When America was plunged headlong into WWII, it was not long before the US government decided that the domestic auto companies needed to swap their manufacturing might from cars to war materials. 1941 was basically the last full year for auto production in the USA before the war and if you wanted a hot car to hit the streets with in that time frame a Buick Roadmaster coupe with a twin carb equipped, 320ci inline eight engine was pretty close to the top of the heap. That’s not just in the performance department either, that’s also in the looks department. This restored ’41 is a living testament to how cool these cars really are.

When we think about the evolution of the automobile in this country and consider that there had only been “cars” for about 30 years before this Buick was designed and built it is pretty amazing. Three decades of evolution from buckboards with little weird engines into swoopy beauties like this is pretty nuts. When you look at the way the interior of this car looks, it’ll blow you away. Even cooler than that is the fact that this is a Buick, a midrange GM car! Buick were part of the aspirational scale that GM had developed under Sloan.

While the nose of this car is good looking, the profile photos are really the most telling. The long nose is dramatic but the shape of the roofline is what really spins our crank. The 1941 Fireball 8 got a compression bump to 7.0:1 and that made the horsepower number 165. The transmission is a three speed manual and it is column shifted of course.

This is just a neat, neat car and one that oozes style and class. It was also one of the hottest stockers on the road in 1941. Pretty cool, right?

eBay Link: This 1941 Buick Roadmaster is a straight eight beauty