The
Buick Wildcat was a full-size automobile produced by the
BuickBuick is a marque of automobile sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Israel by General Motors Company...
Division of
General MotorsGeneral Motors Company, often known as simply GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. GM was the world's 18th largest corporate entity and third largest automaker as ranked by 2008 revenues on the Fortune Global 500. Ranked by global unit sales for 2008, it...
from 1962 to 1970. For its first year, the Wildcat was a 'sub-model' within the
Buick InvictaThe Buick Invicta was a full-sized automobile produced by General Motors' Buick Motor Division from 1959 to 1963. The Invicta was a continuation of the Buick Century concept that mated the standard size Buick LeSabre body with Buick's larger 401 in³ Nailhead V8 engine, yielding what was referred...
series, mating the smaller full-size two-door
hardtopA hardtop is a term for a rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof. It has been used in several contexts: detachable hardtops, retractable hardtop roofs, and the so-called pillarless hardtop body style.-Detachable hardtops:...
Buick body (known as the "sport coupe," body production code 4647) with a high-performance version of the 401ci Nailhead V8, known as the Wildcat 445 for producing of
torqueTorque, also called moment or moment of force , is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
.
The
Buick Wildcat was a full-size automobile produced by the
BuickBuick is a marque of automobile sold in the United States, Canada, Mexico, China, Taiwan, Qatar, Kuwait, and Israel by General Motors Company...
Division of
General MotorsGeneral Motors Company, often known as simply GM, is a United States based automaker with headquarters in Detroit, Michigan. GM was the world's 18th largest corporate entity and third largest automaker as ranked by 2008 revenues on the Fortune Global 500. Ranked by global unit sales for 2008, it...
from 1962 to 1970. For its first year, the Wildcat was a 'sub-model' within the
Buick InvictaThe Buick Invicta was a full-sized automobile produced by General Motors' Buick Motor Division from 1959 to 1963. The Invicta was a continuation of the Buick Century concept that mated the standard size Buick LeSabre body with Buick's larger 401 in³ Nailhead V8 engine, yielding what was referred...
series, mating the smaller full-size two-door
hardtopA hardtop is a term for a rigid, rather than canvas, automobile roof. It has been used in several contexts: detachable hardtops, retractable hardtop roofs, and the so-called pillarless hardtop body style.-Detachable hardtops:...
Buick body (known as the "sport coupe," body production code 4647) with a high-performance version of the 401ci Nailhead V8, known as the Wildcat 445 for producing of
torqueTorque, also called moment or moment of force , is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
. To further distance itself from the Invicta, the Wildcat also included a bucket seat interior, a center console with tachometer and transmission shifter (TurbineDrive
automaticAn automatic transmission is an automobile gearbox that can change gear ratios automatically as the vehicle moves, freeing the driver from having to shift gears manually...
), special exterior side trim, vinyl-covered roof, and its own unique emblem: a stylized head of a wild cat, located on each of the C-pillars. However, the Wildcat did share the LeSabre's and Invicta's trio of portholes on the front fenders, a design cue lasting only through the 1963 model year.
From 1963 to 1970 the
Wildcat was its own series, no longer a subseries of the Invicta. Wildcats built starting in the 1964 model year did not have the traditional portholes, but instead had chrome hash-marks on the lower front quarter panel immediately behind the front wheel housings. Upon becoming its own full series in 1963, the Wildcat added a convertible and four-door hardtop sedan to the original two-door hardtop coupe introduced the previous year. In the four-door version, a bench seat was standard but the bucket seat and console interior used in the coupe and convertible were optional. For 1964, a pillared four-door sedan was added to the line and two levels of trim were available - standard and Custom, with a mid-line Deluxe subseries added for 1965 only. From 1966 to 1969, the base (with trim similar to the '65 Wildcat Deluxe) and Custom trims were again the sole options.
The 401 cubic-inch Wildcat V8 remained the standard engine through 1966. From 1964 to 1966 a larger 425 cubic-inch Wildcat V8 was also available, producing either with a factory four-barrel carburetor or with "dual quads" (two four-barrel carburetors). Also beginning in 1964, a three-speed
manual transmissionA manual transmission, or manual gearbox is a type of transmission used in motor vehicle applications...
with column shift became standard equipment on all Wildcats, with either the four-speed manual (1963-65 only) or three-speed automatic Super Turbine 400 transmissions as options. Interestingly, engine names referred to engine torque output rather than engine displacement. The "Wildcat 445" was a 401 CID V8 that produced a peak torque rating of , while the "Wildcat 465" was a 425 CID V8 that produced of torque. The "dual quad" version of the Wildcat 465 was dubbed "Super Wildcat."
In 1966 a one-year-only Wildcat "Gran Sport Performance Group" package could be ordered by selecting the "A8/Y48" option. Two engine choices were available. The single carb 425 CID/340 hp V8 was included in the base package price but a dual-carb set-up was also available at extra cost. Initially, this upgrade remained a dealer installed carb/intake modification bolted to stock MT-coded engines but eventually these "Super Wildcats" could also be obtained direct from the factory with MZ-coded engines. Rounding out both the base and Super GS packages were dual exhaust, heavy-duty suspension, posi-traction and updated rear quarter-panel "GS" badging in the new, initials-only format employed on all post-1965 Gran Sports. A total of 1244 Wildcat GS's were built by Buick during the model year. Of those 242 were convertibles and the rest were hardtops. A mere 22 (consisting of an unknown mix of both body styles) earned Super Wildcat decals.
The year 1967 brought an all new engine to the Wildcat line (along with the Riviera and Electra 225) - a 430 cubic inch V8 with four-barrel carburetor and rating that featured larger valves for better breathing than the previous 401/425 nailhead design that dated back to Buick's first V8 in 1953. The 430 was relatively short-lived as it was only offered through the 1969 model year. For 1970, the 430 was superseded by the largest Buick V8 engine ever - a 455 cubic-inch engine that was basically a bored and stroked version of the previous engine with the same large valve design and a horsepower rating of 370, and torque rating of more than 500 pounds.
The Wildcat, offered only in Custom trim for the final year of 1970, line was superseded by the
Buick CenturionThe Buick Centurion was sold by the Buick division of General Motors from 1971 through 1973, replacing the Buick Wildcat as the sporty rendition of Buick's full-size car. The name Centurion was a play on another Buick name, the 1937-1958 Buick Century....
in 1971.
Wildcat concept cars
Buick has used the name
Wildcat for five concept vehicles, three in the early 1950s, one in 1985 and another in 1997. The 1953 Wildcat I, 1954 Wildcat II and 1955 Wildcat III were all designed under the guidance of
Harley EarlHarley J. Earl was an automotive stylist and engineer and industrial designer. He is most famous for his time at General Motors from 1927 until 1959, where he was the first Vice President of Design...
. The I and II still exist today.
The 1985 Wildcat was a radical mid-engined, all-wheel-drive sports car with an exposed high-performance, double-overhead cam V6. The chassis was built of carbon-fiber and vinyl-ester resin and the body featured a
'lift-up' canopyA vehicle canopy is a rarely used type of door for cars. It has no official name so it is also known as an articulated canopy, bubble canopy, cockpit canopy, canopy door, or simply a canopy. A canopy is a type of door which sits on top of a car and lifts up in some way, to provide access for...
for entry/exit. This futuristic vehicle is still owned by Buick today, and is still operational.
In 1997, Buick made a Riviera Wildcat concept car. This car had carbon fiber instead of woodgrain trim inside and black chrome outside and its engine was modified.