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Touted as "The Beautiful Buy," those three simple words in 1954 helped launch the Flint-based marque into third place in the industry with 9.65 percent of the total market. Only one year removed from their 50th anniversary, Buick's redesign had actually started to take shape four years prior, and several design cues were hinted at with the Buick XP-300 concept car.

Buick made more noise with the reintroduction of the Century. Built on the Special chassis, engineers dumped the larger Roadmaster V-8 under the hood, creating "one of the three fastest American stock cars" according to Floyd Clymer, capable of cruising easily at 100 mph. Four-barrel carburetors were no longer found exclusively on the Roadmaster. Yet through it all, Buick's biggest seller was once again the Special.

Exterior designs look to be similar to the 1953 model year, however that quickly erodes when you start with the grille. Slimmer "teeth", and more of them, grace the continued waterfall design, while new bumper guards take on the bullet design. Turn signals still reside under the headlamps, surrounded by decorative teardrop chrome trim.

The Special line outsold its sister Buicks with a total run of 190,884 units -- not including stripped chassis -- 72,254 more than the second place Super. There were five available variations offered to the buying public, the most popular, Special Riviera second on Buick's 1954 best seller list behind 73,531 Super Riviera Hardtops. The Special Hardtop carried a base price of $2,305, certainly not the cheapest Buick.

9 panels. Comes as a 3x10 on acid free matting.