Car Of The Day: August 8, 2012

Today's car of the day comes from craftymore's collection and is Yat Ming's 1950 Buick Roadmaster.

The Roadmaster was an automobile built by the Buick division of General Motors. Roadmasters produced between 1936 and 1958 were built on Buick's longest non-limousine wheelbase and shared their basic structure with entry-level Cadillac and, after 1940, senior Oldsmobiles. Between 1946 and 1957 the Roadmaster served as Buick's flagship, as it did when it was resurrected for the 1991 through 1996 model years.

The Roadmaster received its first major postwar restyling in 1949. Its wheelbase and overall length were reduced but its weight was actually marginally increased. The biggest change was a much larger two-piece, curved glass windshield that the sales brochure described as like an “observation car.” It was also in 1949 that Buick introduced "VentiPorts." Four were displayed on each of the Roadmaster's front fenders,[4] with three on the fenders of all other Buicks. The sales brochure noted that VentiPorts helped ventilate the engine compartment, and possibly that was true in early 1949, but sometime during the model year they became plugged. The idea for VentiPorts grew out of a modification Buick styling chief Ned Nickles had added to his own 1948 Roadmaster. He had installed four amber lights on each side of his car’s hood wired to the distributor so as to flash on and off as each piston fired simulating the flames from the exhaust stack of a fighter airplane. Combined with the bombsight mascot, VentiPorts put the driver at the controls of an imaginary fighter airplane. Upon seeing this, Buick chief Harlow Curtice was so delighted that he ordered that (non-lighting) VentiPorts be installed on all 1949 Buicks, with the number of VentiPorts (three or four) corresponding to the relative displacement of the straight-eight engine installed.

The 1950 restyling featured a grille so toothy that Consumer Reports commented that "a toothbrush for the dentures comes extra." The Sweepspear had proved so popular in its first year that it was made standard on most body styles at the beginning of the 1950 model year, and on the station wagon and the new long wheelbase sedan mid-year. The long wheelbase sedan was stretched an extra four inches (102 mm). Like the convertibles, the Riviera and the extra plush long wheelbase sedan came with both power windows and power seats as standard equipment. The only change under the hood was that hydraulic valve lifters were fitted to the engine. Overall Roadmaster sales fell to 75,034, with Roadmaster’s share of total Buick output plummeting to 12 percent, thanks mainly to the surging popularity of the Special.

Check out more on the Roadmaster by visiting: Buick Roadmaster

Among the plastic base models done by YM, this is among the ones that isn't as easy to find. The large grill and swoopy styling from Buick look good even in the 21st century.