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Junkyard Gem: 1956 Buick Special 4-Door Sedan

Buick was flying high in the middle 1950s, with an all-time sales record of nearly 800,000 cars sold for the 1955 model year alone. Buick stood proud in third place for new-car sales in the United States for 1955 and 1956, behind only Chevrolet and Ford. At this time, both Oldsmobile and Buick built cars on the GM B Platform, with the Buick being the swankier and more prestigious of the two. Here's one of those Buicks, found in a Denver self-service boneyard recently. The list price of this car was $2,416, or about $27,505 in 2023 dollars. Located one step down on the GM Ladder of Success, the 1956 Olds 88 sedan started at $2,226 ($25,342 now). The Oldsmobile had a 324-cubic-inch (5.3-liter) Rocket V8 rated at 230 horsepower, which was serious stuff for 1956. This 322-cubic-inch Buick Nailhead V8 made ten fewer horses for 1956, but it would be bored and stroked out to 364 cubes for 1957 (and was all about land-yacht torque, in any case). A three-on-the-tree manual transmission was standard equipment on the 1956 Buick Special, but this one has the $204 Dynaflow automatic transmission ($2,332 in today's money). The Dynaflow usually gets called a two-speed, but it drove like more of a very inefficient (yet smooth) CVT that had two manually-selected ranges. This car spent too many decades outdoors to have any chance of a restoration. As often happens with cars stored in fields in rural Colorado, someone used this Buick for target practice. The bullet holes look like little VentiPorts. Does the '56 Buick go? Va-va-va-voom!

GM China President says automaker could export vehicles from China to US

At a press conference on Saturday at the Shanghai Motor Show, General Motors announced plans to further expand its presence in the Chinese market. Among those commitments are plans to build four new plants by the end of 2015, giving the automaker the capacity to produce around five million vehicles a year in the country.
In order to make the most of that expansion, GM is adding 400 dealerships in China this year alone (for a total of 4,200 sales points), and it's eyeing 5,100 dealers by 2015. Yet not all of that production will stay in China - GM is planning to increase exports as well. Officials estimate the company will export somewhere between 100,000 and 130,000 Chinese-built vehicles this year - a record. And it's gunning for more.
Autoblog asked GM China president Bob Socia (above) if that means the company might eventually export new vehicles built in China to the United States, and he responded:

2017 Buick LaCrosse priced at $32,990

Buick has announced the starting price for its totally redesigned LaCrosse sedan, and it's looking competitive. According to the company's consumer website, the base trim will start at $32,990, while the vehicle featured on the page is helpfully listed as "As Shown: $45,560." Buick is being coy about the standard equipment list, but we do know a few traditionally higher-end options will be free of charge, including an eight-inch touchscreen that's compatible with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, and HID headlamps. General Motors' 4G LTE wifi is a no-cost feature (although you'll need to shell out for a data plan, eventually). The optional extras list, which will include goodies like adaptive cruise control, hasn't been published yet. Underhood, all LaCrosse models will get eight-speed automatic transmissions paired with 305-horsepower, 3.6-liter V6 engines. The new powertrain, plucked from the Cadillac XT5, has stop-start and cylinder deactivation as standard to save fuel, although it's still too early to predict where the LaCrosse will fall on the EPA scale. Front-wheel drive is standard, but all-wheel drive will be available for a unknown premium. Buick says the sedan's reasonable starting price backs the company's "position of attainable luxury." And that's true. At $32,990 the LaCrosse is $560 less than the $33,550 base Toyota Avalon, $355 less than the $33,345 Nissan Maxima S, and $850 less than the $33,840 Kia Cadenza. Only the antiquated Ford Taurus, at $27,985, can undercut it. On the opposite end, the LaCrosse is $6,945 less than a front-drive Lincoln MKS and $6,060 less than a Lexus ES. Starting prices are useful tools for comparison but they only go so far – we'll have to wait until next month, when full details are released, to see how truly reasonable the LaCrosse's price is.