GM Design Team Imagines Modern-Day Buick Y-Job
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Introduced in 1938, the Buick Y-Job is considered to be the world’s first concept car. Created by Harley Earl and his design team, the Y-Job embodied the future of the automobile according to General Motors’ head designer, who even used the car for a while as his daily driver.
Now, the current GM Design team just released sketches from one of its artists, named Namwoo, which paid tribute to Earl’s groundbreaking concept car with a modern-day rendition of the Buick Y-Job. Although the most elaborate drawing shows a hardtop-roofed coupe, the artist also toyed with the idea of settling on a convertible design, just like the 1938 Buick concept. The new Y-Job does share a similar aerodynamic, streamlined body, stretching to a massive overall length, enhancing its elegance and imposing presence.
The original Y-Job boasting hidden headlights and flush door handles, which were all innovative features at the time. The new sketch celebrates those traits with blue LED circular rings acting as headlights, while the body is uncluttered and sleek. The car’s greenhouse boasts a slim, split windscreen and very small side windows, squeezed together by a high beltline and a low roofline. Huge wheels are positioned at the very edges of the coupe, supported by wide fenders at the rear, though not as detached from the fuselage as on the 1938 concept.
Since this is purely a design exercise, we have no details to share about what type of powertrain this possible future Y-Job would feature, but we figure GM’s Ultium batteries and Ultium Drive components would fit nicely and give the coupe an even more futuristic demeanor.
As good as this modern-day Buick Y-Job looks, it’s highly unlikely that the brand is mulling the idea of producing such a massive flagship car. Although passenger cars are still offered in the Chinese market and are still pretty popular, Buick’s North American lineup now solely consists of utility vehicles. The new-generation 2021 Buick Envision is the latest addition, the first units having just arrived in the U.S. and which should soon hit dealerships across the country.
GM also recently announced that two Buick EV crossovers would launch by 2025, including a smaller, more dynamic shaped model and a bigger, more utilitarian vehicle. Both will be based on the GM BEV3 electric platform and use Ultium powertrains and batteries.
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Would it be fair to say this would be the latest idea that GM has shared (following several concept cars) of what a contemporary Buick Riviera might look like? Or Is it simply an homage to the Buick Y-Job by a designer who had time to spare?
so he stuck big fat wheels on a 80 year old design. impressive.
Pointless article on napkin sketches that’ll never amount to anything. All buyers are ever going to actually get a chance to buy are silver-hued Chinese and Korean CUVs riding on the same utilitarian EV platform and looking about as exciting as a box of cereal.
I wish this was a possibility. I wish there could be an actual American-made Riviera again with the beautiful proportions of the fourth sketch on the left but we all know that’s not in the cards. GM just teases.
I always enjoyed Ford Design 49 forty niner
Concept. I wish they had made a limited edition run for that car. The buick Y job
Sketches or images lacled that passionate
Gotta have it feeling. Maybe GM can give the more seasoned designers a crack at the process. Just saying
If they do produce it I’d bet it’ll be assembled in China just like most or all buicks that are now sold in the US. I know a lot of auto parts are made in other countries but if Americans don’t start drawing the line somewhere we won’t have any decent jobs left. Wake up people.
IMHO…Looks like something you’d find in a CCS entrance application / portfolio 15 years ago.
Loaded with over-used design cliches and perspectives.
Unfortunately, the CT6 was the last of the wonderful “long dash-to-axle” platforms.
You can’t improve on the original. It was also a product of date and time. Some scribbling does not constitute a new idea, only scribbling.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I mean you can only paint a masterpiece once. A copy is just that, a copy.
Didn’t former GM Designer Steve Pastiener design and build “The Black Hawk” a few years ago. Much better than any of these designs as a continuation of the “Y” job.
Impressive-NOT.
Not sure what to say, we have seen good crowd pulling 2door BUICK Concept that was going to put the brand to the limelight, however they just took some grille design and put it on some of their boring design. For now all I can say is that, “if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Nothing new with gm. Waiting for a company buy-out. Stale and mundane ideas. Fiat will buy Vette. Ford will be subsidized to buy the truck division. Just s prolonged lingering death for a once great company.
I agree with you, you’re just a shadow of their former self, kind of wonder what Ross Perot took to his grave with him that they paid him millions of dollars to keep quiet.
Perot was nothing more than a trouble maker. He knew nothing about the automobile business and nothing more than a foil to Roger Smith.
100% incorrect. I was there and lived through it as an EDS employee on the GM account and now as a GM employee. Ross understood business and how at its core how customer service was everything. When you look back at many of Ross’ quotes from that time they were dead on. If GM had paid more attention then the 2008 bankruptcy would probably never happened.
Here are a few.
We’ve got to nuke the GM system.
Ross Perot
When you get down to the guys who actually have their hands on things, they know what to do.
Ross Perot
I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At GM, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is go hire a consultant on snakes. Then you get a committee on snakes, and then you discuss it for a couple of years. The most likely course of action is — nothing. You figure, the snake hasn’t bitten anybody yet, so you just let him crawl around on the factory floor. We need to build an environment where the first guy who sees the snake kills it.
Ross Perot
At Electronic Data Systems employees were trained from the day they joined the company to spend all day serving the customer, getting results, being the best in the world — not being good bureaucrats.
Ross Perot
At GM the stress is not on getting results — on winning — but on bureaucracy, on conforming to the GM system. You get to the top of General Motors not by doing something, but by not making a mistake.
Ross Perot
One day I made a speech to some senior executives. I said, ”Okay, guys, I’m going to give you the whole code on what’s wrong. You don’t like your customers. You don’t like your dealers. You don’t like the people who make your cars. You don’t like your stockholders. And, to a large extent, you don’t like one another. ”For this company to win, we’re going to have to love our customers.
Ross Perot
The guys on the factory floor are the salt of the earth — not mad-dog, rabid, burn-the-plant-down radicals.
Ross Perot
Sniping at one another — the financial guys vs. the car guys — is terribly destructive.
Ross Perot
I answered every customer complaint about a General Motors car the whole time I was on the GM board. This created great trauma inside GM because there was a department that did that. I tried that department, and all they did was send out form letters.
Ross Perot
When you step on the accelerator, a Cadillac needs to move. Your trunk needs to be big enough to put a thermos jug in. You don’t need oil puddles under any car — and you damn sure don’t need them under a Cadillac.
Ross Perot
One old guy stood up and said, ”Ross, I’ve been a Cadillac dealer for 35 years, and this is the first time anybody has ever given us an opportunity to tell them what is wrong.” I said, ‘’What about the surveys?” He said, ”There are no surveys.”
Ross Perot
Two top managers, who were already rich before the GM merger, refused to accept any shares because they wanted them to go to the younger people who didn’t have any. The General Motors guys went crazy. They said, ”It must be nice to be so rich that you thumb your nose at several million dollars’ worth of stock.” I said, ”No, you’re missing the point. It goes to the troops. That’s what leadership is.” By contrast, the General Motors guys closed the plants, said no profit sharing, and the next day gave themselves a $1 million bonus.
Ross Perot
You should walk around the 25th floor of the General Motors Building in New York. An entire teak forest must have been decimated for that floor — and this is something they use one afternoon a month.
Ross Perot
I was there too. It took forever to get rid of EDS and all the jackasses that worked for it. Biggest mistake was GM getting involved with that bunch. They caused more trouble and threw away more money than they were ever worth.
Again but sorry I’ll have to disagree. EDS pushed automotive IT initiatives at GM ahead at warp speed compared to what had been being done. GM IT processing was integrated within less than 5 years, a project that GMISCA was predicting would take 12+ years. The biggest impediments were the old stuck in the mud GM managers who only knew to dig in their heels and oppose everything. I have been back with GM since 2014, part of that with IT and the other with manufacturing. As Dan Ackerson said when IT was insourced back in 2012 GM should have never spun off EDS in 1996 but instead insourced them then. Not sure what part of GM you were at that time but you sound like you were part of the problem. Lead, Follow or Get out of the way!
And in your mind GM operates exactly the same today as it did in 1984?
No, my point was that people tried to raise the alarm way back 35 years ago and the folks on the 14th floor of the old GM building just would not listen. Are things perfect now? No, but the culture has changed into one of continuous improvement and much more open communication. That was not the case back then.
And the good thing is EDS got out of the way. The good thing about a mistake like EDS is that you can get rid of it .
I’m doubting you were even part of GM at that time. If so what was your function? IT has always been the whipping boy in most companies. That was true in GM long before EDS came along, and sadly it is to some degree still true today almost 9 years after GM insourced all of its IT. One of the many reasons EDS was purchased was the various divisions and teams within GM would not work at all together and had totally incompatible systems that could not even communicate with each other. Again, I was there. You sound just like the kind of stone thrower I had to deal with so much 35 years ago. No answers, just complaints.
So you give somebody millions of dollars that knows nothing, sounds like another typical general motors way of wasting money either you work for them or you own a ton of their stock or you’re still living in the belief that they make great cars.
Didn’t Chrysler do this with the Prowler/ PT cruiser? GM already did this with that convertible pickup I can’t remember the name of?
Buick came close to Harley Earl’s 1938 concept car with the 1971 Buick Riviera. But, it was a design too far out of the normal, boring vehicles of that era, and sales failed miserably.
Sorry but the 71 to 73 Riviera was a good seller and hailed as a styling masterpiece.
I beg to partly differ. My family ran a Buick dealership during the timeframe these were offered for sale. They were a dud. I agree with you that they were a styling masterpiece, but the dealers in the Washington Zone (which we were a part of) could hardly give them away.
Saw tons of them in the Detroit area.
Please just keep doing what you are doing. Start making car designs for the future! Those cars was ugly then and ugly now!
Is this person being paid to do this? Is this all GM has to talk about or maybe they’re worried about the two billion dollars that they lost in the Nicola fraud electric deal, Barra and her other numb non-car predecessors if they’re allowed to will bury this company. How do you invest $2 billion in a company that doesn’t even have a working prototype?
GM didn’t put any money into Nikola.
I would love to see a modern day version of
a 1971 BUICK GS, 1970 Olds 442, a 69 Chevelle SS and a 65 Impala SS .
Absolutely gorgeous That is a must
I’m still waiting for a large body remake of the 63-65 Buick Riviera.
Curious what it would look like.
Let me guess, whatever is it or looks like, everyone hates it???
What do I win?
Great, wash rinse, repeat.