The General Motors Le Sabre is a 1951 concept car. Possibly the most important show car of the 1950s, [1] it introduced aircraft-inspired design elements such as the wrap-around windshield and tail fins, which became common on automotive designs during the second half of the decade.
The Le Sabre was the brainchild of General Motors Art Department head Harley Earl. [2] The design was Earl's attempt to incorporate the look of modern jet fighter aircraft into automotive design.[ citation needed ] As jets replaced prop-driven aircraft in the late 1940s, they symbolized the very latest in design and engineering, and Earl had hoped to carry this concept into automobile design.
The project was a follow-up to Earl's famous 1938 Y-job. Like all his projects, it was built to be roadworthy, and became Earl's personal automobile for two years after finishing its tour of the auto show circuit.[ citation needed ] With a body made of aluminium, magnesium, and fiberglass,[ citation needed ] it was powered by a supercharged 215 cu in (3.5 L) V8 able to run on gasoline (petrol) or methanol (like Indy roadsters of the period did), and had an unusually-placed rear-mounted Buick Dynaflow automatic transmission. [2] This was later changed to a GM Hydramatic. [2] In addition to its jet inspired design, the 1951 Le Sabre also featured numerous advanced features, including a 12-volt electrical system (All American cars of 1951 were 6-volt.), heated seats, electric headlights concealed behind the center oval "jet intake", front bumper dagmars [2] (made famous on 1951-8 Cadillacs), a water sensor to activate the power top, [2] and electric lifting jacks integral to the chassis [2] to aid tire changes. (This idea would be copied decades later by Formula One race teams.)
The Le Sabre was GM's first use of a rear-mounted transmission, which would reappear in the Pontiac Tempest. [2] It was also the first use of an aluminum-block 215 V8 215 cu in (3.5 L), [2] The same displacement would later appear in the Buick Special and Skylark, Oldsmobile Cutlass/F-85 and Jetfire, Pontiac Tempest and LeMans, and ultimately in numerous British marques, including Rover, Land Rover, Range Rover, Triumph, MG, and Morgan.
It was also GM's first use of the Le Sabre name, [2] which would be adopted by Buick for a new line in 1959.
The Le Sabre concept car used a supercharged aluminum 215" V8 that was unique to the Le Sabre and the Buick XP300 concept cars. It was not the same engine later introduced in the early 1960s General Motors compact cars. The 1951 concept car 215" V8 engine had a bore of 3.3" and a stroke of 3.3"; what is known as a square engine bore to stroke ratio. The 1960s Buick and Olds-head equipped 215" V8 had an over-square design with a bore of 3.5" and stroke of 2.8". There are virtually no interchangeability in parts or design between the 1951 concept engines and the 1960s Buick/Olds 215" V8 engines, other than a common displacement. The 1960s Buick V8 engine was based on a new engine architecture that was increased in 1964 to 300" and shared internals with the Buick 225" V6. This engine architecture was the basis for further Buick small block V8s like the 340" and 350", and scaled upward to the big block Buick 400"-430"-455" family that replaced the famous Nailhead Buicks that were the first Buick V8s in 1953.
The concept 215" V8 used a hemispherical combustion chamber design, similar to early Chrysler V8s of the 1950s era. The later 1960s 215" V8 and first offshoot V8s like the 300" iron V8 also had hemispherical shaped combustion chambers. The 1964 300 continued the use of an aluminum head for that one year before switching to cast iron heads in 1965. Thin-wall casting technology and high nickel-content blocks allowed Buick to produce a strong engine block that was typically a hundred pounds or more lighter than the popular small block Chevy V8 and further removed the need to continue with the expensive aluminum castings.
It was the 1963 Buick aluminum 215 design and tooling that was purchased by British Leyland and used in a number of British cars, most notably the triumph TR-8 and the Land Rovers. A stock block 215 Buick ran and almost won the Indianapolis 500, and the Oldsmobile 215 engine blocks formed the basis of the Australian Formula One Repco V8 used by Brabham and won the Formula One Championship in 1966.
The 215" Buick V8 was also used in the very rare Italian-American Gran Turismo Apollo 3500GT in 1962-1963 as well as in the Asardo 3500 GM-S show car.
The Le Sabre is owned by the General Motors Heritage Museum, and still occasionally appears at car shows.
In 1999 the Franklin Mint introduced a 1:24 scale die cast reproduction on the 1951 Le Sabre. It became one of their best-selling automobile miniatures.[ citation needed ] A smaller scale Le Sabre also exists as a Hot Wheels model. Glencoe Models made a 1:72 scale plastic kit. Very simple kit and at rear wrong shape. Berkley Models made a 1:24 scale kit with a body curved balsa wood.
Buick is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American automobile brands and was the company that established General Motors in 1908. Before the establishment of General Motors, GM founder William C. Durant had served as Buick's general manager and major investor. With the demise of Oldsmobile in 2004, Buick became the oldest surviving American carmaker.
The Oldsmobile Cutlass was a series of automobiles produced by General Motors' Oldsmobile division between 1961 and 1999. At its introduction, the Cutlass was Oldsmobile's entry-level model; it began as a unibody compact car, but saw its greatest success as a body-on-frame intermediate. The Cutlass was named after Vought F7U Cutlass, as well as the type of sword, which was common during the Age of Sail.
The Buick Riviera is a personal luxury car that was marketed by Buick from 1963 to 1999, with the exception of the 1994 model year.
LaSalle was an American brand of luxury automobiles manufactured and marketed, as a separate brand, by General Motors' Cadillac division from 1927 through 1940. Alfred P. Sloan, GM's Chairman of the Board, developed the concept for four new GM marques - LaSalle, Marquette, Viking and Pontiac - paired with already established brands to fill price gaps he perceived in the General Motors product portfolio. Sloan created LaSalle as a companion marque for Cadillac. LaSalle automobiles were manufactured by Cadillac, but were priced lower than Cadillac-branded automobiles, were shorter, and were marketed as the second-most prestigious marque in the General Motors portfolio. LaSalles were titled as LaSalles, and not as Cadillacs. Like Cadillac — named after Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac — the LaSalle brand name was based on that of another French explorer, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle.
The Pontiac Bonneville is an automobile built by Pontiac from 1957 until 2005. Bonnevilles were full-sized, with the exception of a brief period of mid-size between 1982 and 1986. The brand was introduced as a limited production performance convertible during the 1957 model year. The Bonneville, and its platform partner, the Grand Ville, are some of the largest Pontiacs ever built; in station wagon body styles they reached just over 230 inches (5.8 m) long, and at 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) and more were also some of the heaviest cars produced at the time.
The Buick Special was an automobile produced by Buick. It was usually Buick's lowest-priced model, starting out as a full-size car in 1936 and returning in 1961 as a mid-size. The Special was built for several decades and was offered as a coupe, sedan and later as a station wagon. When GM modernized their entry level products in the 1960s, the Special introduced the modern Buick V6 that became a core engine for GM for several decades and lived on in upgraded form until 2006.
The Pontiac Tempest is an automobile that was produced by Pontiac from 1960 to 1970, and again from 1987 to 1991.
The Y platform, or Y body, designation has been used twice by the General Motors Corporation to describe a series of vehicles all built on the same basic body and sharing many parts and characteristics. The first was for a group of entry-level compacts including the conventional front-engine compacts built by GM divisions Buick, Oldsmobile and Pontiac from 1961 to 1963. The second, and current, incarnation is used for a high-end rear-wheel drive sports-car platform from the 1970s through the 2000s.
The Rover V8 engine is a compact V8 internal combustion engine with aluminium cylinder block and cylinder heads, originally designed by General Motors and later re-designed and produced by Rover in the United Kingdom. It has been used in a wide range of vehicles from Rover and other manufacturers since its British debut in 1967.
The Buick V6 was an OHV V6 engine developed by the Buick division of General Motors and introduced in 1962. The engine was originally 198 cu in (3.2 L) and was marketed as the Fireball engine. GM continued to develop the and refine the 3.8 L (230 cu in) V6, referred to simply as the 3800, with numerous iterations.
In car tuning culture, an engine swap is the process of removing a car's original engine and replacing it with another. This may be a like-for-like replacement, or to install a non-factory specification engine. Typically, an engine swap is performed for performance, swapping-in a more powerful engine; however, an engine swap may also be performed for maintenance, where older engines may have a shortage of spare parts, and so a modern replacement may be more easily and cheaply maintained.
The Oldsmobile V8, also referred to as the Rocket, is a series of engines that was produced by Oldsmobile from 1949 until 1990. The Rocket, along with the 1949 Cadillac V8, were the first post-war OHV crossflow cylinder head V8 engines produced by General Motors. Like all other GM divisions, Olds continued building its own V8 engine family for decades, adopting the corporate Chevrolet 350 small-block and Cadillac Northstar engine only in the 1990s. All Oldsmobile V8s were manufactured at plants in Lansing, Michigan while the engine block and cylinder heads were cast at Saginaw Metal Casting Operations.
The Buick V8 is a family of V8 engines produced by the Buick division of General Motors between 1953 and 1981. The first version replaced the Buick straight-eight. Displacements vary from 215 cu in (3.5 L) to 455 cu in (7.5 L) for its last big block in 1976. All are naturally aspirated OHV pushrod engines, except for an optional turbocharged version of the short-lived 215 used in the 1962-63 Oldsmobile Jetfire.
The Buick LeSabre is a full-size car made by the division Buick of General Motors from 1959 until 2005. Prior to 1959, this position had been retained by the full-size Buick Special model (1936–58). The "LeSabre", which is French for "the sabre", was Buick's mid-level full-size sedan above the Special but below the Electra during the 1960s then remained in its market position when the Electra was replaced with the Park Avenue. The LeSabre was available as a 2-door convertible, sedan or hardtop, a 4-door sedan or hardtop and station wagon throughout its production.
Repco is an Australian automotive engineering/retailer company. Its name is an abbreviation of Replacement Parts Company and was for many years known for reconditioning engines and for specialised manufacturing, for which it gained a high reputation. It is now best known as a retailer of spare parts and motor accessories.
The Pontiac straight-8 engine is an inline eight-cylinder automobile engine produced by Pontiac from 1933 to 1954. Introduced in the fall of 1932 for the 1933 models, it was Pontiac's most powerful engine at the time and the least expensive eight-cylinder engine built by an American automotive manufacturer. During its 21-year run displacement of the "eight" increased twice as platforms grew. It was superseded by Pontiac's new V8, the 287, in 1955. Engine block and cylinder heads were cast at Saginaw Metal Casting Operations then assembled at Tonawanda Engine before delivery to Pontiac Assembly for installation.
The General Motors H platform is an automobile platform used by subcompact cars from the 1971 to 1980 model years. The first subcompact car design developed by GM, the rear-wheel drive H platform initially underpinned the Chevrolet Vega and its Pontiac Astre counterpart. For 1975, the H platform was expanded from entry-level vehicles to sport compacts, adding the Chevrolet Monza, Buick Skyhawk, Oldsmobile Starfire, and Pontiac Sunbird.
The Buick XP-300 is a concept car created by General Motors in 1951. It is a counterpart to GM's Le Sabre concept, with which it shares many mechanical components, including its supercharged V8 engine, which could run on either gasoline or methanol. The XP-300 is representative of GM's "long and low" design philosophy in the 1950s, and includes numerous innovative features ranging from push-button power windows and seats to hydraulic jacks and de Dion axles.
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