1957 Buick Stripped chassis

[Topper1961]

Hi!

I just could not resist starting this thread after finding a picture of a 1957 Buick Hearse. I can see on Buick Net (Buick Models for 1957) That it was ordered about 1058 stripped chassis based on Special, Super and Roadmaster (Non from Century 60 Series?). What happened to this cars, who ordered theme and what type of body where they given. Besides this hearse, I have seen one ambulance for sale in Texas some time ago. Regret that I did`nt buy it -to late to day. I like to encourage you to comment this thread and it would be nice if we could add some pictures as well. The thread with the postcards with different motive from all over US showing 1957 Buick Models was excellent. So - join in, did the stripped chassis end up as ambulances, hearses (Flower cars), Fire Dept vehicles, Police cars etc.....

Looking forward to see what you got!

Joern

1957 Buick Century Model 63 & 66R

[TG57Roadmaster]

Nice '57 Professional Car, Joern! I've seen some '58's, but never a '57;

the extended Sweepspear is most interesting. I'd love to have a larger

resolution of the image, if possible. Thanks for posting it!

TG

[Centurion]

Joern and Tom, the Buick Gallery and Research Center in Flint, Michigan has (or, at least, had in 2003) a National-bodied 1957 Buick ambulance. I will see if I can locate any photos online, but it is the only 1957 Buick professional car that I've seen.

During the 1953 - 1958 era, the Flxible company focused on bus production, temporarily exiting the Buick-based professional car business. Since Flxible was typically the largest purveyor of professional cars on Buick chassis, its absence from the marketplace during the mid-1950's means that Buick professional cars of this era were produced in tiny numbers.

[CheezeMan]

Joern,

I have these 2 pics from Sloan. My 7-year old daughter took these. I don't know which year and model this is. The sweepspear is behind the rear door, instead of on the door, and the side trim is different. The grill seems to match your pic, though.

(The ugly guy stepped in the middle of what would have been a great shot... )

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Chuck, that is a '57.

Ben

[Centurion]

Chuck, that is a '57.

Ben

And that's the car I was trying to find a photo of. You'll notice the National nameplate on this one.

Thanks for posting the photos!

[Topper1961]

Hi Chuck!

Great pictures, would be nice to have one of the hole car and som from the interior. At the moment I am having hard time on Internet to find more pictures, I belive there are more in peoples home arcive. And as Brian say, I also found some articles about Flxible, but no pictures of 57 Buick`s`. Lets continue and see what`s popping up!

Thanks guys!

Joern

1957 Buick Century Model 63 & 66R

Edited October 21, 2011 by Topper1961
adding text (see edit history)

[CheezeMan]

Maybe the first photo is a better resolution; the other 2 don't show the National badge.

Edited October 22, 2011 by CheezeMan (see edit history)

[Centurion]

The '57 ambulance in CheezeMan's post is apparently a professional car conversion by Weller Brothers, which accounts for its very different appearance from the National hearse and ambulance pictured earlier in this topic.

[High Desert]

For 1957, the Special series had a total of 504 stripped chassis units produced.  The Century had zero, which would make sense to me since it is essentially the same as the less costly Special.  There were 385 of the Supers produced as stripped chassis, and, curiously, 169 Roadmasters.

 

First, what exactly constitutes a "stripped chassis" as they would have left Buick?  Did they require significant body work to finish, or did Buick take care of that in house?

 

Second, why did Buick manufacture so many (169) of the stripped chassis Roadmasters when the less expensive Super should have worked just as well?  They didn't make any of the Century after all.  I'm thinking for funeral homes, where the larger vehicle was required for a hearse (as seen in the "Richard J. Conjalka collection" model in one of Cheezeman's photos) , but they also wanted it to be the top-of-the-line model.

 

Does anyone know of any photos of these on the production line or leaving the factory prior to modification?

Edited July 28, 2015 by High Desert (see edit history)

[Barney Eaton]

Anyone born after about 1950 will probably not recall that we did not always have the big box ambulances.    Except for large cities that had their own ambulance service,  most funeral homes provided ambulances and service for smaller towns.     We had three funeral homes in town and they all had ambulances as well as hearses.    Our largest funeral home had a beautiful 1956 Cadillac the only one I ever saw with chrome fire extinguishers mounted in wells just in front of the Cadillac tail lights. 

 

The long wheelbase, stripped chassis were available from several car companies after WWII until sometime in the late '60's when state and federal officials started regulating the equipment and responders.

Look at you Buick Roster and the last listing is 1967, model 43669 Crated knocked down chassis for a total of 696...... some of these could have been for export.

More interesting is 1950 which list 3 models of Special, 4 Super models, and 4 Roadmaster as stripped chassis.    Someone here probably has the details but I suspect these would be the same wheelbase for example the Roadmaster but each would have more or less furnished by Buick.  

 

For comparison I have a book that shows Cadillac (1950)  61 Series built 2 chassis, the 62 Series built only 1,  but the 75 Series made 2,052 commercial chassis with 157 in wheelbase. 

The standard 75 Fleetwood sedans had a 136 in wheelbase.