1957 Buick Century Hardtop Coupe
The 1957 Buick Century featured in this article has a heritage that goes back to the 1930’s. The production run for the earlier Buick Century’s lasted from 1936 to 1942 and was interrupted by the war. These were powerful Buicks being able to reach speeds of over 90 MPH during the late 1930’s.
After the model was dormant for years the name reappeared in dealership showrooms in 1954 as one of General Motor’s performance car offerings. The 1957 Buick Century’s would be noted for sporty design, luxury features and big powerful V-8 engines.
One of the most remembered features of the Buick Century were the portholes on the /side of the front fenders. These were also called ventiports which really were their official name.
The portholes or ventiports would signify the engine. The Buick Century sported four portholes designating the V-8 engine. Four portholes on each side of the car. The portholes were also seen on the Buick Roadmaster models. The meaning of the portholes had to do with emphasizing the power output of the Buick’s big V-8. In regards to those Buick portholes, for those that might remember the old television series from the 1950’s, Highway Patrol, these were the cars you would have seen each week portrayed as California Highway Patrol cars.
Another feature wast rear split window.
Buick advertising for the 1957 model year stressed power. One of their motto’s during that year was “gives you the power to take it easy“. Another motto was “the dream car to drive“. Buick touted that the big V-8 gives you enough power to have some in reserve for those tall hills along with smoothness provided by their Variable Pitch Dynaflow automatic transmission. Dynaflow’s claim to fame was it’s smoothness and instant response time.
Another feature advertised in 1957 was a “buzzer” that would sound when you attained the speed you wanted. They called it a “built in conscience“. This was quite a unique feature in 1957. Today it’s offspring is the automatic speed control.
