Buick spent decades using memorable marketing phrases, but its 1960 turbine-drive branding had a surprising explanation.
No, 1960 Buick cars weren’t equipped with gas turbine engines. But the name “Turbine Drive” had a purpose, and the story behind it is worth exploring.
Over the years, Buick has used plenty of memorable words and phrases in its marketing. Names like Fireball 8 and Dynaflash remain part of the brand’s history, along with the famous slogan, “When better automobiles are built, Buick will build them.” And who could forget the question, “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?”
Perhaps the most intriguing wording appeared in 1960, when Buick’s advertising materials described virtually its entire lineup as “Buicks with Turbine Drive.” The company wasn’t suggesting that its cars had gas turbine engines. Its copywriters were referring to the automatic transmission.
By 1959, Buick had moved away from the Dynaflow trade name in favor of Twin Turbine for its GM automatic transmission. Rather than relying on conventional planetary gears to multiply torque during acceleration, the transmission used a torque converter.
The Twin Turbine name referred to the two turbines inside the torque converter, a design introduced in the 1953 Dynaflow transmission. Buick also offered the Flight Pitch Dynaflow in 1958, better known as the Triple Turbine. Persistent problems proved difficult to resolve, however, and production ended in 1959.
In 1960, Buick took the naming strategy a step further, prominently advertising its entire lineup as featuring “Turbine Drive.” The Dynaflow name had become a mixed blessing and was eventually seen as a marketing liability.
For a typical Buick owner who accelerated gently, Dynaflow delivered exceptionally smooth operation, with no noticeable gear changes. Ask for stronger acceleration, though, and the experience could resemble that of a modern continuously variable transmission (CVT), with a perceived disconnect between engine speed and road speed. Combined with generally modest acceleration, this behavior earned the transmission the unflattering nicknames “Dynaslow” and “Dynaslush.” Both became familiar terms among car enthusiasts, almost as recognizable as Dynaflow itself.
That doesn’t mean the Dynaflow, also known as Twin Turbine or Turbine Drive, was a failure. Most Buick owners were perfectly happy with it. The transmission proved reliable across millions of cars, and approximately 99.4% of Buick buyers in 1960 chose the unconventional automatic.
There was a catch, though: the only alternative was a manual transmission. It’s interesting to consider what buyers might have chosen if Buick had offered GM’s more conventional Hydra-Matic automatic alongside Turbine Drive.
For a variety of reasons, Buick sales continued to decline in 1960, falling to just under 254,000 cars. That was roughly one-third of the division’s sales during the landmark 1955 model year, when Buick narrowly missed dropping out of the industry’s top 10 automakers.
The Turbine Drive name appeared across Buick’s lineup for just one year, although the transmission itself continued to carry that designation through 1964. Buick then adopted GM’s corporate Turbo-Hydramatic transmission, marketing it under the name Super Turbine 400.