Recently, I ran across a 2022 listing for an unusual 1965 Chevrolet Caprice, the light purple (“Evening Orchid”) four-door hardtop pictured above. The original Caprice, Chevrolet’s response to the popular Ford LTD, has often been described as an assault on established mid-priced, middle-class brands, allowing Chevy buyers to build an upscale near-luxury car from the options list. I had been toying with the idea of doing a side-by-side comparison between an early Caprice and a contemporary Pontiac Catalina, but then I had a brainstorm: How would the luxury offered by this top-of-the-line 1965 Chevrolet compare with the (arguably) poshest member of the mid-price Establishment, the 1965 Buick Electra 225 Custom? Even I was surprised by the conclusions.
I should say upfront that this is not a straightforward comparison, and you could argue that it’s not even a fair one. These two cars were not directly competitive at all: There was a $1,500 gap between them in original sticker price, they aren’t similarly equipped, and I don’t think any 1965 buyer would have regarded them as remotely comparable in prestige. A Buick was still a Buick, after all, and the Electra 225 was a car of choice for bank presidents, wealthy dowagers, and other such swells who could afford a Cadillac, but preferred something a bit less showy. In comparison, a Caprice was just a fancy Chevrolet putting on airs.
1965 Buick Electra 225 Custom in Shell Beige / Connors Motorcar Company
1965 Chevrolet Caprice Sport Sedan in Evening Orchid / Bring a Trailer
On the other hand, these two cars have more in common than it might seem at first glance. Both stood at the top of their respective lines, and both are four-door hardtops with relatively few extra-cost options. The Electra has air conditioning, which the Caprice doesn’t, but the Buick lacks power windows, a power seat, a power antenna, or even a remote outside mirror. They’re also very similar in interior room. In fact, despite the Electra’s extra 7 inches of wheelbase, it has fractionally less rear leg and shoulder room than the Caprice, although the specs credit it with a scant extra 0.4 inches of headroom.
1965 Buick Electra 225 Custom / Connors Motorcar Company
1965 Chevrolet Caprice / Bring a Trailer
Naturally, the Electra 225 had a big advantage in standard equipment, which included the 401 cu. in. (6,572 cc) Wildcat 445 engine, with 325 gross horsepower; Super Turbine 400 automatic (aka Turbo Hydra-Matic); 15-inch wheels; power steering and brakes; finned brake drums, aluminum in front; various courtesy lights; a padded dash; backup lights; and a whole army of ashtrays. However, there was very little you could order on an Electra that you couldn’t also get on a Caprice except the brakes and engine, and ordering the Chevy with the new 396 cu. in. (6,488 cc) L35 Turbo-Jet engine and Turbo Hydra-Matic would have made its performance very competitive with the Buick’s.
This Electra 225 has the 401 Nailhead, aka Wildcat 445 / Connors Motorcar Company
This Caprice has the base Turbo-Fire 283 with a three-speed stick / Bring a Trailer
The person who originally bought this particular Caprice from a Wyoming Chevrolet dealer in April 1965 didn’t do that. Instead, they specified a black vinyl roof ($75.35), tinted glass ($37.70), whitewall tires ($64.10), the front bumper guard ($16.15), a padded dash ($18.30), seat belts ($7.55), a pushbutton radio ($58.65), a rear seat speaker ($13.45), and nothing else. This car has the base Turbo-Fire 283 cu. in. (4,638 cc) V-8 and three-on-the-tree: no Powerglide, no power steering, unassisted brakes — not even windshield washers. Although the car now sports dual outside mirrors, it appears they were added after the fact. As equipped, its original list price was $3,383.35 plus a $112 destination fee. It’s as basic a Caprice as one is likely to find, presumably purchased by someone who wanted to project an upscale image at minimum cost.
A 1965 Caprice was 213.1 inches long on a 119-inch wheelbase; I don’t know why the nose seems to be riding too high, unless it has the wrong front springs for its weight / Bring a Trailer
Unfortunately, the Electra 225 listing doesn’t include either the original window sticker or a detailed rundown of its optional equipment, but an Electra 225 Custom four-door hardtop started at $4,300 in 1965, with air conditioning adding $430. The radio, tinted glass, and whitewalls probably added around $175, so if we factor in a few “miscellaneous options,” this was probably a $5,000 car, and by no means fully loaded. You could conceivably spend that much on a Caprice — the well-equipped Caprice 396 Motor Trend tested in June 1965 stickered for $4,838.40 — and get a few more toys in the bargain.
The AMA specs list the 1965 Electra 225 as 222.9 inches long, but the brochure says 224.1 inches overall, on a 126-inch wheelbase / Connors Motorcar Company
I grew up in an era where automotive trim levels were primarily about equipment, and any differences in actual interior trim were often negligible. In the mid-1960s, that generally wasn’t true. Fancier models did sometimes include extra standard equipment (the Ford LTD included automatic transmission, for instance), but you could order most of that stuff on the cheaper grades as well. The pricier trim series were mostly just that: You paid extra for plusher upholstery, wood (or woodgrain) accents, extra chrome, nicer carpet, and sometimes more comfortably padded seats.
The original 1965 Caprice — which the sales receipt and Chevrolet specifications still treated as a “Caprice equipment” option for the Impala Sport Sedan (four-door hardtop) — was a case in point. It included some minor reinforcements to the body and frame (presumably accounting for much of the package’s 34 lb added weight), along with revalved shock absorbers and softer upper suspension bushings, and it had a rear center armrest and a couple of additional courtesy lamps not standard on the Impala. However, the more important features, per the brochure and specifications, included “generously plump” “contour-padded seats,” which were “upholstered in rich fabric and expanded vinyl”; special “cord pattern vinyl” headlining; cloth-and-vinyl trim door panels “accented with paneling that has the elegant look of hand-rubbed walnut” (which the specifications claim are “genuine wood accents”) and carpeting on the door bottoms; bright trim on the shifter and turn signal lever, pedals, and sill moldings; “walnut look on the instrument panel”; and “instrument panel high luster paint.” In fewer words, the Caprice was really an appearance group.
Bearing that in mind, let’s see how these cars looked inside, beginning with the Caprice:
1965 Chevrolet Caprice with black cloth and vinyl upholstery / Bring a Trailer
I assume that if you could sit in both of these cars and inspect them more closely, the Buick would have the edge in materials quality — as you’d reasonably expect given the over $1,000 gap in their base prices. However, the Caprice certainly looks very plush. The Caprice equipment group added $242.10 to the price of the Impala, but you could see what you were paying for every time you opened the door.
By contrast, the Electra 225 Custom suffers a bit because of its all-vinyl trim, which — at least to modern eyes — doesn’t look particularly fancy despite the brochure‘s claim that “it’s a vinyl so soft and supple you’ll find it hard to distinguish from real leather.”
1965 Buick Electra 225 Custom with Saddle vinyl upholstery / Connors Motorcar Company
In 1965, Buick offered the Electra 225 in standard as well as Custom trim, with the latter probably added to counter the popular Oldsmobile 98 Luxury Sedan. For comparison, I also found a different, non-Custom Electra 225, a white four-door hardtop with Fawn cloth upholstery and the power windows and power seat the beige Custom lacks. Although the standard Electra 225 listed for $179 less than the Custom, I think its interior actually looks more inviting, and certainly more ornate despite the less-busy door design:
1965 Buick Electra 225 (not Custom) with Fawn cloth upholstery / Mecum Auctions
Custom or not, you certainly got more with the Electra 225, but you paid a lot more too, and whether the former justified the latter is a harder question. The Electra 225 had more stylistic gravitas than the Caprice — it was 11 inches longer and far more imposing-looking — and it offered more power and better brakes. On the other hand, looking at it today, I don’t know that the Custom’s appointments justified its price premium over the standard Electra 225, much less the still-cheaper Wildcat or LeSabre. You could get a very nicely equipped LeSabre Custom for around $700 less than an Electra 225 Custom, no small cost difference at the time, and I’m not sure you would have been missing much.
1965 Buick Electra 225 Custom / Connors Motorcar Company
The curiously restrained options list of the Evening Orchid Caprice also raises some interesting questions about whether a more fully equipped car was categorically a better one. Skipping power steering on a full-size car of this vintage sounds like a recipe for misery except in mostly freeway use, but omitting power brakes was no great loss (only 22.5 percent of 1965 full-size Chevrolets had them), and even a lot of middle-class buyers forewent power windows and power seats in this period. A 283/three-speed Caprice wouldn’t be as quick as either the 401-powered Electra 225 or a 1963 Biscayne with a 283 and stick shift (this ’65 four-door hardtop was close to 400 lb heavier than a ’63 Biscayne two-door sedan), but it would still have decent performance — at a guess, 0 to 60 mph in 11.5 seconds and the quarter mile in the low 18s — with lower fuel consumption and less weight on the nose.
For that matter, I can’t help thinking the more desirable powertrain in a full-size Buick might have been the three-speed Super Turbine 400 combined with the smaller, lighter 300 cu. in. (4,923 cc) V-8, as on the Buick LeSabre 400. The smaller engine probably wouldn’t have been quite as spry in the bigger, heavier Deuce and a Quarter, but full-size Buicks weren’t winning many drag races anyway, and even in the luxury classes, there are buyers who want plushness and don’t care much about power. (For those who did, the 425 cu. in. (6,970 cc) Wildcat 465 was still optional on most full-size Buicks.)
1965 Chevrolet Caprice / Bring a Trailer
In all candor, I’ve never been terribly fond of the Caprice, but this stripped-down purple Sport Sedan emerges as a surprisingly honest car. It defuses a lot of the usual criticism of the Caprice simply because it makes little pretense of being anything it’s not. Sure, it’s really just an Impala in an evening gown, but it’s a nice dress, what you paid for it lined up pretty well with what you got, and you’d get a decent chunk of that extra cost back at trade-in time. (The 1966 Kelley Blue Book allowed an extra $125 wholesale on a 1965 Caprice compared to a regular Impala.)
By contrast, while I generally like the full-size Buicks of this period much better, at least aesthetically, the beige Electra 225 Custom doesn’t come off as well. It’s probably quieter and a bit more solid than the Caprice, with better performance, but it seems to lack the luxury car pomp and features to go with its luxury car price. Of the three cars in this post, I think I’d prefer the standard, non-Custom Electra 225:
1965 Buick Electra 225 / Mecum Auctions
It still looked like you’d expect a mid-’60s big Buick to look, and for my money, its power accessories added more value than the extra $179 of the Custom trim. The Electra’s standard interior is really too rococo for my tastes, but, as with the Caprice, you can immediately see where the money went, both inside and out.
Related Reading
Vintage Review: 1965 Chevrolet Caprice 396 Tested By Motor Trend – Fast And Soft (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1965 Chevrolet Caprice – The LTD Reaction (by Paul N)
Vintage Road Test Review: 1966 Chevrolet Caprice – What’ll She Do At Trade-In Time? (by Paul N)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1964 Buick Electra 225 Coupe – Is A Cadillac Worth 25% More? (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1966 Chevrolet Caprice – Chevy Joins The Great Brougham Epoch (by Tom Klockau)
eBay Find: 1965 Buick Electra 225 – That’s More Like It (by Perry Shoar)
Vintage Review: 1966 Buick Electra 225 – GM Banks A “Deuce-And-A-Quarter” (by GN)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1965 Buick LeSabre 400 – Small Block Big Body Buick (by Paul N)
Vintage Comparison Test: 1965 Buick LeSabre, Chrysler Newport, Mercury Monterey, Olds Dynamic 88, Pontiac Catalina – Road Test Evaluates Medium Standard Sedans (by GN)
The 1965 Chevrolet was the best looking if all cars designed in 1965. and maybe of all time. Its styling is timeless.
The Evening Orchid pictured is elegant It was a one year color in 1965.
That Evening Orchid is my favorite car color of all time…
In our small rural Illinois farming town, a local widow bought a new fully – loaded ’65 Caprice, gold with a black vinyl top… it’s was virtually a “scandal” to some that it cost about $5000.00 – “Almost as much as a CADILLAC, what is she thinking!?”, my dad I remember saying…
And the prosperous local operator of the grain mill bought a new tan ’65 Electra 225 four – door sedan… no one at that time in our town owned a Cadillac, a Buick Electra or Olds 98 were considered “proper” luxury cars for this conservative area… only in 1970 did a wealthy farmer finally buy a Cadillac, this was considered a “very big deal”…
Chevy, Ford, and Plymouth were all very attractive cars in 1965. We had grown a bit more “prosperous”, and our old stripper ’59 Ford Custom sedan got traded in for a snazzy new Fury III two – door hardtop in Dark Turquoise Metallic; with the 318, Torqueflite, power steering and radio; it was for the time considered “well – equipped”…
My impression from having spent a lot of time in cars of this era is that you would notice the difference in the way the seats feel when you sit in them and in the way the car feels when it drives. I would bet money that the seats in the Buick would have much more support and would feel more comfortable (especially after an hour) than the ones in the Caprice. I have to agree though that the vinyl upholstery in the Buick doesn’t do it any favors today. But back then, the vinyl cost extra and was seen as an upgrade over the cloth.
The Buick also probably got you more sound insulation and a more substantial feel in the body and chassis. The Chevy presented itself pretty well this way, but I would bet that the Buick would feel noticeably “better”.
Friends of my parents had a 66 Electra 225, a white one much like the last photo. Only theirs had a black vinyl roof and (I am just now remembering) black vinyl interior. That did not stop me from considering it an expensive, luxurious car when I was a kid. Those wall-to-wall taillights (with the disguised gas cap door in the middle) and the air conditioning nailed that impression for young me.
“Saddle vinyl” evokes images of the wild west, a vinyly-faced cowhand ridin hell-for-vinyl.
Seriously, the only advantage I see in the Buick is the solid grab handle on the door. I wouldn’t have appreciated this when I was younger.
“Ridin’ hell-for-vinyl”! I love it. It sounds like an album full of punk covers of well-known cowboy songs.
I grew up in a small in decline industrial city across the street from an abrasives and tape factory. A Ford factory was only a couple miles away. My father owned a 1972 Ford Galaxie 500.
My Ford factory working neighbor, Bill, bought a 1972 Elektra 225; his pride and joy. He called my father over to check it out and I tagged along. My reaction was awe over it’s size–something Bill was all too happy to brag about.
Bill excitedly discussed various features with my father. After five minutes I saw enough and grew bored. Bill popped the hood for a minute grabbing my attention, but I was too short to see anything.
Bill and Dad proceeded to the back of the car where some discussion about taillights ensued. Bill popped the trunk for inspection but now I was focused on B U I C K. “What is that word?” I wondered.
I was in the very early stage of learning to read and decided to figure this out. After working it out in my head I pointed to the lettering and proudly exclaimed BUCKET!
My father burst out laughing.
My insulted neighbor asked “what the he11 are you teaching this kid?”
Smart ass kid.
I’m the odd one here as I’ve always liked the Caprice better. We’ve owned 4 of them and an 80 Park Avenue.
The Caprice, at least the way my wife and I felt, was more like a pair of comfortable, well worn shoes. Now, out on the highway, the 80 Park Avenue was far nicer.
I always found it curious that GM offered a telescope wheel in the Caprice, 98, and Cadillac, but Buick didn’t offer that until 1974. And the Caprice only offered it for one or two years.
The other thing I preferred that Chevy offered was later when fender skirts were standard on the Caprice, you could order them on the Impala.
Very interesting comparison & very well written article. You say that ‘there was a $1,500 gap between them in original sticker price’. I feel obliged to be the old guy & point out that $1500 in 1965 was serious money, equivalent to $15,000 in 2025 currency. (I googled.) I guess that proves your point that the Caprice was a much better value than the Electra.
In 1965, my family had a new Chrysler Newport. A friend’s family had a new Caprice. The Chevy has the typical 283/Powerglide combo so I knew that the Chrysler (w/383 & Torqueflite) was a ‘better’ car but I do remember being very impressed by how nice the interior was on the Caprice.
Good comparison of a couple of quite divergent GM full-size products.
That Caprice is weirdly optioned, even for 1965. I sure hope it was an ordered and sold car because it would have sat ‘nailed to the showroom floor’ for a while with that 283/3-on-the-tree strippo combo, not to mention the color. I’d go so far as to suggest most would skip the Caprice trim (maybe the vinyl roof, too) and using the saved cash by getting an Impala with a Powerglide (maybe even with A/C), instead. Possibly even with a six. A Chevy so equipped would have been far more popular for similar money.
That aside, I always thought one of the ways GM made money was by using different sheetmetal but the same roof and window glass across all divisions. I’m not seeing it here.
And those low-mounted dash gauges on the Electra would surely be a deal-breaker for some. They’re positively Studebaker-like. I wonder about Buick’s interior design team on that one and can’t see any benefit to the location, other than simply being different.
Oh, this Caprice was very clearly a special order. My best guess is the original purchaser was a sales rep or other business type who needed to visit and sometimes carry clients, and so wanted a car that would put on the best possible front despite not costing very much upfront.
When I first saw the Caprice on BaT, my thoughts on the original buyer was that it was purchased by an aging, Depression-era, married couple. He let her select the color and the trim, and she wanted it fancy and pretty for impressing the neighbors and the folks at church on Sunday. But he wanted it basic and simple with “none of that fancy stuff that’s just gonna break anyway”.
Given that the Evening Orchid car has $450 of dress-up options, I tend to find the “sales rep who wanted to look prosperous” theory more plausible, TBH.
And those low-mounted dash gauges on the Electra would surely be a deal-breaker for some. They’re positively Studebaker-like.
Lets not confuse our Larks and Hawks with Skylarks and Skyhawks… 🙂
…or our turbo 289s & 304-1/2s with turbo 231s.
That aside, I always thought one of the ways GM made money was by using different sheetmetal but the same roof and window glass across all divisions. I’m not seeing it here.
The key difference between the B and C bodies was the roof structure and the extended rear wheelbase which included longer rear doors. In the C Body sedans, that extended rear wheelbase, longer doors and longer squared-off roof allowed the rear seat to be set further back; the Electra sedan had 2″ more legroom in the rear as a result. But the hardtop roof was different; it was a bit lower and had more rake to the backlight. As a consequence, the rear seat was mounted further forward, in the same position as the B Bodies, hence the same rear leg room. So the additional rear wheelbase and the longer rear door were not functional in terms of leg room.
In the case of the Pontiacs, the Star Chief and Bonneville also had an extended rear wheelbase, but they kept the B Body roof structure, so there also was no increase in rear leg room. Only the C Body sedans had the additional leg room.
It’s all part of the mix and match GM body program that had been going on since almost forever.
Ah, memories of my father’s 1960s LeSabres. Here, I do see the resemblance between the Chevy and Buick. especially in the windshield, A-pillar and vent, and front door shape. Those front door cut-lines, though matching the seatback angles, just don’t look good on all of the four-door sedan ’65 to ’70 GM full-sizers, from the Biscayne to the Fleetwood 75 (starting in 1966 for the latter.) The rear-door cut-lines that slice through the cars’ ample “hips” also look bad.
A 2019 Motorcities.org article says “the 1965 lineup offered impeccable styling that most consumers thoroughly enjoyed. It has been said that Bill Mitchell was very proud of all the designers who helped design the 1965 product line.” Maybe their work on the two-door full-size models – only – deserve that compliment. Then again, regardless of the number of doors, the disparity between front and rear overhangs when seen in profile, looks unbalanced.
I agree that this is an excellent article.
Interesting that the back seat legroom is about the same on both cars. I’d always just presumed that the C-bodies had more legroom in the back, because they did in ’71-76, and also on ’77-84.
I’d never really paid THAT close attention to the proportioning of the ’65-70 B and C-bodies, but lately had been noticing that it looked like the extra wheelbase of an Electra was added all in front of the cowl, compared to a LeSabre, and while the rooflines may have been different, the part of the passenger compartment rearward of the front doors doesn’t really look any longer.
Yes, lacking that extra space inside that you’d expect kind of calls into question just what you did get for the extra money. I noticed that too. I thought the Buick would be roomier.
I believe that light beige Buick Electra was offered for sale at a recent Carlisle Events car show. I can’t remember the asking price, but the car was pristine.
I’m surprised that the Caprice was ordered without power steering. My grandmother’s 1966 Dodge Dart 270 four-door sedan lacked power steering, and that was the main reason my mother did not like to drive that car. And that car had an automatic and the slant six.
Our 1965 Chevrolet Bel Air wagon did have power steering (but no power brakes). While the 1965 full-size Chevrolets are handsome cars, the interior materials quality and reliability were not top-notch. At least, that was my family’s experience.
Looking at both cars, I can see why people opted for the Electra, even if the Caprice was loaded with options. It has the stature and presence that people buying that type of car expected.
At the time, there was still some bias against power steering by men who preferred the road feel of manual steering. As Aaron pointed out, this Caprice was ordered by a salesman or such, and I can well see why.
I once had to drive a ’69 LTD ordered with a 390, three-speed manual and manual steering. That’s how the owner (a retired military man) wanted it.
I remember my dad and some others disdaining power brakes at this time as “too sensitive”. Even the ’71 Newport sedan we bought did not have power brakes; their first car with power brakes was their ’76 Delta 88 Royale… but power steering was pretty well accepted. The last “big” car that I remember without power steering was the stripper ’68 Fury I that my “frugal” grandmother bought…
In 1965, 63.1 percent of full-size Chevrolets had power steering, against 59.9 percent of all domestic cars. So, it was common, but not yet universal.
One thing that I think tipped the balance in the late ’60s was resale value. Power steering cost around $95, but you’d get most of that back at trade-in time, and on some full-size cars, you’d take more of a penalty in resale value for not having it than it cost. (On a full-size Pontiac, for instance, having conventional steering would save you $108 upfront, but cost you $150 in trade-in value, making that a pretty easy choice.)
Another great article Aaron! This comparison illustrates why medium price cars began to fall out of favor given that you could option up entry level cars to have luxury features of the medium or even luxury class cars. So as the decades passed, makes such as as Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Mercury were phased out, and Dodge survived only by replacing Plymouth as Chrysler’s entry level car. Of course DeSoto was already defunct in the early 60s, and Edsel never got off the ground.
I think you are correct that this Caprice was ordered by someone like a traveling salesman who spent a lot of time on the open roads of Wyoming and environs. As such, having an automatic transmission and even power steering would have been less important. It’s quite striking in that Evening Orchid color with the rich-looking interior. I agree that the featured Electra 225 Custom’s interior looks plain by comparison.
If I were buying in 1965 and looking for good value in a 4-door car, I would have picked a Pontiac Catalina 4-door hardtop with the standard 389 V8 in one of various states of tune and the Turbo Hydramatic transmission.
This comparison illustrates why medium price cars began to fall out of favor given that you could option up entry level cars to have luxury features of the medium or even luxury class cars..
Actually in the 70s something quite different happened: well-appointed mid-luxury mid-size coupes became the best selling cars, such as the #1 selling Cutlass Supreme and the very popular Buick Regal. It was the best of both worlds: an affordable price and a more prestigious brand.
What bugged me about the Caprice and the LTD, although I am sure I got this from my academic parents, were the names. A “caprice” is an irrational whim, and to my dad, who was educated and lived many years in England before emigrating to the US, the letters LTD would be spoken as the word “limited”, coming after a company name; it would be like naming a car “INC”. Nevertheless 8 year old me found the styling of the ‘65 Ford and Chevy to be very advanced after the dull 1964’s of each brand. Pontiacs were cool too, but the Buicks (and Oldsmobile) were probably not even on my radar. Mustang fastbacks, the new Corvair, and Porsche 911 crowded them off the screen.
Interesting info on the longer wheelbase cars not having more legroom. I know on 77 to 96 big GM cars the Cadillac, Olds 98 and Electra were on longer wheelbase and had substantially more rear seat leg room. Figured the older ones would be the same.
As for my pick for 1965 biggie GM cars it would be a 2 door Impala SS or a Bonneville. I thought the Bonneville had a much nicer dash than the Buick, which looks like its upside down. The walnut was real wood and looked great in the Pontiac. I also love that big lucite wheel.
It depended. The two-door hardtop and convertible Electra 225 had significantly more rear legroom than the LeSabre and Wildcat in those same two-door styles. The Electra 225 four-door sedan had only a little more than a four-door LeSabre sedan — 1.3 inches — but the four-door hardtop really didn’t, only a fraction of an inch.
Here’s some measurements, from Consumer Guide’s 1965 auto issue. These numbers are for 4-doors. I think CR used a 4-door pillared sedan as the default, unless only a hardtop was offered (as with Imperial). Also, CR called this measurement “Rear Compartment Room.” In later years I think they called it “Rear Fore-Aft Room.”
This measurement is simply the horizontal distance between the backrest of the back seat, to the back of the front seat, measured at the height of the front part of the back seat base cushion. It’s different from what most sources quote as “legroom” which is a combination of seat height and horizonal fore-aft room. Anyway, here goes…
Buick LeSabre/Wildcat: 28.0″
Buick Electra: 30.5″
Chevrolet: 28.0″
Chrysler: 30.0″
Dodge: 29.0″
Ford: 29.0″
Mercury: 29.0″
Oldsmobile 88: 28.0″
Oldsmobile 98: 28.5″
Plymouth: 27.5″
Pontiac Catalina/Star Chief: 27.5″
Pontiac Bonneville: 26.5″
Throwing high-priced cars into the mix…
Cadillac Calais/Deville: 28.0″
Imperial: 30.5″
Lincoln: 30.0″
It’s kind of odd that the Electra would come out so roomy, tied with the Imperial for first place. BUT, I wonder if maybe they tested a 4-door pillared sedan with the Electra, and ended up testing a 4-door hardtop for the Ninety Eight and the Cadillacs?
It’s also kind of curious that the Pontiacs are showing a bit less legroom in back than the B-body Chevy/Olds/Buicks. And, that the Bonneville is coming up even shorter! Did the Pontiacs have thicker seats, perhaps? And maybe the Bonneville in particular had more padding on the back of the front seat?
I was also a bit surprised with the differences with the Mopars. I always presumed that the Plymouths and Dodges would have had the same dimensions, and the Chryslers would have a few more inches in back, but didn’t realize there was that much difference between the Dodge and Plymouth. I was also surprised that the Plymouth had less room than the Chevy. Those Plymouths always seemed extra roomy to me in general, but the GM B-bodies, not so much. I don’t have that much experience with Ford products of that era, so I can’t give my personal opinion on their perception of roominess.
But, speaking of the Fords, I was also a bit surprised that the Ford and Mercury had the same back seat dimension. I believe Mercury did the same wheelbase extension trick as Pontiac did, moving the axle back a few inches, but not extending the back doors or the roof. However, I thought they still managed to push the back seat a bit further back?
The data I used for passenger space comparisons is from the AMA specifications, which for the 1965 Buick are also listed in tabular form in the brochure. There were both pillared and pillarless four-door versions of the 1965 Electra 225 — the pillared sedan had 2.1 inches more legroom than the four-door hardtop, which, as Paul explained yesterday, was because the shape of the roof let the rear seat be set farther back.
The Caprice appeared quite influential, in competitor’s late ’60’s designs. I see a potential significant idea basis, for the styling of the fuselage Dodge Polara hardtop sedan. Just one example.
Thank you for this great article. It allows me to see up close the differences that could have driven car-buying decisions back when these cars were new. I like to imagine what I would have done had I been in the market for a new car in 1965. The calculus back then was so different from now, with so many options available individually and in combination, and the differences between makes and models much more pronounced, which could really scramble the age-old Sloan ladder pricing and prestige market structure. Given the relative strength of the brand images back then, though, I do wonder just how many people would cross-shop a Caprice with an Electra rather than, say, a LeSabre. Perhaps by the early to mid 1970s, the old loyalties had crumbled, making the market much more fluid, even as parts sharing and model duplication spread across the entire GM line.
I am also guessing that the ultimate decision also often came down to the buyer’s relationship with and reputation of the local dealer, which in this case, may have been weighted heavily in favor of the Buick. Even in 1980, my father found that the local Pontiac dealer in a nearby affluent suburb provided far superior service and was surprisingly competitive on price with the high-price, high-pressure Chevy dealer across the street, leading him to buy a LeMans wagon instead of a Malibu.
More articles of this type, please!
Interesting is how a material and pattern can look upscale or not. The black cloth in the Caprice, with that pattern, strikes me as richer. The vinyl in the Buick, with a very basic rib pattern, does not look rich at all. Haven’t sat in them which could be vastly different like a bed looking nice till you lay on it.
I enjoyed this clever comparison. Chevrolet really was heading upmarket in 1965. In person, Evening Orchid (Pontiac called it Iris Mist) is stunning, especially near sunset.
The un air conditioned 65 Chevy from WY does not surprise me. When I moved to Denver in 1971 I encountered many unairconditioned cars and homes. AC was not considered essential at that time and place. The 283, stick Caprice reminded me of my Dad who was skeptical of automatic transmissions. In 1963, he had the local dealer search for a 283, stick Impala sedan from dealer’s stock. Closest one was over 200 miles away!
For me, this article underlines how different perceptions of brands were in the sixties. The Buick was almost a foot longer, yet not roomier inside, and had more imposing styling, if you liked that sort of thing. That wouldn’t be enough to command such a price premium these days. Dig deeper and you realise the entire chassis and mechanical package is different between the two cars. Two different cars with related bodies.
I have to wonder how many buyers did understand or appreciate those mechanical differences? For many folk back then, I assume “That’s a Buick” was all that needed to be said.
I think people generally took it on faith that the differences existed and were worthwhile, although they couldn’t necessarily have told you why.
I’d have to see an avg size, person seated in the “Buick”. The gauges appear to be at “abdomen”, level.
After looking over the images of the Caprice posted in this article, and the photos of the one in Paul’s article “The LTD Reaction”, I’m wondering if they’re the same car. There are 2 differences I’ve noticed between the two cars and both of them are fairly minor. First, the plates on the two cars, with the one in Paul’s article just being a regular California Blue Plate, while the one you found on BaT appears to have vanity Blue Plates. Second, there is a difference in plate frames (the 2015 article has an old plate frame on the front from a Three Way Chevrolet in Bakersfield, while this one has a frame on the back just saying “1965 Chevrolet”). Otherwise, unless I’m missing something (such as the engine displacement on the badge of the one Paul posted being something other than a 283, which I can’t make out clear enough to figure out), I’m not noticing any discernible differences.
Assuming this is the same car, and the differences with the plates (and plate frames) changing between 2015 & 2022 are due to a presumed change of ownership between those sightings, it’s neat to see how things have (or haven’t for that matter) changed for it over the course of 7 years.
I couldn’t find the original photos in the Cohort because the Flickr search functions still trapped in the dark ages, but I don’t THINK they’re the same car. The earlier post has an interior shot that (if it’s from the same car as the exteriors) indicates that it has Powerglide, which this one doesn’t. I’d have to spend more time digging to be sure.
I found it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mistergreen/23508683421/in/pool-curbsideclassic/
Definitely NOT the same car, albeit the same color.
I gotta ask, what are the tells that I missed, and how can you tell the other car (likely) has a Powerglide?
It has a single large brake pedal and no clutch pedal.
If you look at the original photo at the Flickr link above, you can also see the left side of the Powerglide shift quadrant behind the steering wheel.
Fair point Paul, that was definitely a big miss on my end. I did not realize this car was a manual. Frankly, it’s not what I would have expected to see on a Caprice. A Biscayne, certainly, a Bel Air or Impala, reasonably, but not a Caprice. Looking over your article again, it appears that such a combo was available from the factory with a 283 (like in this car) or the 327.
I was expecting the difference Aaron was referring to, to be some minor detail on distinguishing one with a Powerglide from say, the THM400 that was available with the 396 that year, not something as obvious (in retrospect) as this one having three pedals. So much for not being able to see the forest for the trees, seems like I can’t see the forest for the leaves.
Nigel — don’t feel too bad about it: It’s a matter of identifying small-to-the-eye details in web-resolution photos that may not be in focus and that aren’t the focus of the image. I’m actually really bad at that, and I had to find the original 2015 Cohort photos because I wasn’t positive whether the interior shot was from the same car as the exterior shots, or a mixture of photos of different cars. (I do that sometimes if I don’t have a complete set of the same cars, and many CC contributors do as well.)
Anyway, your initial inference was a reasonable one, since Evening Orchid was a short-lived and fairly rare color: How many ’65 Caprices in that color with black vinyl roof and black cloth interior could there be? (In this case, apparently at least two, but it’s a good point.) It’s also not uncommon with relatively rare cars/combinations for the same car to pop up repeatedly across multiple events and sometimes multiple auction listings over the years, although with the sale listings it’s easier to just check the VIN…
Some salesmen and lower level execs got a “car” but had to pay for “options”.
A rural Kentucky rep for an oil company got a biscayne but paid extra for the 427. They bought the gas. A VP at my company got a Panther LTD, and it had the VV 351 but not much else. Etc.
The Buick was the better car than even a 396 Caprice. Driven hard the Rat, built on the cheap, would just not hold up like a Nailhead, blueprinted at the factory.
In the Salt Belt I guess it didn’t really matter and both would be scrapped when the seats got ratty in the Gas Crisis of 1973.
Aside from a couple of pieces of fake wood on the steering wheel the instrument panel and dashboard looks exactly like the one in my parents ’65 Impala. As was pointed out, it’s nothing but an Impala in a fancy evening gown. The same claim could also be made about the Ford LTD as well. I’m somewhat surprised that the base transmission on the Caprice was a three on the tree, as it was supposed to be a “luxury” vehicle, but I believe manual transmissions were standard on all GM cars at the time (save Cadillac). But then this was how GM made much of its money, advertising a low price to attract buyers. GM’s advertising always seemed to advertise the base price of the vehicle and show the vehicles in the pictures fully equipped with all the extras.
Amazing to see a top of the line Caprice equipped with three on the tree. Were I to spring for a 1965 Caprice, it would be a 396 and THM400 for sure.
My father replaced one of our 2 cars every other year. That’s what was done back in the day if one could afford it. He usually drove Electras, with an occasional Olds 98 w/buckets (!) purchased once to add variety. The Electra needs a Custom interior w/power windows in order to avoid the cheap door panel treatment on the non-power windowed cars. Our 66 was loaded & would shame the example shown here. The Caprice is a nice car, but no 225! And, I was really let down when my mother forbid my dad from buying the “hot rod” 65 Riviera in lieu of another Electra!
One thing that I never understood about the ’65 Caprice and the base Electra 225 is how both cars had a rear center armrest but lacked the front one. Something that was standard on the various versions of the Electra 225 Custom and Limited (the Limited was also introduced as an option package on the 1965 Electra 225 Custom 4 door hardtop for the 1965 model year (and it wasn’t a late introduction in the model year). The interior in any Electra 225 also included chrome plated metal armrests while the Caprice had chromed plastic armrests. The door panels of the Electra 225 Custom have a really nice feel and they do look more upgrade than the Chevy door panels.
Here’s a picture of my ’65 Wildcat Custom showing an interior that’s similar to the base Electra 225 interior but it has the front armrest and the cloth is the same that was offered in the Electra 225 Custom 4 door if you didn’t choose the all vinyl notchback seat. The cloth bench was offered at extra cost in the Wildcat hardtop sedan which also had a standard all vinyl notchback seat but it was standard in the post sedan. Not sure about the Electra. I’ve never seen a post sedan with the all vinyl notchback seat. it seemed like it was mostly on coupes and hardtop sedans.