Buick Special Buyer's Guide

Sarah Whitfield here. The Buick Special is one of those cars that rewards the buyer who looks beneath the surface. On the surface, it's a compact-to-intermediate Buick from the early 1960s — pleasant, well-made, and largely forgotten by the mainstream. Beneath the surface, it introduced one of the most historically significant engines in American automotive history: the all-aluminum 215ci V8 that Buick developed for the 1961 model year.

The story of the aluminum 215 is extraordinary. Buick created it, couldn't quite make it work profitably, sold the design to British Leyland, which licensed it to Rover, which put it in the Range Rover in 1970 — where it continues in evolved form today. Meanwhile, Oldsmobile also used a version in the Jetfire with a turbocharger — making the 1962–1963 Olds Jetfire the first American turbocharged production car. The engine is genuinely remarkable, and the Buick Special that houses it deserves far more attention than it receives.

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