1955 buick century two door h.t.

[buickdealer41]

My 1955 Century has a three-speed manual transmission, the paint code on the plate on the passenger side of the firewall says: PAINT No. AAA-1 My questions are: (1) what does the paint code mean ( the original color seems to be GULF TURQUOISE 55-19. (2) how many Centurys were built with a three-speed manual transmission. The BODY No is: bw 6211
bw 6211

[telriv]

A '55 Century 3spd. is a pretty rare & for the day a FAST car. '55 Buick's were the 0-60 & 1/4 mile KING's in '55. Just be careful shifting the trans. between 1st. & 2nd. TOO fast. Because of the design they will hang-up between 1st. & 2nd. & then things start to break. Things were hard enough to find back in the day when I had my '55 Special in which I installed a rebuilt '59/401 with the heavy duty 6 bolt top cover trans. I would even hate to think how hard it would be to find parts today.
In '55 FireBall Roberts drove a '55 Century stick to a win in Daytona by over 3 laps over the much favored Chrysler's. He was disqualified because of a "polished" pushrod tip. Mopar had spent SOOOO much money & were the favorites & they had to find something to dis-qualify the Buick.
Do a search on FireBall Robert's. Very interesting.


Tom T.

[Buford26]

AAA = Carlsbad Black upper, center, and lower (i.e., solid black)
-1 = optional Cherokee Red wheels

In 1955 the paint code consisted of three letters:

http://www.teambuick.com/reference/years/55/55paint.php

[buickdealer41]

A '55 Century 3spd. is a pretty rare & for the day a FAST car. '55 Buick's were the 0-60 & 1/4 mile KING's in '55. Just be careful shifting the trans. between 1st. & 2nd. TOO fast. Because of the design they will hang-up between 1st. & 2nd. & then things start to break. Things were hard enough to find back in the day when I had my '55 Special in which I installed a rebuilt '59/401 with the heavy duty 6 bolt top cover trans. I would even hate to think how hard it would be to find parts today.
In '55 FireBall Roberts drove a '55 Century stick to a win in Daytona by over 3 laps over the much favored Chrysler's. He was disqualified because of a "polished" pushrod tip. Mopar had spent SOOOO much money & were the favorites & they had to find something to dis-qualify the Buick.
Do a search on FireBall Robert's. Very interesting.

Tom: thanks for your reply and information, I plan to make my '55 a recreation of FIREBALL ROBERTS car that he drove in the '55 Daytona race-white with a blue top and lettered the same.
you may already know,but if you goggle " 1955 Darlington Southern 500 race" there is a great 25 min video of the race with great photos of FIREBALL'S car--Jerry Hodge-Twin City Buick
Alcoa, Tenn 865-980-2222
Tom T.

Tom: thanks for your reply--see above

[telriv]

Very interesting. Viewing the video it looks like there may have been about 6 '55 Buicks entered in the race. SSSOOOO CCCOOOOLLLLL!!!!!!


Tom T.

[bob k. mando]

you should be able to link directly too the video on the board:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3h0tIcvURk