(first posted 5/11/2018) Back in 1966, General Motors was riding high, and one of the drivers of that success was the effectiveness of the corporation’s upmarket brands like Buick, which was able to charge premium prices while maintaining strong volumes. Perched at the top of Buick’s range was the Electra 225, a series that whispered “money” and was a “quieter” luxury alternative to the flashier Cadillac. Like the car itself, marketing and press coverage was understated and on-target.
Print advertising for the Electra 225, found in publications like National Geographic and The New Yorker, was very clear in defining the aspirational attributes that would appeal to the well-heeled target audience. The tonality was smart, ambitious and confident as befitting an upscale brand. It’s certainly a far cry from the cloyingly awful Buick advertising of more recent years, with the shrill cries of “That’s not a Buick!” managing to simultaneously insult existing owners while failing to offer a compelling reason for new prospects to choose a Buick—after all, who would want a vehicle from a maker that was embarrassed by its own brand?
But there were no such worries in 1966: Buick was firmly entrenched as a desirable choice, and Electra 225 marketing centered on getting customers to move up to Flint’s finest (or reaffirming their intelligence for already owning one). The car was pitched as being substantial, balanced and a smart value—praise which was echoed by the limited coverage the car received in the automotive press.
Say what you will about Motor Trend being a shill for Detroit, but the editors found the Electra 225 to be a compelling choice, and their praise was likely well in-tune with the sentiments of many luxury segment buyers in 1966.
There was nothing earth-shattering in the test results. The Electra 225 simply excelled at the sort of quiet, smooth, predictable performance befitting a substantial big sedan, with roominess and comfort galore. Motor Trend’s test car listed for $5,581.52 ($43,976 adjusted), which represented pretty good value for a luxury liner. A comparably equipped hardtop Sedan DeVille from Cadillac would have been priced at $6,566 ($51,732 adjusted). So by foregoing the flashy, “look-at-me I’m rich!” appeal of the Cadillac, the savvy Electra buyer was able to get a functionally similar car for $985 ($7,761) less.
| American Luxury Car | 1966 Sales | Luxury Share |
| Cadillac DeVille | 142,190 | 20.9% |
| Buick Electra | 90,370 | 13.3% |
| Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight | 88,119 | 12.9% |
| Ford Thunderbird | 69,176 | 10.2% |
| Lincoln Continental | 54,755 | 8.0% |
| Chrysler New Yorker | 47,759 | 7.0% |
| Buick Riviera | 45,348 | 6.7% |
| Oldsmobile Toronado | 40,936 | 6.0% |
| Mercury Park Lane | 38,800 | 5.7% |
| Cadillac Calais | 28,680 | 4.2% |
| Cadillac Fleetwood/Eldorado | 21,325 | 3.1% |
| Chrysler Imperial | 13,742 | 2.0% |
| Total 1966 American Luxury Car | 681,200 | 100.0% |
It was indeed a winning formula, as the Electra 225 (along with the C-Body cousin Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight) proved to be highly popular for 1966, while King Cadillac still remained at the top of the U.S. luxury car heap with the popular DeVille series. In fact, GM’s C-Body cars took home over 50% of the U.S. luxury car market. Add in the E-Body Buick Riviera and Oldsmobile Toronado, and GM earned 67% of the highly profitable segment. Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corporation weren’t even close with their luxury products.
| Full-sized Buick | LeSabre | LeSabre Custom | Wildcat | Wildcat Custom | Electra 225 | Electra 225 Custom |
| 2-Door Hardtop | 13,843 | 18,830 | 9,774 | 10,800 | 4,882 | 10,119 |
| 4-Door Sedan | 39,146 | 25,932 | 14,389 | – | 11,692 | 9,368 |
| 4-Door Hardtop | 17,740 | 26,914 | 15,081 | 13,060 | 10,792 | 34,149 |
| 2-Door Convertible | – | 4,994 | 2,690 | 2,790 | – | 9,368 |
| Total 1966 Sales | 70,729 | 76,670 | 41,934 | 26,650 | 27,366 | 63,004 |
Even within the full-sized Buick line-up, the Electra did well. In fact, the Electra 225 Custom Hardtop Sedan was the second best-selling big Buick, trailing the value-priced LeSabre Sedan by 4,997 units. And the price differential was substantial, with the Electra Custom selling for $1,251 more ($9,856 adjusted) than the more basic LeSabre sedan, even though it couldn’t have cost GM all that much more to build. Ka-ching!! Buick also offered an almost overwhelming array of “Base” and “Custom” models for the LeSabre, Wildcat and Electra series, with the pricier Customs proving to be the strongest sellers in most cases.
So while it wasn’t a media darling, the Electra 225 proved to be a popular choice for successful doctors, lawyers, executives and business owners.
However, there was one Electra 225 4-door Hardtop belonging to a successful small business owner that garnered a high level of press attention, though not the kind of coverage anyone would ever want. The business was a popular nightclub on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and the club’s owner, Gus Stevens, dispatched his luxury car to transport a star entertainer to New Orleans.
That celebrity was Jayne Mansfield, the buxom “Blonde Bombshell” Hollywood Starlet (in the vein of Marilyn Monroe), seen on the right in the legendary picture above, with Italian actress Sophia Loren giving the evil eye to Mansfield’s “assets.”
After performing her nightclub act, Mansfield departed Biloxi with 3 of her kids, her lawyer (who was reputedly also her lover) and Gus Stevens’ driver, heading off to the Big Easy in Stevens’ Electra 225. In the wee hours of the morning on June 29, 1967, while driving along Highway 90 near Slidell, Louisiana, the car slammed into the rear of a tractor-trailer which had apparently been obscured in a fog patch.
The results were devastating. The big Buick hurtled under the truck, crumpling the roof all the way to the rear of the car. The three adults were killed instantly, while the children (who were asleep in the back seat at the time of the crash) were injured.
Mansfield’s death was not entirely in vain, however, as the gruesome accident prompted safety regulations to help prevent cars from under-riding trucks in an accident. These U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Bars (also known as “Mansfield Bars”) remain in use to this day.
Thankfully, most Electra 225s likely enjoyed much less tragic service lives, and admirably filled their role as comfortable luxury cruisers well suited for their intended mission. And the success of these “Deuce-And-A-Quarters” filled GM’s coffers quite nicely.
Additional Reading:
Classic Curbside Classic: 1967 Buick Electra 225 Convertible – The Jayne Mansfield Of Cars by Paul Niedermeyer
Great write up GN, it’s always nice to read an article thats not dragging our past cars through the mud. The Electra 225 was my moms favorite car curiously out of all the cars she had(she had many) she never owned one. Sad what happened to Jane Mansfield, they must have been going pretty fast to do that kind of damage. I understand that she was beheaded. mercifully the children survived.
http://findadeath.com/directory/m/Jayne_Mansfield/index.html
Lots of info here. The undertaker who handled the case claims the decapitation story was an urban myth.
Hey Roger thanks for that link!!! i checked it out , good to know the truth. Interesting site as i find these things somewhat fascinating(not creepy fascinating)………just fascinating!
I don’t see where anyone else has pointed out that her daughter that was in the back seat is Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Benson in Law and Order SVU. Not sure if many people know that…
Quite right, @wjk1965, and “Hargitay” is from Mickey Hargitay, Jayne’s husband and 1955’s Mr. Universe. Mariska is their daughter.
That photo of Jayne and Sophia…..priceless. A few months ago I saw a vintage Merv Griffin show where Jayne was a guest. She had all 5 of her kids with her, (even baby Mariska ), what a wonderful woman/mother.
I had a buddy in Navy boot camp in 1970 who thought that these 225’s were THE car, even more than a Cadillac. Whenever we talked about our dream cars, he always talked about the 225, or maybe “regular” Electra he wanted to own when he finished his 1st tour of duty. Me? It was always a Mustang or Cougar.
You could buy these new in Australia. They were fully imported and converted to RHD, unlike the other US cars that were assembled from Canadian RHD CKD kits. The Canadian kits received a favourable tariff, being from a Commonwealth country.
My February ‘67 Glasses Guide tells me:
Holden Standard Sedan (strippo model) $2167
Valiant V8 (top of the range) $3550
Rambler Classic 770 $4496
Citroen DS21 $5280
Ford Galaxie 500 (390 V8) $5810
Rover 3 Litre $7158
Jaguar Mark X $9041
MB 300SE $10593
Buick Electra 225 $10820
RR Silver Shadow $23150
Were they converted and sold by Holden, or a third-party importer?
I think individual Holden dealers must have done it, not through GM-H itself.
Plenty of third party conversion out fits around at that time, it was also a law in NZ that RHD new cars had to be converted, since dropped.
FB promotional shot in 1960?
This one brings back some memories. Some friends of my parents owned one, a white car with that cool modern black vinyl roof to go with the black interior. It is the first car with air conditioning that I can remember riding in. I still remember the slightly unusual smell of that air conditioned air.
The husband was a homebuilder who normally drove a Cutlass but the Buick was the “good car” that his wife usually drove.
I did not actually know how dominant the GM C body triplets were in the luxury segment of 1966, but on a gut level I guess I kind of did because they were a relatively common sight. Buick’s execution on this car was nearly flawless.
Even as a grade school kid, I also can recall “that slightly unusual smell” of the dehumidified and c-c-cold air wafting out of the dashboard vents of the first car my parents owned with in dash factory air conditioning, Mom’s beloved 1966 Ford Country Sedan station wagon (the few times that my “Old School” Father would allow it to be used!).
Your comments on current Buick advertising are spot on. As a guy who grew up with Buicks, albeit station wagons, I am offended by Buick’s commercials. Buick had built a reputation as being stylish, powerful and just a bit sporty….Nothing looked better than a full sized Buick with the signature Buick Chrome “road wheels” of the 60’s and 70’s.
I thought Buick’d advertising about 10 years ago was trying to convey that understated quality Buick had before with the slogan…”the new class of world class”…. so much better than “that’s not a Buick”….reminds me of “not your father’s Oldsmobile” and we know where they are now
Yes! Those chrome and black Buick road wheels “made” a Buick!
Somehow the same shared bodied Buick looked sportier, classier and more expensive looking than the other GM division’s offerings with these awesome rims in place.
The road wheels on today’s new cars resemble those on my huge, roll around garbage can.
I also am vaguely insulted by the “That’s Not A Buick” tagline in their current commercials.
Agree that it’s almost as irritating as the repulsive “Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile” that probably hastened the demise of Olds. The very first time I heard this I hurled some “expleted deleted” comments at my television set.
There seems to be something about all of GM’s divisional brand ads that are annoying. GMCs are for stereotypical alpha-male jerks according to GMC, Chevys are for people who take car-buying advice from focus groups of Real People, Not Actors who know nothing at all about cars, and so on.
It is amazing that GM would do the “that’s not a Buick” ad series after the utter failure of “not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Head scratcher is not adequate, head poundingly stupid is more accurate.
GN’s summary of this is excellent, and I like his use of the word shrill. All I can think of is the granny that spouts the stupid line in one of the commercials. Just who is she successfully selling the car to?
Still better than the contemporary Buick TV ads with those two women and their gifts for their friend`s baby, Not to mention that ultra annoying disco music at the end of the spots. Makes me NOT want to buy a Buick.
I was a kid in the 60’s and I always thought of the Electra 225 exactly as Buick wanted me to think – pretty much the car for the quietly successful. It may sound odd but it was strangely comforting if your attorney arrived for a meeting in an Electra. A Cadillac attorney was a different kind of attorney. A Rivera was for the Sales guys, or for the occasional midlife crisis..
I wonder what current cars fill the Electra’s place the automotive hierarchy? I have a guess of my own, but I’d like to hear what others think.
The Riviera also filled the role of what you bought your wife if you were successful.
Today? Don’t laugh… I think GMC is filling that slot.
How low we have sunk!
Don’t get me started on my opinion of over-priced “Luxury SUV’s” based on a pick up truck chassis……my opinions are not meant for tender ears.
I agree that GMC fills that slot now (2024). The Yukon is the understated alternative to the flashy Escalade.
I can’t picture Saul Goodman in a Buick.”Better Call Saul”
GMC Yukon XL Denali.
It’s a great question, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot as I pulled together this post.
One brand I keep coming back to is Audi. Their cars/SUVs are very competent, stylish and luxurious–but with a relatively “low-key” and “quiet good taste” image compared with some of their luxury brand rivals. In terms of the customer mindset, it seems to me that the same sort of people who would have bought a Buick in the 1960s would drive an Audi today. Also keep in mind that as part of the VW Group, Audi shares a great deal of components with other group brands, but with a high degree of brand differentiation and resulting price premiums. That’s exactly what GM used to be the master at delivering.
For years, I thought of Lexus products as being a modern take on Buick’s values, but their new designs are so polarizing, edgy and overdone that they may be losing their appeal to the “subtle is best” crowd.
Quoting my Grandfather, from about the time period of this article’s car: “Flashy people, politicians, gangsters and the ‘Noveau Riche’ buy a Cadillac. ‘Old Money’ and those with quiet, conservative good taste buy a Buick”.
The ’66 Electra is one of my all-time favorite GM cars ever in terms of pure style. Clean, elegant lines with just the right amount of curves, the massive die-cast grille, and the slim full-width taillights are all just icing on the cake.The taillights alone deserve another picture – this time in color. This car is evidence that the mid-’60s was a major peak in American car styling.
Yes! I vividly remember thinking that those full-width taillights were the coolest I had ever seen.
Buick should go back to that look. With today’s lighting technology, those taillights could be spectacular. The 66 Electra was stunning.
Those attractive and (to my eyes) sexy Buick slim, full width taillights were a Buick signature styling trait for many, many years. Loved ’em all!
I consider this car another great example from the peak Bill Mitchell era. It is a beautifully executed design that very effectively continues Buick’s styling equity.
One thing GM did brilliantly for years was maintaining design continuity by keeping certain styling attributes in place for each of their brands. The looks were never static–they changed from year to year, but the brand/model design themes remained well established, both front AND rear. These Buick taillights are a perfect example–the long, thin horizontal lights became a great Electra styling signature.
I was wondering why a flashy star like Mansfield was driving Buicks instead of Caddies, but then I remembered: Cadillac bumpers competed with Jayne’s assets, and the Caddy bumpers were even more insulting because people called them Dagmars.
(I don’t know that this was the real reason, but it would certainly justify a brand preference!)
The car was not Ms.Mansfield’s, rather the Biloxi club owner’s car. However, the Buick would have been a valid choice for a celebrity of her stature. She was “famous” but not “really famous”, and her financial state was not on a par of what one would consider a movie star of the day. She would have probably driven a Cadillac herself, but not a Rolls or exotic as the really wealthy stars did in the early 60s.
Oddly, even back then, many celebrities lived lives reasonably close to what middle Americans lived. Most lived in reasonably sized homes in Los Angeles, close to the studios where they worked, but not in mansions. Very nice homes, mind you, but not the mansions of our imaginations. It is only in the recent past that we have seen the wealth display take off as it has.
Read my CC on the Electra and Jayne Mansfield to answer your question. Her career had been drooping for some time when this happened. https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1967-buick-electra-225-convertible-the-jayne-mansfield-of-cars/
Everyone old enough to recall this commercial jungle please sing along with me: “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick, a brand new Buick……”
My grandparents owned a successful welding company, and Electra was their family and ‘company’ car. Had a ’61, ’65, 69, then ’73.
This Buick is very impressive, and I even had some time in a friend’s convertible version.
But, my Oldsmobile bias is showing. I spent a lot of childhood time in a friend’s mom’s ’66 Ninety-Eight. After all these years, I can still say I really would rather have the Olds.
Bit of trivia, the ’65 / ’66 Olds used the same dash. The ’65 Buick’s oddball two large round instruments low on the dash turned into a rush change for ’66. There must have been a few complaints.
My time was spent in the Town Sedan……
Sorry, Olds lovers, exterior styling of Oldsmobile in the 1960’s was not as clean and elegant as Buick. Trying too hard to prove that it was superior to Pontiac just led to excess detail.
Engineering wise, Olds may have been better, but to the luxury buyer the mushy almost seasick ride of Buick is just what the customer wanted,
Monsignor Nelligan, who was the pastor of Immaculate Conception in Towson, drove a ’66 225 black four door. He came from a wealthy family, and no, a Cadillac was not going to work for him.
Sounds like a gentleman from an “old money” family with quiet, conservative good taste.
A Caddy would be just too flashy for a man of the cloth, the fact that Catholic priests don’t take vows of poverty notwithstanding. But yes, almost every priest I knew growing up a generation later drove Buicks and Oldsmobiles. The Monsignor had a GMC pickup truck, though.
Never heard of it referred to a Mansfield bar. Very interesting. I learn something new everyday from Paul. Thirteen years in the DOT world I only know it as an ICC bumper.
A very sad story, I don’t even think the optional shoulder harness belts would have help much.
Really a turning point in FMCSA/DOT regs
I loved everything about this article – the car, the review, your writing – as per usual. Hailing from the location of its former World Headquarters, I love pretty much anything Buick-related.
I’m sure Ms. Mansfield would also approve of this article – or as she sang also in ’66, “That makes it!… ♪♫”
I share the experiences and admiration for this Buick, it’s always been a classy ride. Our family doctor when I was a kid drove a ’62 Electra.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the fender skirts, which are usually not so popular among our commentariat. I nearly always like the sleek look of trim or a crease all the way from front wheel to the end. This car is a particularly fine example.
I’m obliged to mention my disappointment last month when Buick called their pure electric crossover concept car the Enspire. It’s just for China, at least at first. Maybe if it comes here they’ll do the right thing and call it a Buick Electra.
That name is so unenspired
Ever since I discovered these old Buicks, these are what I associate with the brand most. No, it’s not the most striking of cars, but if all you wanted from a luxury car was something quiet, conservative, and well put together, you could do a lot worse. I myself prefer the 1969 and 1971 Electras myself, but for the most part, these Buicks still have a certain charm to them.
And yes, I agree with the stupid “that’s not a Buick” ad. GM never learned from history, and now it’s repeating it.
What a great article. Certainly a car for the Millionaire Next Door types
Love that era Electra 225 and the same for the Olds 98. By the time 1970 came around they were getting too bloated. What I find interesting is that given how many were made, and the generally accepted statistics that maybe 10% are now left, I haven’t seen one in ages upon ages.
Being as they were real gas hogs, scrappage during the period of rapidly rising fuel prices, when they were just old cars, might have been high.
Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?
Still one of advertising’s great tag lines: “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?”
Buick Electra’s from 1965-70 and 1977-79 are ranked as some of my all time favorite luxury cars, to me they looked just as great as the Cadillac’s of the same period, I never understood why people felt the need to get a Cadillac when they could’ve gotten nearly as much luxury in a Buick Electra or a Oldsmobile Ninety Eight for less money, also we’re the 425 V8’s very rare on the 1965-66 Buick Electra’s?
Great write up! Love the car, personally, and I like reading the old road tests. I have from time to time spent some enjoyable hours digging into old car magazines and actually remember this article for some reason. Must be because I dig the car so much.
I didn’t see the tragic twist at the end coming. Really good reading!
I wonder what the buyer of a new 1966 Buick Electra would have had to say about the “downsized” 1986 Buick Electra?
probably “I’ll take a Town Car, thank you”.
Unfortunately, it seems the Mansfield bar doesn’t do much to actually keep cars from plowing underneath the trailer:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/8ixhqi/something_to_keep_in_mind_the_underride_guards_on/
This Buick Electca 225 four-door hardtop is very beautiful in my opinion. GM was the king of hill back then.
About the Mansfield bar, it is often viewed as inadequate protection even it is still used in today’s truck and its trailer. European regulation requires a strong bar with hydraulic absorbers behind the bar. I was even Russia has the similar setup. It is not clear if the similar setup used in Japan and China. US and Canada stay with the poorly designed Mansfield bar mostly due to transportation sector objections to add the European version because it is much more expensive.
One of my favorite television quips is when Jack Paar was hosting The Tonight Show and introduced Jayne Mansfield by saying, “And here they are, Jayne Mansfield!”.
The line was actually written by none other than Dick Cavett.
Jayne Mansfield had difficulty landing good, serious roles as her all-about-her-looks image obscured that she was actually highly intelligent (fluent in five languages!) and a fine and versatile actress. Her managers encouraged publicity stunts that she probably should have avoided.
I wonder what it is about Mansfield’s death that the model of car she was in is so well remembered compared to most celebrities that died in car crashes. There are a few others I can think of where the car is well known, like James Dean’s Porsche (but he was a racer on film and in real life) or Ernie Kovacs’ Corvair (but that involved a car with famously controversial handling characteristics). But usually the make and model of car is forgotten or little-known by the general public.
The myth of the Mansfield bar appears to be as prevalent as that of the Detroit garden party story that supposedly precipitated the drastic downsizing of the 1962 Plymouth and Dodge full-size cars. At the time of Mansfield’s death, there may have been shock and horror, but no regulatory action was taken, at least at the federal level, to mandate stronger underride protection at the rear of large trucks.
Originally, underride guards were mandated by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1953. As I recall, there was a height requirement for such guards, but there were no strength or testing requirements; rather the relevant language stated something like the guard should be of substantial strength.
It wasn’t until the 1990s and more recently just in the last couple of years, that the requirements for underride guards were significantly upgraded. Much of the impetus for strengthened underride guards came from the insurance industry, including crash tests as early as 1976 by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety demonstrating the inadequacy of the existing guards of the time.
https://www.iihs.org/topics/large-trucks#truck-underride
There’s a car chase scene in the film The Seven-Ups (released 6 years after Jayne’s passing) that includes a car smashing into a truck that lacks a Mansfield bar, and whenever I see it I think “wasn’t that not supposed to happen anymore” by 1973? I don’t know if the eventual requirements for even low-strength bars required existing trucks to be retrofitted with them.
I’ll have to look at that clip again to see if the underride guard is missing (possibly it was removed for filming purposes).
Even in the mid-2010s. many of the existing guards were not strong enough to prevent severe underride — here’s the aftermath of an IIHS crash test of a 2010 Chevy Malibu into a trailer at 35 mph.
Long before I ever heard the term “Mansfield Bar”, truckers used to call them ICC bars. They are absent on trucks with power lift gates that fold up under the truck so be careful out there!
Sophia was expecting a wardrobe malfunction.
It is always interesting to see the modern price equivalency for options in the 1960s. Air conditioning was a $441 option, which is $4521 in today’s money. That would have been north of C$6000 in Canada at the time. Even Cadillacs from the 1960s in Canada didn’t have a/c and first air-conditioned car I rode in was in my uncle’s 1973 Sedan Deville. That was in 1976, when the family drove across Canada.
I recently saw the new version of the Buick Electra GM is teasing. Guess what? It`s another SUV-crossover or whatever they call `em. Ho hum.
I’ve always loved the look of the Electra 225. Imagine both my horror AND interest at finding out one of my favorite actresses of that time (born in 1974) had died, along with others, in such a beautiful and unique (to me) so tragically. Glad to find out the kids survived. I did know about the Mansfield bars, but that’s how I found out about the wreck. Loved the ride before that and would take one today!