Buick Y-Job
The Buick Y-Job, produced by Buick in 1938, was the auto industry's first concept car (a model intended to show new technology or designs but not be mass-produced for sale to consumers). Designed by Harley J. Earl, the car had power-operated hidden headlamps, a "gunsight" hood ornament, electric windows, wraparound bumpers, flush door handles, and prefigured styling cues used by Buick until the 1950s and the vertical waterfall grille design still used by Buick today. It used a Buick Super chassis, indicated by the word "Super" located above the rear license plate.

The car was driven for a number of years by Harley Earl, until he replaced it with a 1951 model car. Sometime after that, the car was restored at the Henry Ford Museum, until 1993 when it was returned to the GM Design Center.

The "Y" in the name has two explanations:
* All experimental cars were called "X", so Earl simply went to the next letter in the alphabet.
* The "Y" designation was selected by Earl because it was used extensively in the aviation industry denoting the most advanced prototypes.

In 2001, Buick recreated the Y-job with modern advancements called the Buick Blackhawk drawing extensively from the Y-job.
Q27415
Buick
ORG
Q850270
concept car
MISC
Q512883
Harley J. Earl
PER
Q1456773
hidden headlamps
Concept
Q1247354
hood ornament
Concept
Q13697
bumpers
Concept
None
Buick Super
UNK
Q3521242
Henry Ford Museum
LOC
Q4986351
Buick Blackhawk
UNK
Q1002953
Buick Y-Job
MISC
1938-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1938
DATE
1950-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1950
DATE
1951-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1951
DATE
1993-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
1993
DATE
2001-01-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
2001
DATE
brand
instance of
designed by