The Buick Wildcat is a full-size car that was produced by Buick from the 1963 to 1970 model years. Taking its name from a series of 1950s Buick concept cars, the Wildcat replaced the Invicta within the "junior" B-body Buick sedan range. Serving as the higher-performance full-size Buick, the Wildcat was slotted between the LeSabre and the larger C-body Electra.
Following two generations of the model line, the Wildcat was replaced by the Buick Centurion for 1971. With the introduction of the personal luxury Buick Riviera sales of the Wildcat dropped, as Buick full-size lines shifted away from high performance and entirely towards medium-price luxury.
Background
In 1962 the Wildcat was a Buick Invicta subseries, mating the Invicta's longer full-size two-door hardtop Buick body (known as the "sport coupe", body production code 4647 hardtop only) with a high-performance version of the Nailhead V8, known as the "Wildcat 445" for producing of torque. To further distance itself from the Invicta, the Wildcat had Electra 225-like taillights, a bucket seat interior, and a center console with tachometer and transmission shifter. It had a Dynaflow transmission shared by all full-sized Buicks, plus special exterior side trim, vinyl-covered roof (new for 1962), and its own unique emblem: a stylized head of a wild cat, located on each of the C-pillars. However, the Wildcat did share the LeSabre's and Invicta's trio of VentiPorts on the front fenders, a design cue lasting only through the 1963 model year. The listed retail price was $3,927 ($ in dollars )
First generation (1963–1964)
From 1963 to 1970 the Wildcat was its own series, no longer an Invicta subseries. The 1963 model had a large aluminum trim panel on the side, while 1964 models had vertically situated chrome hash-marks on the lower front quarter panel directly behind the front wheel housings and did not have the traditional horizontal VentiPorts like other Buicks. After becoming its own full series in 1963, the Wildcat added a convertible and four-door hardtop sedan to the original two-door hardtop coupe introduced in 1962. In the four-door version, a bench seat was standard but the bucket seat and console interior used in the coupe and convertible were optional. In 1964, a pillared four-door sedan was added to the line and two levels of trim were available - standard and custom, with a mid-line deluxe subseries added for 1965 only. From 1966 to 1969, the base (with trim similar to the 1965 Wildcat deluxe) and custom trims were again the sole options. The Wildcat's wheelbase was in comparison to the top level Electra at . The listed retail price for the Sport Coupe 2-door hardtop was $3,849 ($ in dollars ).
The 401 cubic-inch Wildcat V8 remained the standard engine through 1966. From 1964 to 1966 a larger, 425 cubic-inch, Wildcat V8 was also available, producing either with a factory four-barrel carburetor or with two four-barrel carburetors ("dual quads"). This version also featured finned cast aluminum valve covers with the Buick logo embossed on the top. Also beginning in 1964, a three-speed manual transmission with column shift became standard equipment on all Wildcats, with either the four-speed manual (1963-1965 only) or three-speed automatic Super Turbine 400 transmissions as options. Engine names referred to engine torque output rather than displacement. The "Wildcat 445" was a 401 CID V8 that produced a peak torque rating of , while the "Wildcat 465" was a 425 CID V8 that produced of torque. The "dual quad" version of the Wildcat 465 was dubbed "Super Wildcat".
Second generation (1965–1970)
In 1966 a one-year-only Wildcat "Gran Sport Performance Group" package could be ordered by selecting the "A8/Y48" option. Two engine choices were available. The single carb 425 CID/340 hp V8 was included in the base package price with a dual-carb set-up available at extra cost. Initially, this upgrade remained a dealer-installed carb-intake modification bolted to stock MT-coded engines but eventually these "Super Wildcats" could also be obtained direct from the factory with MZ-coded engines. Rounding out both the base and Super GS packages were dual exhaust, heavy-duty suspension, posi-traction and updated rear quarter-panel "GS" badging in the new, initials-only format employed on all post-1965 Gran Sports. A total of 1,244 Wildcat GSs were built by Buick during the model year. Of those, 242 were convertibles and the rest were hardtops. A mere 22 (consisting of an unknown mix of both body styles) were Super Wildcats.