'51 - what happened to the fender-top front turn signals?

[Eric W]

Got an early '51 Buick promotional magazine, and it has quite a few photos that show fender-top front turn signals. I thought they might be sketches or artwork, but at least some of them are photos of actual cars. Anyone know what happened that these aren't on the production cars?

[Guest shadetree77]

To my knowledge those were exclusive to the '49 models. I guess early on they had planned to bring them back and then changed their mind. You run across that a lot in the Buick promotional materials. Things that were planned but never happened. I don't think those are photos of actual cars either. At least, not completely. It looks like they may have taken actual photos and then hand drawn some of the design elements and paint colors on top of them. If you look at certain aspects (such as those fender lights) they don't look real. Also, look at the bullet light lenses. Am I seeing things or are they gone? Looks like they might have been filled with some kind of chrome cover kind of like a '53. Yep, I think they took real photos of background settings and cars and then doctored them up. Looks cool though. I love those lights on the '49 and I've often wondered what it would look like on my '52. Looks good!

Edited October 4, 2013 by shadetree77 (see edit history)

[Guest shadetree77]

Here's another one I found on EBAY. This one clearly shows the metal covers inside the bullets.

[Pete O]

Not only does the early brochure have the fender top turn signals that were never put into production, but it has a whole other Series that never made it to production either. It advertised a Series 44 Custom Special. The later version of the brochure, which is actually rarer, has the turn signals in the outer bumper guards bombs, as they were in production, and the Series 44 was dropped. From the pictures, the Series 44 was to share the bodies with the Super Series 50, but I assume with somewhat lower interior trim levels, as the exterior trim seems the same as the Super. The Special Series 40 had a new body for 1951 that differed from the Super. In 1950, the Special and Super shared bodies. The early brochure also showed a Jetback Sedanet in the Series 44, which made it into production as the Super 56-S, which in 1951 was the last year for the Sedanet body style, and there was no Sedanet in the Series 40 or 70. But oddly, the later brochure does not picture the 56-S.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Pete O (see edit history)

[Eric W]

Pete - evidence of the series 44 is throughout the Shop Manual - there are countless places where references to it were lined through. So it appears to be a pretty late change to the product line. From the specs page, it looks like it was essentially the 50-series body with the 40-series powertrain (a small-engined Super).

Robert- your comment about the '49 got me curious, so I looked back through some earlier history. The '51 signals that didn't make it look to me most like 1941 turn signals in that the front edge of the housing blends down into the headlight ring, where the '49's sit on top of the fender separated from the headlight. The '49's also have a trim piece that extends back along the entire top of the fender, where the '41 extends back maybe 12-15 inches or so, and just ends. The '41's have more detail (from the photos I found) than these '51's that never were.

[Pete O]

Eric, the last year for the smallest 248 CID engine was 1950 in the Special only. The early brochure spec page shows the 263 in the 40, 44 and 50 Series, with the 320 in the 70 Series only. There really wasn't very much that was to differentiate the 44 from the 50. Like I mentioned, the body and exterior trim looks to have been shared in the drawings. I'm only guessing that perhaps there was somewhat lower quality trim planned for the interior to set the models apart. And you're right about the Series 44 being referenced in the Shop Manual with those references be crossed out.

[Guest shadetree77]

I found this on EBAY. It's a French Canadian ad. Looks like essentially the same pictures from the ad that I posted above but notice that the turn signals have been removed in this one. The bullet lights have been added in this too.

[Guest Straight eight]

It was the Korean war that caused a chrome shortage about this time (notice how generally speaking lousy the overall chrome was on the 51's and 52's?)