In 1903, some 117 years ago, David Dunbar Buick formed the Buick Motor Company, and later, it was Buick that founded General Motors in 1908. Today, Buick is a subdivision of the very company is founded, and its main market is China.
It’s still a premium segment brand, positioned below GM’s Cadillac but staying above the likes of Chevrolet and the others, and it remembered for its cool cars like the stellar Buick Regal Grand National and GNX, and other nameplates like the Riviera, Roadmaster, and more recently the Enclave and the Encore.
But when we speak of Buick and all its greats, we have to mention the Buick Wildcat, and more importantly, the 1966 Buick Wildcat which is emerging as quite the collector’s item in recent times.
What was so special about the 1966 Wildcat for it to be valued and vaunted, and what its history? And in case you really do want one, we dug up some facts for you about it, for you to know your Wildcat in all its forms.
10 The First Muscle Car From Buick
Buick was not really known for muscle or even sporty cars. It was known for making luxury sedans, priced and positioned below all that Cadillac made, but above the other GM marques like Chevrolet and Pontiac.
While Buick had powered up its cars with V8s before, this was the first time a car of Buick could be called a muscle car. Especially in 1966 when the Buick Wildcat was made available in a single-year-model performance package. The real deal, wrapped in Buick plush.
9 Powered By The Buick ‘Nailhead’
The Buick V8 was also known as the Nailhead and debuted way back in 1953 in a 4.3-liter displacement. By the time it reached the insides of the 1966 Wildcat, it was now in its largest displacement ever, 7.0-liters.
The engine was the Nailhead because the way its valves were aligned made them look like nails with their long stems and small heads. Both the valves were on the side where the intake manifold was and looked nailed-in.
8 The Name Came From A Concept Car
The Buick Wildcat debuted in 1962 but the nameplate, Wildcat was way older. In the early 1950s, three separate concept cars were made by Buick under Harley Earl. They were the 1953 Wildcat I, 1954 Wildcat II, and the 1955 Wildcat III, with the first and the second still in existence today.
Later, there was another concept car made in 1985 also called the Wildcat, this one bearing a V6. In 1997 Buick also made the Riviera Wildcat concept car with carbon fiber interiors and black chrome exteriors.
7 And Yet, It Remained Obscure
This was 1966. The Ford Mustang wave was strong, almost like a Tsunami. Plenty of other muscle cars had also come to the scene as competition, like the Pontiac GTO, Chevrolet Chevelle SS, and Impala SS, Shelby Cobra, Plymouth Barracuda, and others.
While the Buick Wildcat did exist as a muscle car, especially for the 1966 model, along with the Skylark, the others were way more popular. Perhaps Buick was never really known to be able to jet out an aggressive, no-frill car, or perhaps, the others were cheaper.
6 The Move To The Electra Platform
When Buick Wildcat arrived in 1962, it was a subseries of the Buick Invicta made by putting in the 325-horsepower V8 into the sports coupe body. By 1963, it was a standalone nameplate and soon added a convertible and hardtop version as well.
In 1965, the Wildcat moved out of the LeSabre platform of the Invicta and took on the 126-inch wheelbase of the Buick Electra, stepping out any other nameplate’s shadow and achieving its true form and self and readying itself for the 1966 awesomeness.
5 That Special Gran Sport Performance
The coolest thing about the 1966 Buick wildcat was the 1966-only Gran Sport Performance Group package, as in the Wildcat GS or Gran Sport. The base engine in it was a single-barrel carburetor-supported 7.0-liter V8 that jetted an easy 340 horses.
Torque was a whipping 465 ft-lb, and the car came mated to a standard three-speed manual transmission which could be upgraded to a four-speed manual or automatic as well for even smoother performance. This made it a performance muscle car.
4 There Was Also The Super Wildcat
If you wanted to take your performance game even higher, you could set up a dual-barrel carburetor and take the horsepower to 360 or even higher. Of course, if you wanted after-market modifications, the sky was the limit, or then again, maybe not.
The dual-barrel carb engine was first offered as a dealer-installed option but later you could order one from the factory itself, a premium cost as well, and it also came with a beefier suspension and more performance-oriented parts.
3 Numbers Were Rather Limited
A total of 26,054 Wildcat hardtop and convertible coupes were made and sold in 1966 which means that these were not cars made in great numbers. When it came to Gran Sport, only 1,244 were made, making these even rarer, especially since only 242 of Gran Sports were convertibles.
As if these numbers were not rare enough, they were further trimmed down to double digits with only 22 Super Wildcats ever made. You’d expect any one of these to carry a premium on the classic car bazaar.
2 Price Can Be Steep But Not Astronomical
Surprisingly, the market of the Buick Wildcats hasn’t quite exploded yet, and they can still be had for prices as low as $10,000-20,000. For instance, one Super Wildcat convertible sold at the Saratoga Auction for just $29,300, that too on a quad-barrel engine.
Hagerty further listed the average price to be $8,100 for a 1966-Wildcat, which goes to prove that the Wildcat, for all its gorgeous lines and strong engine, is more or less an undervalued classic. This is good to know if you’re in the market to buy one.
1 Most Comfortable Buick Ever!
Tom McCahill, the rather acclaimed writer from Mechanix Illustrated decided to do a 20th anniversary special of his very frank, if brutal reviews in 1996, he decided to it with a 1966 Buick Wildcat Gran Sport hardtop.
According to the report, it ran 0-60 mph in 7.4 seconds and did 125 mph top speeds. But what he said about the Wildcat was even more spectacular, in that it was the “most comfortable and best Buick” he had ever driven. Enough said.
Sources: autoevolution, SaratogaAutoAuction