Classics are sometimes beautiful even if they are not necessarily flawless. A little ‘patina’ can sometimes go well with it. That also applies to this Buick Roadmaster. A car that is impressive in itself.
American cars from the 50s are actually a kind of moving works of art. With an abundance of chrome parts, voluptuous lines and details such as white walltires and sun visors, they clearly date from a time when minimalism was hard to find. In addition, a car like this Buick Roadmaster is huge, especially by European standards. The wheelbase is no less than 3.31 meters long and the entire vehicle stretches for just under 5.46 meters. Roughly as long as the current Mercedes-Maybach S-class.
The Roadmaster ran – intermittently – from 1935 to 1996, spanning eight generations. Thanks to AutoWeek forum member D oh we’ve got a fifth generation here for us. At the time, the Roadmaster was considered Buick’s flagship and if you look at it, it’s very easy to imagine. You had it in different versions, in addition to this sedan, there was also the two-door Coupe, Riviera hardtop, the Convertible, Estate Wagon and the Skylark Convertible. The latter had a substantially different and more sporty shape than the regular convertible and eventually the Skylark even became a separate model from Buick. Another nice detail: the Roadmaster Estate Wagon was also available as a ‘woodie’ and that was the last American to be produced on a large scale with such a wooden structure.
Okay, we digress. After all, we ‘just’ have a Roadmaster Sedan in front of us here, one from the second year of this generation. That means, among other things, that it still has the round headlights without the chrome ‘tear’ underneath that appeared on the Roadmaster in 1953. It also has the old 5.2-liter ‘Fireball’ eight-in-line in the nose, a block that has been in circulation since 1931. In 1953 it would be replaced by a brand new 5.3-litre V8, the ‘Nailhead’, which lasted until the early 1980s.
We wonder whether this Roadmaster has ever been restored. We see some different colors on the nose here and there, so it seems that a new layer of lacquer has appeared at some point. Especially around the grille it doesn’t look quite neat and older paintwork appears to be showing up. The chrome has also visibly suffered and would probably not be rated too high by the jury in a competition match. On the other hand, much of the car could be completely original. That is also worth something. This Roadmaster only came to the Netherlands in 2015 and may have lived in a dry region in the US until then. We like that it now beautifies the streets in the Netherlands!
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl