Vintage Photo of the EARLY GSX in the Buick Press Photo

Keep in mind - those plates were transferable. The didn’t have to stay with a certain vehicle, not unlike manufacture or dealer plates today.

 

Yes. There's no way to know or prove that this is all the same car. It could be several different cars and we will never know for sure.

 

But play the odds, GSX was not a common car and the odds that an Buick engineer would end up with a different GSX with the same plates has to be low. Without some sort of documentation there is no way to be 100% sure but there is a case for it being the same car. Need to find a press photo with the trunk open to see if the hinges are a different color, that has to be unique to an early "engineering" build car.

 

I believe the plate on your last photo is 10M-234.

 

X2. Was able to make out the last three digits with an image contrast/brightness adjustment.

Devon

 

Cleaned up the original pic for you.

 

Thanks Ryan.

I just noticed another thing about the GSX in the vintage photo. There is no jacking instruction label on the bottom of the trunk lid. Giving more evidence that this car was repainted from gold(?) to Saturn Yellow.

 

Not sure if discernable from that angle, but is that an early or late style deck lid?

 

I think that is a late style trunk lid. I can see the edge of 1 hole for the spoiler mounting brackets/bolts.

This is probably one of the last iterations of one of the engineering cars. They had a few of them going and would build a car to see what it looked like, then build another as their designs changed.

Then go back “leap frog” back to one of the earlier cars and alter it to the new designs.

The bi-weekly meeting notes I have, from when they were working on the design, show how the design changed over time, so it is fairly easy to see when a certain car pic fits into the time sequence.

This particular pic shows the vehicle when the design process was fairly complete, with the rear spoiler decal, rocker panel moldings etc.

This was most likely the last design before production started.

Some of the other “design study cars” were turned into other things, like Brad’s Show Car etc……………
Duane

If someone could send me one of the full size files for this car I would appreciate it.

 

Send me your email address in a PM and I'll email you the full-size picture.

 

Is it just me or does that wing look gigantic? Looks like a Cessna wing.

 

it certainly does to me as well!

 

It's just the camera angle. Here is a production GSX for comparison. It looks huge in this photo too.

 

yes it does I agree. Was just about to go in my shop and take a pic at that angle. So thanks don’t have to do that!

 

I think that may be Mr. R.L. Appling's car of the Buick Engineering dept, Flint.
Maybe someone can run that by Denny and see if the name rings a bell.

 

Another person posted some really cool vintage photos of a GSX on Facebook. I thought I’d post them here for those that don’t frequent FB.