page_title: Buick
section_title: Sweepspear
hierarchical_section_title: Buick / Distinguishing features / Sweepspear
caption_attribution_description: 1953 Buick Roadmaster Skylark Series 70 Model 76X 2-door Convertible Coupe. PD, public domain. Photo by John D. Love, 4/26/03, Mountain View, California
context_page_description: Buick is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors. Named for automotive pioneer David Buick, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, 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. Buick was the first production automobile maker in the world to equip its cars with overhead valve engines, which it did in the year 1904.
  For much of its existence in the North American market, Buick has been marketed as a premium automobile brand, selling luxury vehicles positioned above GM's mainstream brands, while below the flagship luxury Cadillac division. In addition to wealthier buyers, Buick has also had a reputation of appealing to older buyers. In North America, Buick vehicles are almost always sold alongside GMC vehicles at joint dealerships, allowing the same dealer to market both upscale cars and trucks.
  In 2017, Buick sold more than 1.4 million vehicles worldwide, a record for the brand. The main market is China, where 80% of Buick-branded automobiles are sold.
context_section_description: Another styling cue from the 1940s through the 1970s was the Sweepspear, a curved trim line running almost the length of the car. Introduced as an option on the 1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera hardtop coupe, the original Sweepspear was a chrome-plated steel rub strip which began level over the front wheel, gently curved down across the front fender and door, dove nearly to the rocker panel just ahead of the rear wheel, then flared up and over the rear wheel before leveling off again into a straight run back to the tail-light. The shape of the feature shows similarities to the Jaguar XK120, with the feature running the length of the car in both examples.
  The "Riviera trim", as it was initially called, was made available on the Roadmaster convertible very late in the '49 model year. It proved so popular that by the 1951 model year it was made a standard feature on all Buicks. During the two-tone color craze of the 1950s, it separated two different color areas.
  In time, the Sweepspear became stainless steel, then a vinyl rub strip or simple character line in the sheetmetal, as hinted in some versions of the Buick Riviera, distinct on the 1968-1969 Skylark, and appearing on the 2008 Invicta concept car. Often optional trim was available to reinforce a plain character line in the bodywork. The feature was re-introduced with the 2nd generation Buick LaCrosse.
caption: Sweepspear on a 1953 Buick Skylark.
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