Buick production facilities have been running for 110 years, but for a short time during World War II, the vehicles the company manufactured looked a little different.
In February of 1942, the last civilian car was produced at a Buick facility before full attention was spent on engineering and producing ammunition, aircraft engines and the M18 tank destroyer known as the Hellcat.
The M18 was designed by Harley Earl, whose team was also responsible for their extensive work on early camouflage paint. The Hellcat logo on the vehicle's front corner and patches worn by its crew were designed by Earl and his staff according to GM.
"The Hellcat was considered the hot rod of World War II," said Bill Gross, a historian who restored an M18 now on display at the Sloan Museum in Flint, Mich. "To give perspective, most German tanks of the day were capable of just 20 mph and even today's M1 Abrams tank is outpaced by the Hellcat."
Once the vehicle was developed, the Hellcat was tested at the General Motors Milford Proving Ground, the same location millions of Buick vehicles were tested before and after it according to GM.
Top speed testing was done on a paved banked oval and ride quality tests were done over specially developed stretches of bumps.
Production of the M18 Hellcat began in min-1943 and ended in 1944. The project was so secretive that a story about a "new" tank destroyer ran in newspapers just a month before production stopped.
"The men and women who developed the Hellcat and assembled them on the Buick line in Flint contributed a great deal to the war effort and to military engineering history," said Gross. "These people were instrumental in bringing such a great conflict to a close and their innovations are still in use today - the M18's suspension remains a common design inspiration for modern military vehicles."
Buick factory workers produced approximately 20,000 powertrains, a half-million cartridge cases, 9.7 million 20-mm shells, and a number of other war goods during WWII according to GM.
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