1941 Buick 40 Special

1941 Buick Special Series 40 Business Coupe Here's a car that means business in any job you give it, roomy enough for three with all sorts of carrying space for packages, sample cases and the like behind the seat. Running boards are concealed under the wide front hinged doors, keeping them always dry and clean. From the 1941 Buick brochure. For consignment, a 1941 Buick Special Series 40 business coupe with 65,840 actual miles. This is a well documented car, spending time stored in South Carolina, the Hudson Valley of New York, receiving new paint and interior work in 1981, driven regularly for a time, then moving to PA in 2024. Exterior In this era many cars had a forward lean, as if pushing towards the wind and this Buick is no different. The B-pillar slants forward seemingly taking the roof with it, and the nose is top proud with headlights that push ahead while marker lights and trim streak rearward, as if in motion. Our red car wears a bold trim spear that rides the long hood and all the way back to the bulbous rear, hovering over the extended fenders and hood vents. Horizontal bars on the grille artfully curve to the shape of the body and do not intersect the headlights, while a strong chrome bumper below and freight train shaped hood ornament dress up the car even more. Color matched 15-inch steel wheels peek out between the hubcap and beauty ring, each wrapped in white wall tires for a proper period look, while rocker trim connects them visually. Imperfections include cracking paint, scuffs, chipping paint, some filler at a door threshold, and from the door jambs back, the red is a shade darker. Interior Faux wood window frames top gray cloth door panels with ribbed details and both are in nice condition with some tape holding on some trim on the driver's side. Beige broadcloth covers the front bench wrapped in more gray cloth of the shell, and the rear seat is configured the same way with some slight patina throughout. A brown steering wheel with epic Buick crest in the center leads to a brown faceplate over vintage gauges with art deco font style on the numbering. Woodgrain hovers over the jukebox-like screen in the center that's flanked with engraved metal buttons for various functions while an ivory detail in the center. The clock in the glove box door shows some age, perhaps more than the light patina on the rest of the dash. Gray carpet lives on the floor and a heater shares space in the footwell. Fully intact is the headliner and windlace and the sizable trunk is all business, barren, and showing a touch of surface rust. Drivetrain A very original looking 248ci inline eight cylinder, labeled Buick Fireball Dynaflash Eight, is under the hood in relative driver quality but clean. It has a 2-barrel carburetor and is mated to a 3-speed manual transmission, on the tree, that sends power to the rear axle and 4.40 gears. Undercarriage The frame was also painted in '81 and has held up well, uniformly black with just a sprinkling of surface rust spots. Some oil on the pans is not unexpected and a touch of flaking rust on an inner rocker panel doesn't shock us either. There is however, some pretty good Swiss cheese on the driver's door bottom. Meanwhile, drum brakes are front and rear, and so are coil springs with a 3 link and a panhard bar out back. A single exhaust flows through a stock style muffler, terminating out back with a decorative deflector. One area of sheet metal next to the gas tank has some encapsulated rust. Drive-Ability A comfortable ride is afforded driver and guests with plenty of interior space, once reserved for business goods. The inline 8 starts without hesitation, idles smoothly, and responds to the throttle when we steer this forward facing Buick towards the test loop. It tracks straight and brakes on demand and functionally speaking, everything works as it should. While Classic Auto Mall represents that these functions were working at the time of our test drive, we c