1942 Buick Super Sedanette, 56S 🇺🇸

Any 1942 car is rare, Buick produced just 91,897 cars for the shortened model year, less than a third of all the production in 1941. Finding a car that is preserved to any degree is even rarer. This Super Sedanette was found and purchased at the estate sale of the well known collector-dealer Mark Smith in Virginia. The car was largely untouched, still wearing its original 1942 Alabama license plates when it arrived at the The NB Center in fall of 2022. Cosmetically looking a bit in shambles the car was found to be amazingly solid.  A mechanical refreshing made the car fully functional and it will be enjoyed “as-is” until or if it gets restored. 

Company
General Motors

Make
Buick

Model
Super, 56S

Body Style
Sedanette,  2-door,  5-pass.

Body Manufacture
Fisher Body

Model year
1942

Wheelbase
124 inches

Length
210  inches

Engine
inline-8, OHV, 248 cid

Horsepower
118 @ 3600 rpm

Transmission
3-speed manual on the column

Original Base Price
$1,230

Brand Production
94,442  model  year

This Car Production
14,579

In 1933, when Harlow Curtis, the newly appointed manager of Buick met Harley Earl, the head of styling for all GM brands, Curtice is rumored to have asked Earl what kind of car he drives. Earl told Curtice that he drove a Cadillac. Curtice replied that he wanted Earl to design a Buick that he would drive instead of a Cadillac. The first new production cars that Earl created for Buick under this order were the 1936 model year cars. But, it was the show stopping 1937 Buick Y-Job show car that really embodied the car Harley Earl would drive above all else.

The Y-Job was a radical departure from anything else produced in America. The car was impossibly low and wide, the body was a single envelope from front to back and it was to foretell the design language coming from Detroit for the next two decades. The first production cars to take their styling cues from the Y-job were the 1942 Buicks.

All new for 1942 were wide grilles with vertical bars, wider and lower bodies, front fenders that now extended into the front doors, and twin chrome strips down the side of the car to accentuate the more streamlined forms. The new cars were clearly evolutions of the preceding model years but still a leap forward in design.

The Sedanette body, offered for the first time as a Super, was a notable leader of the new design language with the front fenders extending over the doors, it nearly had the front fenders connecting the rear fenders. The fastback body on the 124” wheelbase chassis provided enough length to make the car look even more streamlined especially when compared to the shorter Special Sedanette. 

The car proved very popular with buyers, 14,579 cars were produced at a base price of $1,230. This was the third best selling Buick in the shortened 1942 model year.