I personally like the 1958 Buick Limited for being so ostentatious. Same goes with 1958 Continental Mark III.

My grandparents usually ordered their Buicks and picked them up in Flint Michigan and drove them back to Pasadena, California. They enjoyed a road trip every few years so my grandmother ordered a white 1958 Limited 2-door with red interior and picked it up at the Buick factory. My grandfather would never ever buy a Cadillac yet thought nothing of buying a top-of-the-line Buick as he thought it wasn’t as ‘showy’. The ‘58 Limited was not exactly understated. 😂

Looking at it 66 years later, that thing looks amazing. I would rock it!

Someone who was at the introductory sales meeting for the 1958 Buicks told me that the speaker declared, " And THIS year we have over 57 pounds of chrome on each new Buick!" The room burst into cheers and applause and everyone jumped to their feet in excitement. Hey, it was the 50's. Guess you had to be there.

"Heavy, pudgy, and doughy." Hey hey, I resemble that remark.

The '58 Limited is gorgeous. Despite being large and heavy, the lines were beautifully worked out. And it didn't have that gaudy side piece that the other Buicks had. You want gaudy? Look at the '58 Lincoln.

My Papa was a custom home builder in East Texas. He bought a black Buick Special for my Grandmother. Somewhere in a box of Kodachrome slides is a pic of me sitting on Grandmother's lap in a Crosley lawn chair. Watching this vid reminds me to find the slide and reform it to a print and frame it.

I saw one in person- looks AMAZING. The 56 cars are very tall and bulky looking. This 58 Buick has a lot of chrome but still looks smooth and stylish. The interior is fantastic (I still like the 58 Edsel Interior more but...)

To put 1958 it in perspective vs the higher sales of 1957: Pontiac went from 334k to 217k for 58 and the styling wasn't all that different year to year. Quick google shows the industry went from 6.1 million down to 4.3 million about 30% overall drop and we know that in general mid-priced brands have a really tough time in recession years. Mercury had about a 60% drop between the years.

1:18

Another rarity that I don't remember ever seeing an example of, or even a picture of. Well done. Those Limited taillights could qualify for the top 40. Man, that interior, wow. After Harley said "more chrome", he must have come back and said "MORE red!". That looks like a sleeper sofa!

The story of Harley Earl having the design studio doodad it all up, reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer designed his dream car.

That design proposal... dear God. I guess that's the good thing about clay models; it's the one time you can let your designers bring their wild ideas to semi-reality so they can see how horrible things translate to 3D before it actually causes damage.

Polishing that chrome will take a

My friend challenged me to find a year in automotive history with worse styling than 1958, for every manufacturer. So I researched it, and he is right. The entire design culture must have been on a collective acid trip for model year 58.

58 is my personal favorite. This was no "mistake". Sales were down on all brands because of a recession.

Those Buicks are stunningly beautiful.

The '57 Buick and Olds were gorgeous, when the '58's were introduced I couldn't believe my eyes. These models especially the Limited have become very collectible, Scandinavians love 'em. The interior of the Limited is on a Cadillac level. Some of the things going on at GM today are even more vexing.

A college friend of mine decided to take off all the chrome pieces (hundreds. . .). He said the car looked like a piece of Swiss cheese.

We wrote one last night outside the mini mart. Morris called it "Stuart Drives A Comfortable Car" and then like in country songs, you know, in parentheses it says "There's Usually Someone in the Trunk." And, and um, I came up with a tune just a hummin'.