1941 BUICK MODEL 50S ARE A SUPER BUY!
There’s a cliché in the old-car hobby about values going up when tops can go down. While that’s not always accurate, it does prove true in many cases, including the continuing desirability of the convertible variants of Buick’s mid-range 1941 lineup. Positioned between entry-level Specials and the more powerful and luxurious Century, Roadmaster, and Limited models, Supers contributed more than 90,000 units to the 374,000-plus Buicks produced that year, when GM’s Flint-based division was the fourth best-seller in America behind Chevrolet, Ford, and Plymouth. In 2024, the 1941 Buick Series 50 Super range represents a fine buy—especially in sedan and coupe forms—but you’ll have to open your wallet further for a soft-top.
Buick was a hot seller in the immediate prewar years, with prices that started within striking range of the low-priced three. The entry-level Special shared its 121-inch wheelbase with the Super, while the Century and Roadmaster series both rode on a 126-inch wheelbase, and the pseudo-Cadillac, limousine-spec Limited stretched 139 inches between the axles. The Super proved a sweet spot in the range with its manageable (yet still amply roomy) size and 248-cu.in. Compound Carbureted Fireball inline-eight making 125 horsepower and a healthy 278 lb-ft of torque.
The most approachable 1941 Series 50 was the two-door Business Coupe that cost $1,031, roughly equivalent to $21,600 in 2024 dollars. Sticking with today’s translation, the two-door Sport Coupe and Four-Door Sedan were priced around $23,350 and $24,870, respectively. Sporty types who relished open-air driving had to set aside $1,267 ($26,600) for a two-door Convertible Coupe, or $1,555 ($32,600) for a four-door Convertible Phaeton like our restored feature car belonging to Michael Stemen (hmn.com/Buick51C).
The enclosed four-door has long been the value buy of the Series 50 range; looking back 20 years, its low retail value was $10,450, $200 less than the more rakish Sport Coupe. You had to spend more than double the average retail value of one of those solid-roof Specials to get into either style of convertible, and the Phaeton cost $4,000 more than its two-door counterpart at the top end of retail. The printed value guides show a lot of movement in the 1941 Buick market in recent decades, and auction results shared by classic.com over the past five years seem to tell a similar story.
With the caveat that only 15 public sales have occurred, the average selling price for a 1941 Super has gone from around $47,000 in August 2019 to $24,500 as of this printing. The three examples that surpassed $40,000 were Convertible Coupes, with the high-water mark represented by a restored, AACA Grand National Prize-winning car that brought $60,500 at the Saratoga Motorcar Auctions in September 2020. Just two 51C Convertible Phaetons have crossed the auction block since the start of this site’s reporting, with one not making reserve and the other having sold for $30,800, back in 2019.