We’ve already looked at one beige A-body today, but I felt the need to share this Century sedan I saw at a garage back in October. Yes, it has the rare alloy wheels, but that’s not the biggest surprise.
Looks like it took quite a knock to the old nose. But don’t worry, they sold thousands of these cars in the Midwest, and I imagine the local junkyard has several of these to provide a new bumper, grille, header panel, headlamp and hood. They probably even have one in beige Light Driftwood! So, a beige Buick, big deal, even with the alloys. What prompted me to snap these pics?
This! Yes, this Century Custom has the super-scarce leather interior, in beige of course. I would guess that less than 10% of these had leather seats. This may well be the only one I’ve seen in the metal. I know this is at least a 1995, as this more modern seat design was added that year.
A round speedometer replaced the time-honored strip speedometer that year too. But leather was available to the end of production, so this could also be a ’96. I don’t think there is a way to tell the two model years apart.
The back seat appears equally immaculate. If I had to guess, I’d say that someone’s Grandma Betty bought a new Lacrosse and gave their old car to their grandson/granddaughter. Augustana College (my alma mater), St. Ambrose and Palmer College of Chiropractic are all nearby, and I could see this as some student’s “college car.” Either that, or the original owner had a mishap parallel parking…
I have to wonder about the damage to the passenger-side back door. Was it open at the time of the crash, and forward momentum crumpled the sheetmetal into the front door? Or is it from a separate event? There were marks on this side; a sideswipe, perhaps? Other than the nose, airbag, rear fender arch and that one door, this car was in showroom condition.
I hope it was in to be fixed, and not a totaled car to be hauled away to the scrappers. At any rate, it disappeared shortly after I took these photos. It should be saved for that rare leather interior alone! If it had been red on red, I might even have inquired if it was for sale!
I’m sure it had a bent frame and was sent to Buick Heaven.
You may hate silver, but I (generally) hate beige. Pewter I like!
I had no idea that leather was available in a Century Custom. I remember several ’96 Century Limiteds on the local dealer’s lot with leather seats – in fact one of those Limited models is still around town as it is the proverbial “little old lady” car.
This particular Century Limited is on my radar as its elderly owner has suffered from poor health for some time now and has to have someone use the Century to get her around.
Dealers frequently purchased (or had made) leather seats that they would drop in low line cars. Don’t know if this was because there was an uptick in customers wanting leather seats and the dealer was doing this to clear their lots or what.
By the looks of it, ths wasn’t originally a leathered up car…look at the mouse fur door panels.
I always have a tinge of sorrow when I see a nice, straight old car take a smack like this. It is almost always the end of the line. In the late 80s, there was some young kid driving grandma’s old 60 or 61 DeSoto sedan, that was just beautiful, save a couple of rust holes getting a start. One day I saw the car parked with the nose all bashed in, and then I never saw it again.
This Buick is almost certainly totalled by all conventional measures. Just the air bag would probably total the car. If the owner were to go out to the pick-a-part and buy some individual pieces, he could probably put it mostly back together, but it would be a low-rent beater for the rest of its life.
It could be fixed rather easily. Everything on the Buick Century is the same from the C-pillar forward except for the nose cone (header panel). About 3 years ago, someone backed into me in a parking lot in my 93 Century wagon and crushed the driver’s headlight area. I did not even hit the bumper or hood or fender. Took it to the body shop to get estimate and they gave me grief that it was going to get totalled. It was about $1,800 total to replace the header panel, headlamp assembly, side marker assembly, and the grille and repaint. I told them I would fix it myself and cut me a check for a $1 less than book which was $1,300 at the time. The insurance was more than happy to do that since it was $1,299 instead of $1,8xx. I found a white nose from another car used gave the man $100 for it, $40 for a new d/s headlamp, $15 for the side marker and installed it myself. There are only 8 bolts that hold the nose on and you can have if off the car in about 30 minutes.
Making that 4 door sedan whole is relatively easy and can be done for less than $1000. The clincher is going to be the airbag even used they are several hundred dollars.
The rarest, and probably the most desireable (relative to an A-body) is the T-Type editions. Especially with the 3.8 Buick V6 in 1988 which was the largest and most powerful engine put in any A-body back in the day.
That there is a 86 Century GS. I have seen these in this area in the past. Supposedly 1029 made in 86 only. I’d be happy to ad one to my garage. I’ll put it on my fantasy “rare” GM cars of the 80’s 90’s 00’s and today list.
I owned an 86 Century GS for about a year. It was in pretty rough shape, and I paid a whole $150 for it. It was quick and comfortable, but not worth the restoration costs and I was broke at the time anyway. Neat car though.
When I attended college at GMI in Flint 1984-86, the Buick R&D guys would bring all of these cars over to the campus for the annual car show in the spring. Their test cars all had 140mph speedos in them and I distinctly remember seeing this car (blacked-out chrome on a Century, whaaaa?). I remember it having the T-Type badges, though (but I may have been looking at a prototype), and I think my early 1980s Buick brochure shows a Century T-Type as well.
Century had a T-Type from 1983-89 but in 86 only, a special GS 2 door was released in addition to the T-Type. There really wasn’t much difference between a GS and T-Type other than the seats and some trim features. My 93 wagon with the 3300 Buick V6 is darn quick for that size of a car.
I had a 1984 Century Limited Coupe with the dreaded 3.0 litre V-6. It was black with red interior – I loved that car except for the engine – a total nightmare! After putting about 75k miles on it and 2 engine rebuilds I decided enough was enough. I traded it in for a new 1989 Escort GT which was a great little car. I still missed the Century and a neighbor of mine had a white 1987 Sedan. It had the 3.8 SFI engine, blue Limited interior but with the T-package – extemely rare the way it was ordered. It had nearly every option available – even rear seat reading lamps and Twilight Sentinel! I told him when he wanted to sell it I was interested. In 1993 I bought it from him. I had that car for several years. It was fast, reliable and comfortable. One of my favorite cars ever! The difference between the 2 engines was incredible. One of the best GM cars of the 80’s!
Finding any 3.8L A-body is really tough these days.
Really, any FWD car with the pre-3800 version of the 3.8L is pretty rare anymore.
True on both counts!
3300-equipped ones are still around, and those are one of my “really cheap car” recommends to people (if in good condition).
What in the ‘Wide World of sports is going on around here’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I step away from the site for 4 hours and it all goes to hell! Enuff w/ the beige Buicks, I implore you. 🙂
You’d better not stop by when we have Polo Green Pearl Plymouth Day.
It’s bound to get ugly.
Even THAT sounds better than Beige Buick day—
i mean really, after all those lovely, if monsterous big GM convertibles…. what a buzzkill!
Hey, I can’t help that so many of these came in beige 🙂
I would have loved to find a nice example in navy blue, burgundy or hunter green. Finding any A-body Century with leather is pretty rare.
I’m going to say that this one got sent to the Buick pasture in the sky. Looks like the steering wheel is even bent. I doubt an insurance company would pay to fix it at this point.
Usually deployed airbags render a car ‘totalled’, per insurance company. And this car being 18 years old and not a ‘collectable’ by any means, leads to total loss.
Just saw a 4 car pile up during this am’s commute. One of the cars featured was a 2013 Prius, still w/ temp tags. All airbags deployed, nose and butt rammed in….. surely looks a goner.
Wow— that car didn’t have more than a few weeks on the Odometer!
The frame is almost certanly bent and is why the rear door is pinched. I would fix this and give the replaced parts a matched paint job. Allthough it may not be worth fixing to some this cars near mint condition would allow me to do it. It also helps that after it is fixed it would last for along time to come.
Driver mixing up the gas and brake pedals is the likeliest scenario here.
I’d consider buying the wagon and putting these seats in it, I’m sure the pick-a-part would give you a good price on them.
No doubt this is major damage, but I’d really like to see a photo of the “bent frame” I keep reading about that is under this car… 🙂
Give that man a cigar…
I’ll return the favor with a brandy…I was starting to think that no one understood my joke!
Airbag popped; sorry to say this one’s a goner. Father in law barely hit a deer in his rust free, loaded Mercury Mystique with 79,000 miles on it, but the airbag deployed so they were going to total it. He fixed it himself, but it was hard to find a hood and fender because it seems like all Contours/Mystiques in Wisconsin go straight to the crusher. A damn shame.
still with the power antenna on these
Man I hate that IP. I’m sorry if it offends the Buick lovers, but when they switched to those giant lettered speedos in the 1990s, they totally lost me. Clearly they were targeting people old as f@&$ that needed a user friendly car so they could drive themselves to the optometrist appointment to see about having their cataracts removed.
I remember once watching a little old lady in a mint condition Century barrel right into my mailbox. To this day, I still have no idea how she managed to do that.
Agree with you totally there. Worse even was when they switched from the platinum-look ones on the RWD LeSabres and Park Avenues to this crappy type, circa 1983. What a backwards move…
Ouch! I hope no one was in the car when the crash happened. Look how close the steering wheel is to the seat. Nosebreak!
My 98 Civic EX was recently crashed into a parked car at about 15 mph and the front end damage looked two to three times worse in terms of bumper push back and hood crumple. But no airbag went off, no frame damage, totally fixable. This car looks like it sent most of the impact back through the body rather than absorbing it. Were Hondas and Buicks only three years apart designed that differently?
Yes. Once the airbag is deployed it’s a whole different story . . . . Plus a Honda has more resale value than a Buick.
Possibly the tail end of the early airbags designed for non-seatbelt wearing occupants, that would go off at ridiculously low speeds such as 15mph.
I’d question some of the repair descriptions – if the airbag has gone off would you get away without damage to the radiator support panel and inner fenders, or even just the front of the chassis rails behind the bumper?
Could you put a steering wheel from an earlier non-airbagged Buick in it? I don’t see any steering wheel controls for the radio or cruise, and it would elimiate the fugly looking airbag corpse.
You could, although it is not technically legal without the car being declared a salvage (which probably would anyways). Another around-about is to replace the steering wheel without the airbag (again only available to salvage titles).
I never liked that airbag wheel design on Buicks, I had a 1992 LeSabre Limited back in 1996 with that design and that was the worst part of the car for me. Early airbag designs on most cars were ugly until technology allowed designers to get creative.
You used to be able to get discounts from the insurance company for Airbags and ABS, but I think they largely phased those out since most cars today have them.
Craig you are right – my Dad’s 1990 Cadillac deVille had the UGLIEST steering wheel ever!! It was a gorgeous car but the steering wheel was downright hideous!!. I thought GM had planned that one in about a week or so. I loved the old style telescopic Caddy wheel that was around from 1979. I was so disappointed when I saw that new airbag steering wheel for the first time. But Dad loved that car and that is all that mattered!
It wouldn’t surprise me if the damage to the rear door occurred because it flew open during the front end impact.
The beige actually isn’t bad on that car… I’ve seen worse. That car just needs a little love.
I’m digging the leather interior.
I’ve seen this so many times before, a nice original car like that gets in the wrong hands because of the price and in the same amount of time ends up like this. Not my kind of a car but I bet it had a lot of life in it still. I can only imagine what the idiot owner was doing when this happened, trying to light a cigarette or something. You just know it was something stupid.