Buick Float 1946

Buick Float 1946 by Autocult

Leadership Mentality  

For the 50th anniversary of the US automotive industry a big party with an impressive parade was held in the automotive stronghold Detroit. On the 1st of July 1946 an opulent parade of the General Motors Group, on a scale nobody has seen before, drove at walking pace through the main streets of the city. The whole parade was a great success and a fine representation of the big US car manufacturers. Marching bands accompanied the floats and vehicles and provided the musical entertainment.   The biggest eye-catcher of the fleet was the unorthodox presentation vehicle of the brand Buick. They fitted the back-then latest Buick front end with a cylindric rear end onto a huge, wheeled platform. Even if the piggy-packed Buick was real, it was not able to drive by itself, not even for a single meter; as it was just a dummy. But it was a dummy with a special connection. The front end of the car bore strong resemblance to a concept vehicle, the so-called Y-Job. The cryptic abbreviation Y-Job was the designation of the first concept vehicle in automotive history, which was designed by the renowned car designer Harley J. Earl in 1939. It was downright riddled with groundbreaking features. Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the Buick concept car featured the first electric windows, but neither these nor the pneumatically actuated pop-up headlamps were implemented on the Buick float in 1946. Instead of pop-up headlamps two standard front lights were fitted. Also the striking, large, chromed front grill was just rudimentarily equivalent to the 1939-version.   Unmistakable was the slogan, which was written in big letters on both sides of the parade float – “When better automobiles are built Buick will build them”.