’57 Buick

1957 Buick convertible. (Photo by Richard Lentinello.)

The feature car in my March 2017 issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine is the black 1957 Buick convertible pictured above.
In my opinion, 1957 is the year General Motors’ auto styling turned awful; I wouldn’t purchase a 1957 GM anything.
Way too much chrome ladled on bloated car-bodies, the result of General Motors’ ascendency with the Eisenhower Interstate System.
1957 is the year I started being intrigued by ferrin cars, especially sportscars.
Thankfully, Chevrolet stayed with its smaller ’55 Chevy body — although as I understand it, you can’t make a ’57 Chevy on a ’55 body.
They lowered the firewall a tad.
But for 1957 Chevrolet wasn’t what Americans wanted. It was the first year Ford outsold Chevrolet in some time.
The ’57 Ford wasn’t awful, but tended toward wretched excess: quite a bit bigger, with canted tailfins, mere appendages.
And Plymouth was a disaster; gigantic tailfins that dominated the car.
My wife told me a ’57 Plymouth was car in which she learned to drive. Way too big and intimidating, it had been purchased new by her father for a cross-country trip.
Like her father my wife was “automotively challenged.” Her mother, her teacher, was more normal. She ran her ragged.
1957 was also the year Chrysler styling tanked. I can’t remember the ’57 through ’62 Dodges.
My wife’s parents’s ’57 Plymouth almost immediately started rusting. Road-salt accumulated in its tailfins, and rusted ‘em out.
The ’58 Plymouth looked slightly better — an early girlfriend’s parents had one.
But it was still excessive. And rust-prone.
I remember checking out the new ’58 Buicks with schoolmates at a car-dealer in Haddonfield (NJ) near where we lived.
I woulda been 12, and our family moved to northern DE in December of 1957.
Annual new-model introductions were a big thing at that time.
The new year’s models were kept secret to encourage anticipation.

A 1958 Buick Roadmaster four-door.

The new Buicks were draped in obscuring cloth covers.
Those covers would be removed on the intro date.
The cars were also behind cyclone fence. We couldn’t get in to lift the covers.
We deduced the new Buicks had a waffle-iron grille.
This was an advance from Harley Earl’s angry Buick facade.

’58 Limited.

Finally revealed, the ’58 Buick was almost as bad as the ’57. Quad headlights beside a punched-in chrome-laden front-end, all atop that glittering waffle-iron.
At the rear were gigantic chrome-wrapped tailfins with integral taillamps and fake exhaust ports — an attempt to mimic a jet airplane.
One dare not route exhaust through that exhaust-port; it quickly soiled.
Is it any wonder ferrin sportscars were more appealing? GM’s chrome-laden boats were ridiculous.
For 1958 Chevrolet bought into the boats.
The ’58 Chevy became a swollen barge compared to the ’55 through ’57. I was depressed.
The ’58 Impala looked okay, but needed a much bigger motor than what became the SmallBlock; a wonderful motor towing a bloated barge.
The ’55-’57 Chevys were far more attractive.
For 1959, GM’s automotive styling really tanked, although the Buick looked pretty good.
The ’59 Chevy is the worst-looking Chevrolet ever made. and the ’59 Pontiac and Oldsmobile were disasters.
It wasn’t until 1960 that GM styling started recovering. Their cars were still barges, but no longer bloated.
1960’s Pontiac looked pretty good, although more a cruiser than a hotrod.
The 1961 bubble-top two-door hardtop Pontiac is one of the best-looking cars of all time, plus 1961 was the first year of the 409 Chevy. (That’s the YouTube 409-Chevy link.)
For many years I lusted after a ’55 Chevy Two-Ten hardtop with a four-speed SmallBlock (first 283, then 327, now 350).
But after 1957 GM styling fell apart.
The magazine says this Buick is one of the most desirable classic-cars of all time.
The Keed doesn’t think so. I’d stop with the ’56.

• RE: “Automotively challenged........” —meaning scared to drive. For my wife, standard-shift was completely impossible. She also abhorred driving in traffic — too scary. I was exasperated at first, but finally accommodated. I drove her all over so she didn’t hafta drive. If she was driving, I was also driving from the shotgun seat. I’d make decisions for her. “Yer gonna pass that semi before it merges.”
• “The Keed” is of course me, “BobbaLew.” (See above.)