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Originally Posted by consoleguy67
The 215 aluminum Buick motor was a V-6. Buick did have a 300 V-8.
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I believe you are mistaken.
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Buick Special and Oldsmobile F-85 for all three years shared an aluminum block 215 cubic-inch V8 engine featuring cast-iron liners to prevent overheating and block warpage problems common with aluminum block engines. Although Buick and Olds shared the same basic engine design, both divisions used different cylinder heads, camshafts, carburetors and compression ratios. The 215 V8 was also available on the Pontiac Tempest for 1961 and 1962 and used the Buick version, but very few Tempests were so-equipped.
For 1962, Buick introduced a new 198 cubic-inch V6 engine for the lower-line Special models in order to allow for a lower base price. That V6 shared many parts and dimensions with the aluminum V8 engine but featured a cast iron block.
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From here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_Y_platform
I read a fascinating article on a car site (wish I could find it) a few months back on the engines of GM's 60's 'Senior Compacts'. That explained the history of that engine well...In that block's original form it was an aluminum V8 that was shared (with tweaks) between divisions of GM...There were casting issues with the aluminum that resulted in reliability issues. An engineer at Buick told his boss that he could saw off two cylinders from the V8, switch to a normal cast iron block, do a few other changes and make a V6 that would be better than the V8 it was derived from. After GM was done with it Jeep bought it and used it (due to it's power and reliability), Buick later bought it back from AMC/Jeep in the 70's and kept improved versions in production through the opening years of the millennium.
The aluminum V8 was popular with speedboaters and when Land Rover representatives were in the states they got interested in the engine and bought the rights to it, and used it for a long time.