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Buick V6 engine

V6 engine used by General Motors

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ4986361
Source-derived summary

The Buick V6 is an OHV V6 engine developed by the Buick division of General Motors and first introduced in 1962. The engine was originally 198 cu in (3.2 L) and was marketed as the Fireball engine. GM continued to develop and refine the 231 cu in (3.8 L) V6, eventually and commonly referred to simply as the 3800, through numerous iterations.

The 3800 made the Ward's 10 Best Engines of the 20th Century list and made Ward's yearly 10 Best list numerous times. It is one of the most-manufactured engines in automotive history, with over 25 million produced.

The engine originally derived from Buick's 215 cu in (3.5 L) aluminium V8 family, which also went on to become the Rover V8, manufactured from 1960–2006.

Overview

The 3800's block is cast iron and all variants use iron, two-valve-per-cylinder OHV heads. The engine, originally designed and manufactured in the United States, was also produced in later versions in Australia. It was the first six-cylinder engine designed exclusively for Buick products since the Buick straight-six was discontinued in 1930.

In 1967, GM sold the design to Kaiser-Jeep since they no longer felt the need to produce a V6, considered an unusual engine configuration in North America at the time.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Buick V6 engine” as v6 engine used by General Motors. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Buick, engine and used.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1962, 1960, 2006, 1930—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Buick, engine and used providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Buick V6 engine”, the useful work is to connect “v6 engine used by General Motors” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4986361. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1962, 1960, 2006 and 1930.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Buick V6 engine primary sources, Buick V6 engine archive and Buick research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Buick V6 engine” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.