speak, but the nailhead was a big engine.

It's funny, here you'll notice it mentions a quadr jet carburetor. but this was not the Quadra jet carburetor that GM would introduce in the mid 1960's, however the engines were quite powerful overall, the standard engine was 250 horsepower which was used in the Buick special with a ratio of lower compression from 9 and a half to 1 and then on the limited the road Master the super the sentury all had a 10:1 compression ratio 300 horsepower 4 cylinder V8 nailhead engine Another interesting thing about These Buicks under the hood are that they introduced the so-called fly-pitch Dlow transmission for the 1958 bucket they introduced a variable pitch stator in 1955, but for 1958 this new fly-pitch Dlow actually had a stator that had an infinite number of potential positions instead of just two or three, so it could really help with takeoff and basically help make the DLow transmission more efficient, unfortunately, it was quite complicated and relatively prone to failure to the point that the chief engineer of Buick said this almost ruined us, quote, and it wouldn't be around long.

This Dlow flyover and the triple Dlow turbine would only exist until the 1959 model year, they would disappear in favor of Buick's twin turbine transmission. Now let's move on to the interior for a moment because I think this is an area where the 1958 Buick really excelled, particularly in the higher-end models like the Limited seen here, which really had a rich and beautiful interior. These seats obviously have a lot of buttons that also adorn the door panels. The seats had double foam cushions in the front. The instrument panel obviously has a lot of shiny chrome and some interesting controls.

The small left circular capsule. there is the light control, the right circular pod to the right of the steering column is the air conditioning controls, but it looks beautiful and very spatial AG clearly inspired by the Jets of the time and that was in keeping with the name these Buicks the beef 58 Buick you can also see that this car has the automatic headlight dimmer which is on the top of the instrument panel and has the optional push button radio control. You will notice that there are two buttons on the floor while one is for changing the radio.

Another is to change the bright lights, so some A cars had that cool feature, but overall it's a rich and especially stylish interior and here you can see a close up of the instrument cluster, notice the rotating drum speedometer on the road. you could read the speed as the drum rotated and that painted line moved further and further across the speedometer the faster you drove the vehicle. You also got a full complement of gauges on these Buicks, coolant temperature gauge, oil pressure, ammeter as well. like the fuel gauge on the left, as I mentioned, you have the lights control on the right, you have the various HVAC controls, so overall, despite the not so attractive exterior, at least in my personal opinion, I think some people really like these.

Buicks and that's okay, everyone has different tastes, they are good cars. I actually kind of like the front end, it's that rear end with that really heavy bumper and chrome trim that seems strange to me on these vehicles regardless, they're really good. vehicles and if you have the opportunity to have one at a reasonable price I would definitely recommend it, just be prepared that the fly step transmission is not the best and is probably getting difficultFind someone to repair them. Let's close with some photos. of what the 1958 Buick could have looked like and these photos show clay models from the General Motors Design Studios at that time and I have to tell you that although I don't love the production 58 Buick, I really don't love these clay models . let's take a look and here's the first photo of a proposal for the 1958 Buick from the GM design studios clearly inspired by the lasaber show car from a few years ago, but my goodness what an absolutely horrible design, take a look look at that propeller on the front.

Under there, I guess you could call the oversized nose of the hood and this extremely exaggerated sweep lance that is not only on the side edge of the body, but you also see a little bit of sweep lance on the doors, I'm not exactly sure what's going on. that hood there Other than it was simply INSP shot off the Las Saber show car where I think it was much more appropriate and by the way, on that Las Saber show car the headlights were included in a rotating assembly on that one, I guess, nose if you want.

Call it here obviously there are also quad headlights on both sides of the vehicle but that bumper looks horrible with those pointy ones that were called dagmars at the time and I guess the propeller is similar to what Studa Baker had and that concept piece car lasaber and maybe even the headlights that look a bit like the carving on the Buick Wildcat a few years earlier, it's just an absolute disaster and the bodywork The sides and roofline are also just, I'd say uninspired again, go figure that this is something that designers were looking to put on the road at the same time that Chrysler had those beautiful cars with tall fins and thin roofs and the beautiful side sculpture that this would have.

It's just been an abomination in the market, but that's what happens sometimes, when you give designers complete freedom instead of imposing tons of cost restrictions on them, they come up with things like this and here's the back of the story. same proposal and this is instead of a face that only a mother could love, that you just saw, this is a rear, I guess only a mother could love, boy, this thing is ugly, I don't even know how to describe it, it has the exhaust coming out of the bumper and it's nice. of an egg crate pattern texture underneath that and there are these.

I guess they look like they should have been taillights, but they aren't. I guess those shapes at the top of the back panel are just decorative pieces. with stainless steel accent trim and you have the reverse lights and I assume the main tail lights are outboard, the roof has a sort of bar theme similar to what would appear on the '66 tornado and some of the oils at least on the hood where you have the narrow section in the middle and then it sticks out towards the edge and these fake vents similar to what the 58 Impala would have on the back, but it would just be a fake vent in the center. like here Buick could have had two uh overall I like what I said I can't imagine if GM had released this what the public reaction would have been this to me is very hard on the eyes to say the least no I'm pretty sure what the designers were thinking. but I'm very grateful that that didn't make it to production.

I hope you enjoyed this Spotlight on the #19 and #58 Buick and if you did, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, and check out the video thumbnails at the bottom left and right for some tips. thanks again for watching