1941 Buick Roadmaster Convertible Coupe - Model 76C 🇺🇸

Buick, and in fact all of General Motors brands, embraced the new “Torpedo” styling for their cars by 1941. This new style language resulted in greater integration of the body features, cleaner and more flowing body lines. Headlights and tail lights became more integrated into the body shell instead of stuck to it like some afterthought. Fenders flowed into doors. Running boards began to disappear as the cars also got lower, negating the need for the step they provided.  Even the door hinges were now hidden.

The updates didn’t stop with just the styling. While the chassis and engines remained largely the same as 1940, Buick introduced some enhancements to performance.  The compression ratio was raised from 6.6:1 to 7:1, thanks to a new  piston design. Most importantly, a new type of carburetion was adopted as standard on the Limited, Roadmaster and Century and as an option on the lesser models . It was called “Compound Carburetion” and employed a special intake manifold with two carburetors and a progressive linkage arrangement for their operation. During normal driving, just the front carburetor would operate. When the driver pressed the accelerator pedal beyond a fixed point, the rear carburetor would activate, giving an extra performance boost. These performance modifications increased the horsepower to 165, making this the most powerful production engine in the United States, beating Cadillac by 15 horsepower, Packard by 5 and Chrysler by 25.

Dealers were very happy with the new cars. But, they were not without some problems.  The high compression ratio caused detonation under load, and the small spark plugs were prone to fouling.  The Compound Carburetion increased the already high fuel consumption, and many owners decided to block off the second carburetor. Despite these issues, the cars sold incredibly well.