Buick Roadmaster Fastback 1942

The 1942 model year was a low-production affair in the United States because the government ordered building of automobiles to halt early in 1942 following the country's entry into World War 2 in December 1941.  Therefore, there aren't very many 1942 American cars around today.

Fortunately, one survivor of an especially interesting type was auctioned by Mecum in 2019, and there are many photos of it available.  It is a Buick Roadmaster Sedanet 2-door fastback.  Only 2,475 1942 Roadmaster C-body Sedanets were made, plus 3,000 Roadmaster and Super Convertible Coupes with the same exclusive fenderline.

Those senior-level Buicks were built on General Motors' new for 1942 C-body that I wrote about here.

Fastback designs were becoming popular in those days because they gave cars a streamlined appearance, and streamlining was expected to be the future of automobile styling.  As it happened, car body shapes became dictated by wind tunnel testing more than 30 years later after the US government imposed fuel economy restrictions.  Classical 1940s fastback styling faded by the early 1950s due to lack of luggage space compared to cars with bustleback trunks.

As hinted above, an interesting styling feature of the Roadmaster Sedanets and Convertible Coupes was the fenderline.  The front fender extended aft until it touched the rear fender.  This was a forecast of near-future fender design by most American carmakers.  All other 1942 Buicks had front fenders that extended only partway across front doors like other GM cars.  Front fenders from most other American carmakers did not extend beyond the front door's forward cutline.  Therefore, this post's subject car was indeed futuristic in its day.

Gallery

The frontal design doesn't seem to match the more dramatic rest of the car.

The roof curve is not as sleek as found in Buick's 1949 fastback redesign, but the trunk carrying capacity here might have been a bit greater.

The rear seems rather heavy from this perspective.

There is a semi- boat-tail shape to the trunk lid area.  The taillight assemblies might have looked better had the round elements been placed towards the body edges.  The setup here has a cross-eyed look.

Those bold, horizontal stripes were eliminated for the next model year: 1946.

Use of rear wheel opening spats was necessary, creating continuation sculpting on the rear fender.

Only a kid in a gas station performing a lubrication job would see this car in something like this way.

Model year 1942 was the first for many years that Buick grilles featured vertical bars.  Buick added vertical bars in the grille for 1939, but that was abandoned for 1940 and 1941 and then brought back for 1942.  The flat bar surfaces create a somewhat weak appearance. Headlight placement at the fender edges rather than closer to the center was GM playing catchup with competitors' designs.