Hello all, I am a new member here and hope that you folks can help me out with some historical information. As I am sure all of you here know, the 1950 Buick Special was introduced in roughly August of 1949 with GM's new B-body for 1950. This new for 1950 body became the basis for GM's 1950 B/C body program, used by Cadillac, Buick and Olds as discussed by Richard Stout in the SIA article. For 1950, all Cadillacs and Buicks used the B/C body shell, while Oldsmobile used it for the 98, and the smaller 76/88 used the A-body.
Then for 1951, things changed. Buick moved the Special to the new smaller body shell, dubbed the OB-body. This was then later used by the Oldsmobile Super 88 which eventually replaced the A-body 88. For 1952, Oldsmobile also moved the 98 down to the same smaller OB-body.
I have read Thomas Bonsall's books, and in his "Disaster in Dearborn" book he talks about GM's body sharing program. He states that the OB-body was actually supposed to be the new Chevrolet and Pontiac A-body for 1951, but they couldn't afford the body. So, it got foisted on Buick and Oldsmobile. See the notation in this Google book link, (Page 216, note #5): https://books.google.ca/books?id=7z9o69N-AJoC&lpg=PP1&dq=Disaster in Dearborn%3A The Story of the Edsel&pg=PA216#v=onepage&q=Disaster in Dearborn: The Story of the Edsel&f=false
So my question is, does anyone know why the OB body was created? Why wouldn't Buick just continue to used the B/C bodies for all cars including the Special as it had in 1950? Was the OB-body really supposed to be the new A-body? And if so, why could Chevrolet and Pontiac not afford it, when Chevrolet was the volume leader? Is the OB-body related to either the B/C bodies or perhaps the 1953-54 A-bodies at all?