World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945. As government wartime restrictions lifted, commercial manufacturing picked back up for the first time in about four years. Buick was eager to get people into new cars. One magazine advertisement said, “It’s been nearly four years since our last new Buick was built — it wouldn’t be shooting square now to give you less than our honor-bright best. So, we overhauled our whole factory to advantage it with the latest war-developed machines and processes.”
On display at the Millbrae Machines Motor Show this year was a spectacular baby blue 1949 Buick Super (Series 50) convertible. The first thing I noticed about the car was that the license plate said BLU YAK. I suppose if you say the words “blue yak” in repetition, it starts to sound a bit like Buick.
The most distinguishing feature of many Buicks from the 1940s-50s was their toothy grilles. My grandfather’s 1950 Special had a similar front-end look. Buick was so proud of the grille, in fact, that the company put out a brochure advertising the fact that each bar was individually replaceable. The 1946 models may have had a similar feature.
Some of the Blue Yak’s features included gunsight hood ornament, dual side mirrors, body side molding, wheel skirts, dual exhaust, and wide-whitewall tires. One thing I noticed was the windshield. My research shows that all three Buick models for 1946 (Special, Super, and Roadmaster) would have had a split windshield. There may have been some custom work done on this car to remove the center division bar, alter the metal frame, and source a single piece of glass. Either way, it looked good.
On the inside, the car had ivory leather upholstery, lap belts, clock, radio, and heater.
For model year 1946, the Special and Super were powered by a 248ci Fireball inline-eight (110 horsepower), while the Roadmaster had a 320ci inline-eight (144 horsepower). All 1946 Buicks came from the factory exclusively with a column-shifted three-speed manual transmission; the famous “Dynaflow” automatic did not debut until 1948.
My late grandpa surely would have enjoyed checking out the Blue Yak, so it was a standout car to me at the Millbrae show this year. In fact, it inspired me to ramp up my search for an eventual acquisition of such a car!
By the way, I intentionally scheduled this post for a go-live on the anniversary of my grandpa’s passing, which took place on September 12, 1989. This one’s for you, Gpa!
