Pontiac ad wizard Jim Wangers coined the term "muscle car" to promote the GTO in 1964, but from 1936 through 1942 and 1954 through 1958, Buick, of all GM divisions, sold a "muscular car" they called, "Century". While "Century" might not have had the machismotic ring of "GTO" or "4-4-2", it was in fact quite fast. So fast that Buick called the car, which was Buick's entry level "Special" stuffed with the Roadmaster's engine, "Century" to denote the car's top-speed of over 100-miles-per-hour. Come 1959, when Buick introduced all new models complete with new model names, what had been the Century became known as "Invicta". Our patina-soaked subject here is a '59 Invicta I found for sale on Facebook Marketplace recently. Asking price is $4,500. Well, can't fault the seller for asking that much.
The Buick Invicta used the same formula Buick used with the Century - their largest engine, in this case, the 401-cubic inch engine from their newly named Electra, which had been the Roadmaster, stuffed into the somewhat smaller bodied new LeSabre, that had been the Special. I say somewhat smaller because all Buick's as well as all GM's makes and models through 1959 were built off similarly sized chassis. The biggest difference between them wheelbase length.
Contemporary road tests of the Invicta were mixed. Critics applauded the "push" of the larger engine, its ease of steering thanks to its optional power steering and what they deemed the best brakes in the business. That, if you've ever driven a 1950's automobile, wasn't saying much. They dinged it, however, for being too big, heavy, softly sprung and reading between the tactfully written, advertiser friendly lines, horrible interior ergonomics and packaging. That's a bad ass dashboard, though.
They stayed away, for the most part, as auto scribes usually do, from the most subjective of matters, the car's styling. Above is what our '59 would look like if it didn't have all the surface rust and its interior didn't like wild animals had been using it as a nest for fifty- or sixty-years.
Frankly, my personal jury's out on whether or not 1959 was the high- or low-point for General Motors design. Either way, it seemed things were coming to a fevered, obsessive head what with "planned obsolescence" driving GM design honcho Harley Earl and his team to literally and figuratively reinvent the wheel each model year. Throw in some real motivation like Chrysler's tailfins-to-the-moon, snot-locker-cleaning 1957 models and Mr. Earl's pending retirement and you had the impetus for some of the most outrageous or, depending on your point of view, ridiculous designs in automobile history.
I attribute a personal lack of context for my inability to get my arms around cars from the '50's; I didn't see many growing up in the '70's. Ones I did see looked incredibly old and dated, they were like set pieces in a period TV show or movie. Their driver's instant "B-level" celebrities; they might as well have been time travelers. On some level, my perspective of them as pure and honest as my 26-year-old, quasi-car enthusiastic son's is.
I do like the sweeping, dramatic flair of this car except for this bull-nosed front-end; sorry, Harley, that's just plain awful. For 1960, Buick flattened the hood and aligned the headlights making for a much more handsome car in my humblest of opines. Little else was changed. Big changes came for 1961, though, as Buick and all GM divisions radically redesigned their wares making the 1959 and 1960 models look like three-day old leftovers. Not a bad thing if you weren't a slave to fashion and didn't mind not having the latest and greatest.
Buick sunset the Invicta nameplate after 1963 replacing it with the "Wildcat", which had been an Invicta subseries on 1962 and 1963 Invicta's. The Wildcat had more exclusive sheet metal than the Invicta or Century ever had, although it was fairly obvious it was gussied up LeSabre. Buick replaced the Wildcat in 1971 with the Centurion. After '73, the Centurion and whole notion of a full-size, "performance" Buick was never seen again.
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