In 1948, postwar buyers still clamoring for new automobiles continued to bust down doors at Buick’s dealers. The streamlined “torpedo” design originally created in 1942 and only facelifted since, continued to appear very striking and modern. No wonder, then, that Buick made few changes to it, save for the newly optional Dynaflow automatic transmission. The top-of-the-line Roadmaster continued to draw customers, with more than 87,000 buyers motoring home in one of these palatially trimmed vehicles in 1948. Of those, 11,503 were Roadmaster Convertibles, one of America’s most prestigious and comfortable open cars.

The Roadmaster Convertible offered here was formerly owned by the late Michigan collectors Richard and Linda Kughn, well-remembered for their large collection housed, in part, at the famous Carail Museum in Detroit. It is likely in their ownership that the car received its present restoration in Honolulu Blue with red leather and a black top piped in red—overall an especially fetching and striking combination.

When the Kughns began to thin their collection in 2002, the Buick was sold to Charles Cawley of MBNA Bank, himself an avid collector of significant American postwar cars. Not long thereafter, it passed to Brad Hill of California, in whose ownership it was registered as “BLUWICK,” and then to Rufus Aylwin of Beaverton, Oregon, from whom the late Terence E. Adderley acquired the car in early 2015.

Equipped with its original radio, power windows, and power seat, as well as the aforementioned Dynaflow transmission, the Roadmaster exhibits some patina throughout, especially to the leather upholstery, although the engine compartment is very nicely and properly detailed. It would be a wonderful automobile to drive in Antique Automobile Club of America tours or to bring to local events, where its streamlined elan will win many new fans. Few cars better reflect the unbridled optimism of postwar America.