benjaminhuf

1933-1934

1933

1933 Buick.

1932

Good stuff. Unfortunately, unless I'm missing something, they don't seem to allow you to download the images. And so I don't see a way to directly post images here, for instance....? Hmmm. Looks like they charge $1 per image. I hope we can still do some free sharing here from our own collections.

1932

1946

1930-1931

Interesting I think to see what other brand names were being established at the same time as the Buick name, and so two ads from 1921 show Planters Peanuts and International Business Machines. The Pierce Arrow advertisement from 1923 describes a deluxe trip in that deluxe car that you can probably read if you magnify as much as possible. And then finally there's the Buick eight from 1930.

August 1946 and January of 1950.

Thanks for the thoughts on shifting early cars. Interesting stuff. I recently read a good book about Harley Earl called Fins by William Knoedelseder. In the book there was this passage that talked about the fine sound of Pierce-Arrows. And below are a couple of advertisements for the Pierce-Arrow. One of Harley Earl's hires—after he was appointed in 1928 by Alfred Sloan as the head of GM's new "Art and Colour Section" (a name Earl didn't like)—was Frank Hershey, whose affluent mother had purchased custom cars designed by Harley Earl. Frank Hershey was an influential car designer for decades, and helped design the 1949 Cadillac fin, and helped design Ford's 1955 Thunderbird. Earl liked designers who, in his words, "had gasoline in their veins"—and Hershey fit that. For instance, Hershey could identify almost any car of the 1920s just by their sounds, as he remembered in an interview in the 1990s a few years before he died.... "The Marmon had a hollow, spooky sound, partly because because they didn't have any louvers in the hood, Studebakers were distinctive because their rear axles whined all the time. The Pierce-Arrow had a swishing sound, sort of like it was riding on water, almost like steam, it was so quiet. And I could always tell a Cadillac because they sounded like the valves needed adjusting." The advertising copy for that Peerless car ad above is strangely wistful. Since it's impossible to read the ad without clicking on it to enlarge it multiple times, I'll type some of it here just in case someone might be interested. "....Up Life's winding course, regret pursues change and change bites the heels of habit and custom. The stage-coach of romance gives place to steam and speed. The electric light snuffs out the soft-beamed candle. Tinkling sleigh-bells drown in the roar of motor horns. But Youth knows naught of the old, Age accepts the new, and who will say that smiles were brighter or spirits keener at the Christmases of our fathers than they are today? Richer and wider is our modern life, with its locomotives, its electricity, its motor cars—they have extended our horizons, increased our comforts and opportunities, multiplied our human relationships. Here at the Peerless factory we measure our accomplishment by the degree to which the Peerless Two-power-range Eight shares in this widening and enriching process. As the new year approaches, we renew our pledges of devotion to ideals of sound building and honest dealing. The Peerless Motor Car Company CLEVELAND : OHIO"

Yes, please post more of these images of very early Buicks—including the technical stuff. One thing I don't understand about early cars is how they could be shifted while minimizing grinding the gears before synchromesh. Was there a technique to it in terms of "rev matching"? Do you folks with pre-1930 Buicks have the original type of transmission and clutch?

Thanks for pointing that "mental typo" out. I had just been looking at the 1929 advertisements for Oldsmobile's Viking. And here are two more high rez ads from 1930 for the Eight as Buick Builds it.

I also enjoy the advertisements for fashion and other things as well. These first two ads are from 1928, one of which shows a huge advantage GM had starting around 1920—GMAC. Ford and most other car makers made you pay the entire cost of your car up front or find your own financing. But through GMAC you could buy a Buick with c. 25% down over a year or so with a low interest rate. Often the trade-in on your old car would cover your downpayment, and then you'd just have a monthly payment for 12 or 18 months. Already by 1928 I think something like 80% of GM buyers used the financing to get into a nicer car. The last two ads are from 1930. Just before the Great Depression hit Buick made the decision to move to Straight 8 engines for all its cars for the added power. During the 1920s the size and weight of Buicks went up fairly steadily, and so moving to a powerful Straight 8 made sense.