The credit for the technique doesn’t belong to the automotive firmament but instead, to the aviation pioneer Alexander P. de Seversky, who in 1923 figured out a way to refuel one U.S. Army Air Service biplane from another one buzzing alongside, filled to bursting with aviation gasoline. Today, nobody does air-to-air refueling better than the U.S. military. In the world of cars, though, it’s largely an unknown practice, except for three days at the still-new Daytona International Speedway in 1960, when Buick decided on a novel, and nearly forgotten, way of refueling a car at speed.
It was a unique exercise in durability conducted by Buick, which advertised the test as “10,000 Miles in 5,000 Minutes.” It involved a moderately prepared 1960 Buick Invicta hardtop, one of 8,960 produced
