In the Garage: 1940 Buick Roadmaster
THE CAR AND ITS OWNER
1940 Buick Roadmaster convertible sedan owned by Walt Gosden
WHAT MAKES IT INTERESTING
If well-off Americans wanted a 1940 car with understated grace and elegance, they could bypass the flashy Cadillacs or Packards and turn to the mighty Buick Roadmaster. Gosden’s convertible sedan, with its 320-cubic-inch “Fireball” engine and 4,200-lb. heft, marked the second-to-last year for General Motors’ four-door convertibles. While most ‘40 Buicks were available in September 1939, these models only hit showrooms the following March and production lasted just about four months. With their new “torpedo” styling, Gosden says, “the delay was in the tooling-up of body stampings, as these cars were much lower and wider than the other Buick series.”
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As a result, only 235 were built. “The car, when new, did not get promoted much by Buick since it was a mid-year offering,” he adds. “The current desirability is due to the body style, larger engine and lack of survivors. I have been able to track down approximately 16 of the 1940 Roadmaster convertible sedans and perhaps six of these are roadworthy. I didn’t know it was such a low-production body style until after I owned it for a while and tried to find someone else who owned one.” Among the previous owners, he discovered, was the San Francisco chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.
