1957 Buick Roadmaster 75

[electra225]

This model represents the top-line series for Buick in 1957. These cars came with all the options except air conditioning standard. This is an early car, witnessed by the "short" temp gauge. The '57's had a proclivity to "run warm" (overheat), so guess what the fix was. Yep, they just made gauges that it took more heat before the gauge read "hot". The little while line between "C" and "H" was made longer, so it would not "look" like the engine was running too warm. The wire wheels are not correct for a Roadmaster series Buick in 1957. This is due to the interference between the inner hub of the wire wheels and the fins on the aluminum front brake drums. You can use the wires if you insert a 1/4"spacer between the brake drum and the wheel, and if a sharp-eyed show car judge doesn't spot the spacers. The dealerships that installed wire wheels on '57 Roadmasters were authorized to replace the aluminum drums with steel drums that didn't interfere with the wheels. This car has the correct bumper ends and the correct exhaust deflectors. This is the only Roadmaster 75 I ever saw without Guidematic, as it was standard on the RM 75. The guy needs to finish the last 5% so he would have a truly magnificent Roadmaster 75. The trunk is just ugly. The door carpet is worn and faded. The paint, body and chrome is nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_YQVN5Zxw4

[Dr. Radio]

Before I clicked on the link, I asked myself "I wonder if those had the 'thermometer' speedometer?".

Yup.

That was a sneaky trick on the temp gauge. I'll add that to the old knowledge bank. Thanks Greg.

[electra225]

There is a book about as thick as a phone book on the "in field" modifications factory authorized for '57 Buicks. Early cars will have the old 1956 transmission dipstick used on the '56 Century models with aluminum bellhousing Dynaflow. It was too short for the '57 exhaust manifolds. It allowed the transmission to be overfilled by about a quart and a half. If you drove the car hard then shut the engine off, the trans fluid would "expand" and find its way onto the exhaust manifold. Many times, an engine fire ensued. The fix? The dealer cut the dipstick tube in half, inserted a RUBBER hose between the two metal pieces to extend the dipstick. Then they would file a new "Full" mark on the dipstick. New dipsticks eventually found their way into production which remedied the problem. 1957 Buicks suffered from sheared bolts on the front crossmembers. Almost every car we took apart for restoration had only dirt and goo holding the front suspension on. We have hoisted them on a frame hoist and left the front wheel or wheels hanging by the brake hose. If the generator quits charging suddenly or intermittently, the first thing we'd do is to pull the dash pad then check the connections on the amp gauge. They were prone to burn and corrode, causing intermittent charging or no charging at all.

The rotating drum speedometers were used from 1954 to 1961. They were actually pretty simple and didn't cause much trouble. The worked exactly like the pointer speedometers only they moved the drum rather than a pointer. Everybody thinks they looked cool.

[walyfd]

Fantastic car. Proportions are about as perfect as can be. Way better than the 62 series cadillac sedans.

Love how the AC is integrated to the dash. Was there a dealer kit for air or was it factory only?

Also, did buick offer power trunk?

[Firedome]

Lovely car, I've always had a soft spot for '55/56/57 Buicks. Our next door neighbors and also my best friend's parents across the street both had '55 Specials, and Dad's good friend Len Luckenbach 3 doors up from us had a '56 Century. Powerful and impressive cars that were nicely conservative compared to later years and the Forward Look Mopars. Loved how they put the model year on the grille badge those years. Didn't realize the '57s had full gauges, I recall 55 or 56 dashes differed for different models, forget the details as to what the gauges were. compared to Olds Buicks had some problems in '55-57 but were still great and desirable cars. I was 6 in '56 and looking back it was wonderful to have lived through and remember & experience these fabulous cars when they were new.

Here's one carrying my wishes for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

[electra225]

Buick never offered a power-opening trunk lid that I am aware of, at least in the "classic" days. A vacuum trunk release was available. I'm going out on a limb here, but I believe it started in 1959. Grandpa's '60 Electra 225 had it. They never were electric at least until 1976. This accessory may have been unavailable from 1971 thru at least 1976. My '71 Limited and "74 Limited neither had it. The little plunger you pulled on to release the trunk lid was typically located in the glove compartment. By the time you fiddled around with opening the glove compartment and pulling the plunger, you could have already had the trunk open by using the key. The 1958 Limited was supposed to have had the fancy stuff Cadillac put on the Eldorado Brougham, such as power vent windows in the "C" pillars and a power operated hood and trunk lid. The bean counters ixnayed that plan, due to the recession and the generally poor sales of the '58 Buicks. Buick did get the Flight Pitch Dynaflow and the pneumatic suspension like Cadillac used. I used to get lots of power goodies off of Cadillacs for use on Buicks. They always fit perfectly. Cadillacs frequently were found with power vent windows. That was a pretty rare accessory on a Buick. Did Cadillacs ever get the "Mickey Mouse ears" remote control outside rear view mirrors?

Roger, the 1955 model 72 Roadmaster you posted has the drum speedometer. That started with the "senior" Buicks in 1954, all models got it starting in 1956, continuing thru the 1961 models. The Special and Century models used two round instruments instead of the drum speedometer. One instrument had the 120 mph needle speedometer, the other instrument had the gauges. The Centurys got an engine-turned motif on the instrument panel, the Special instrument panel was painted silver. The upper series had a checkeboard motif on the instrument panel, a little different year to year. The '57 Roadmaster 75 had the brightest, most glary instrument panel ever installed into a Buick. Beautiful, but nasty to deal with when the sun was at your back.

[Firedome]

I can't think of any other GM - or other car make for that matter - that used such different instrument panels for differing models in the 1950s, can anyone? (Not including special cars like Thunderbird, or completely different cars like Lark). By that I mean Chev, Ford, Plym, Olds and other standard/full size cars, the way that '55 Super, Special panels differed.

In the mid-late '50s I walked by a dark green '55 Roadmaster sedan every day on my way to my Elementary School, a very dignified, imposing car owned by elderly folks, almost the same as the Christmas pic above but all one color. In my imagination the kind of automobile that a graying gentleman dressed in a black top-coat and Homburg hat would drive. Maybe 8 or 9 years later I had occasion to go down that same street where I hadn't been for a long time, since probably 1961 or '62. The poor car was still there, fading paint, covered by tree junk, chrome beginning to rust and pit. But it still looked so dignified and powerful, despite all those years of neglect, and that car still occupies a place of honor in my mind.

[Firedome]

Not a Homburg, and one's the wrong year, but close! I see him with a Clark Gable moustache and graying at the temples... a car and owner of pure class. Something about a '55 or '56 Roadmaster is way more classy than a Cadillac...imho! "57 is close, but there's something about these 2 years of Buick that to me exemplifies supreme US post-WW II power better than any other car!

[electra225]

Grandpa's last Roadmaster was a 1953. He started buying Centurys in 1954 because he thought so highly of his old '37 Century. Buick actually started using different instrument panels between series in 1950. The Specials got the panel with two gauges, while Super and Roadmaster got panels with the speedometer in a pod higher then two round pods under that with the two gauges in each pod, along with a turn signal indicator. In '56 the instrument panels and speedometers were the same, but they were finished differently between the series. The '55 Century probably had my favorite instrument panel, although the '57 RM 75 had by far the fanciest one.

[walyfd]

Cadillac was THE car of cars and stars. The name alone was household... but, fir the conservative, successful business man who worked everyday, a buick or Packard were highly regarded as not showing off to clients...

As for hats... I've been wearing fedoras since high school. Wow was I out of style!!! Today, they're back....

Last trip to NYC. I'm the old guy on the left. My "little brother" who's 18 years my junior is on the right. We just left JJ Hat on 5th Avenue and had hats blocked and cleaned.

"HAT -iquette" is really an almost dead art...

[electra225]

Dad and Grandpa never left the house without a hat on. I don't think I have ever worn a hat of any kind in my entire life. I had "cute" curly hair when I was little and grandma thought a hat would "spoil" it, so I went bare-headed.

[walyfd]

JFK basically killed hats for men.

My dad didn't wear one, either. He had one. My grandfather made him get it. That was the early 60s. But men still wore them.

Many times I'd walk into church on a funeral and discreetly "Odd Job" it in the narthex... tipping, doffing, fully removing and carrying it... lobbies, elevators, on and on... gotta say, women had it easier where hats were concerned.

Today, you open a door for a woman and you're not sure she'll thank or slap you...

Anyway... back to cars...

[TC Chris]

Love the purple prose in the '57 ad! The whole message is "people will think you are successful AND intelligent if you buy this car." It starts off by saying that your car represents you. OMG, I'd better buy the right one! Not sure what message the 4-cyl. Ranger sends about me....

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

That message of "keeping up with the Joneses" has been successfully promulgated since about WW I when Edward Bernays more or less invented modern advertising and propaganda. You are what you buy was the subliminal message, and dress for success was it's corollary. Dad was in sales for Bethlehem Steel so he wore a fedora every day, almost always a gray Dobbs for work, and a slightly less fancy Trilby with a small feather on the side for weekends, even on trips to the hardware store. As the years passed the hat brims got narrower and narrower.

JFK did indeed make it socially acceptable to go hatless and I remember that change filtering down to the average middle- aged professional guy by around the late '60s. By the '70s Dad still wore a hat to his office, but he was no longer in the field by then as a manager of sales, and he'd wear it home again, but not during the day. He'd still wear his "casual" fedora into the '80s but just stopped at some point.

I have a beautiful Stetson fedora with about a 1955-ish width brim that I wear only on formal occasions: wedding, funerals, to the Met to see Rigoletto on my 60th Birthday, as it's part of proper formal dress and I like the throwback aspect. Normally though I wear an Irish Tweed flat cap, greatly preferring that more informal and practical working man's hat. I almost never wear a baseball style cap, just don't like them.

[walyfd]

I have one Dobbs and it's like a rock. It's basically uncrushable. I like Stetson. I also have a Borsalino imperiale I bought new from scranton's last millinery. Paid $90 like 12 years ago. If you look at it funny, it goes out of shape. That's the one JJs blocked. Guy said its a formal hat and I should be grateful to have it...

I really like the Whippet I got last year. Sporty, lower crown, bound brim. Just a sharp topper...

Girl I worked with, her dad died and he was a hat guy. She didn't know what to do with them so she ASKED if I'd adopt them! I took 2 of them to London in May and sent her pictures...

[Firedome]

Saville Row, now that's the place for a pic like that! A raincoat often seen in that locale would be a Burberry, I used to have a knockoff.

Growing up in the '60s and being an idiot kid I rejected pretty much everything Dad did, so never attempted to emulate him, including dress. But he role modeled what proper dressing is, so he made sure that when I went to college in Fall 1968 it was with a navy wool pinstripe double breasted suit just like that from Jos A. Bank (on Hopkins Place since the 1860s, a Baltimore firm he'd dealt with for years), he knew some of the the tailors. Also from there a Glen Plaid suit, a blue blazer, a seersucker suit for summer, and shirts and ties to match them. All this for a 18 yr old kid who liked jeans. I did wear them on appropriate occasions, while they fit, for about 10 years. Now it's just one dark gray Banks suit, a blazer, and a corduroy jacket with elbow patches, but flannels and jeans most of the time.
I like being comfortable.

Buick's 1956 ad .. "the Man who Wears Success Easily" for me sums up the zenith of American power, a time when our cars and our economic and military power were so overwhelming they were essentially unchallenged. Though the Cold War had begun, most of the world's population knew who was in charge, and our cars were a perfect reflection of it. But by 1958 we entered overshoot: the Russians had beaten us to space in Oct 1957, 2 months later Vanguard exploded on the launch pad, the Russians had had the H bomb for awhile, SE Asia was on the verge of ignition, the "missile gap" was on everyone's mind, yet we clung to the idea of world dominance. The '58'59 cars reflected to me a superficial attempt to keep the optimism alive past it's sell by date, but like Harley Earl's career the handwriting was on the wall, and the results a flop, truly over the top ridiculous. JFK's shocking murder, the Viet war, and the turbulent '60s brought us, and our cars, temporarily back to earth, only to degenerate further into decadence during the debauched decade of the '70s. The innocent optimism was gone after 'Nam, and the substitute of faked opulence became a dead end of it's own. Being old I unapologetically like to lapse into nostalgia for that naive age when I was a child and the US was truly on top, and the '56 Roadmaster is it's personification in metal.

[walyfd]

You're right. Seems like 1957 was a cutoff point. The optimism of the '50s was wearing thin, Sputnik was a Russian coup and the recession was a realistic shock.

But... cars were designed years in advance. The '59s were on canvas in '56. Story was Harley wanted to stamp the 59s as his last hurrah. Dave Holls drew the cadillac on a plane trip in response to chrysler's "forward look" and snuck it into the studio...

Earl designs were inspired but every aspect had a theme... grille, hood, fender, A pillar all the way to the exhaust ports... and the most inspired sedan that set the theme for decades wasn't an Earl design, it was the 1938 cadillac 60 special by Bill Mitchell.

Harley took a clean, smooth almost Exner or Burig design and threw icing on it. It sold but people got tired of the gingerbread.

And, yes, I miss cadillacs with V or wreath designation and 3 and 4-hole Buicks.

[TC Chris]

As a long-term bald guy, hat are a winter and summer necessity, but the problem is that no hair means the hat gets greasy in a hurry. Or sweaty, or both. I wore one of the flat tweed types for a few years until it couldn't be washed out any more. Now it's baseball caps or brimmed poly/cotton varieties for sailing. Knit caps for winter. I've got a liner for the bike helmet, a stretchy skullcap, for commuting. My brother gave me a cool Stetson many years ago but it's easy to get head grease on the felt so I tend to save it for special occasions. Like Halloween candy-passing.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

You're right of course Walt, '58 and '59 designs were in the pipeline well in advance of 1958, a bad one in so many respects, though not as bad as some later years. But though coincidental, it seems fitting that cars unintentionally did happen to reflect that faltering time and a first glimpse of what we later found out were the limits of US power. It carried into '59 with labor unrest and the shocking steel strike that I remember from discussions around the dinner table, though I was only 9. 1955, '56, '57 yield only pleasant recollections, no doubt the ignorance of the young. Regardless, the Fifties was an amazing time to be alive. Perhaps the years between 1946 to '1963 (Kennedy and the beginnings of Viet Nam) were the best times the US will ever see, and mid-50s Buicks and '57 Mopars will always be those times come to life in metal for me.

[TC Chris]

I think we tend to underestimate the value of the present and remember the best of the past. As others have noted, in my generation we had to learn to duck under our desks in school in the event of nuclear war, and Joe McCarthy was finding Commies under every bed. Now, I am sitting here at my computer, a device unimaginable when I entered public school, or college for that matter (the college had one, a vast thing sitting in its own special room), communicating with people across the country. If I want to know what year Desoto was dropped, or when the Seth Thomas Petite No. 2 clock was sold, I can find out in a few keystrokes. I developed ulcerative colitis a few years back, and after an insurance-mandated trial of the cheap drugs that do not work, they finally allowed the very expensive one that does, and I am in remission. Our cars tend to be boring, but they start instantly, go farther and faster on a gallon of gas, and protect us when bad luck or judgment lead us astray. I can call up just about any music I want. My sister has a cell phone app that will identify any piece of music it hears. My local public radio broadcaster offers two sets of transmitters, one carrying news/talk formats, the other music, both things that were unavailable almost anywhere when I was young. And oh yeah... if I want electronic parts and supplies, a few keystrokes bring them to my door in a couple days. Or if I want a schematic for the '41 GE radio-phono that I just retrieved from the storage unit, a few more keystrokes.... I could go on and on, but let's not overlook our many blessings in today's world.

Chris Campbell