Paul’s piece on the 1964 Buick Book elicited quite a lot of responses, many of which mentioned how attractive the Buicks of this era were. These days, 1960 Buicks aren’t commonly seen on the streets, so it must have been a case of the CC Effect when I drove past this particular car last Thursday and decided to stop and shoot it .
The 1962 Buick followed up the ’61, which, like all 1961 GM cars, was dramatically leaner and cleaner than the company’s flamboyant ’59-’60 fin-mobiles. Among this year’s changes was a revised windshield curvature that reduced last year’s “dogleg” considerably, creating one of the most beautiful A-pillar shapes of the 1960’s, if not ever, in the process.
All 1962 Electras wore the Electra 225 designation, despite that their 220-inch length fell five inches short of living up to it: Electra 220, if you please.
This car has the venerable Buick 401 Nailhead engine, which appears to be largely original.
It’s far from perfect, but after 90,000 miles on the odometer it’s survived rather well for a Michigan car.
It can be yours for the princely sum of $3,200.00. Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?
It appears that in 62 Buick sold over 13,000 of the 225 sedan. I wonder how many were produced without power windows. Very handsome car but I do not remember seeing that many of the 225s in the sedan version back in the day. Interesting to note that the 62 225 came in two four-door hardtop versions, the regular pillarless model and the six-window “Riviera” pillarless version.
http://www.buicks.net/years/62.shtml
If you recall, Cadillac series 62’s of the day (Calais beginning in ’65) had roll up windows . . . well into the latter part of the 1960s . . . as standard equipment. Power windows were optional.
My late Grandmother was one of those folks who moved up to premium cars later on in life . . . but . . . . eschewed power windows. Her top line ’66 Dodge Monaco and ’69 Chrysler New Yorker had everything else available in the day, but NOT power windows. Her last car, a 1986 Mercury Grand Marquis Brougham came with them standard. By then, she didn’t complain.
My grandfather had one (white exterior with blue interior). If I recall correctly, it had the first “transistor” radio in a car that I can remember – a “Sonomatic” – it was really neat to get sound out of the radio immediately. In previous cars, the radio had to warm up (because of the tubes).
Nice price! Well, as long as the undercarriage isn’t made of rust.
If it drives anything like the reskinned H bodies on the mid ’90s-in which penned a letter to a friend while lying on the backseat-this is an impressive piece of machinery. For while the mid ’90s Buicks I fell in love with may not have been competitive with contemporary imports’ handling prowess, that stable, peerless, unpurturbed ride quality was a very unique attribute which I’m sure was not shared with many other vehicles, no matter how sophisticated.
I forgot to mention that this car appears to have been in storage for a while, as the blue Michigan plates were phased out after 2007.
And in all likelihood this car would have a delightful ride, as I don’t think I have ever ridden in a Buick that didn’t ride nice!
“and produced one of the most beautiful A-pillar shapes of the 1960′s, if not ever.”
I couldn’t agree more.
The Buick’s nose comes across as a bit awkward to me but that tail is sweet as punch. Overall, I think the Pontiacs had the best package at the time.
It’s funny, now that my speed freak years are behind me I don’t view the 4 door sedans from the 60s with as much disinterest as I used to. (Though I’d still love to have a
Flat Top” Biscayne 2 door sedan.)
(ETA. That rear reminds me a bunch of a 74 Monaco)
Buick used a very similar rear end treatment on the 1972 LeSabre. It’s an example of how the 1971-76 Buicks blend various 1950’s and 1960’s styling elements into the 1970’s bodyshell to make a very classic but not “retro looking” design.
” In previous cars, the radio had to warm up (because of the tubes).”
Old Coots, stay seated but be counted.
Who among you recall the tube testers in grocery stores?
Any ancient decrepit old fogies admit to actually using the dern’ contraption?
Or going to the local Radio Shack to use their tube tester and purchase replacements when necessary? At 13, I did all the basic electronic repair in the extended family.
“in previous cars, the radio had to warm up (because of the tubes).”
Always fascinated by electrical devices, I noticed these things. My first “stereo” (was actually monaural – one channel) had tubes and was a present from my father. Audiophiles never lost their love of tubes – because their output contained even-harmonics – considered pleasing to the ear.
A few years later, I was an electrical engineer in training. I was in one of the last classes in college in which tubes were studied in detail. We had these “solid state” things – transistors – that were considered very promising. Integrated circuits (ICs) and microprocessors weren’t available yet. A large computer was a room-sized device.
The automobile industry was frequently an early (large) user of new technologies. GM used to have the world’s largest clean room to make engine control computers (at Delco in Kokomo) – a computer for each of the millions of cars they made.
I used the Radio Shack tube testers.
Yup. If the TV went on the fritz, Dad consulted a book that identified which tubes might be causing the problem based on the particular symptoms. We yanked those tubes and off we went to a store that had one of those testing machines.
My grandad built his own tube tester from a kit; I think it was an Eico. The case was suitcase sized. My dad borrowed it whenever our TV went on the fritz. Finally one day he went down to the TV store and was told that they no longer sold tubes — time to buy a new TV.
Ah yes, the tube tester in the drugstore. When I was in college, my roomie and I took all of the tubes out of our old b&w tv and walked to the store to test them. We decided to replace every one that was either bad (1 or 2) or marginal (maybe another 5 or 6). Then we found out how much tubes cost. We decided that the marginal ones were just fine after all.
I recall the self service tube testers in the stores. My family had a 1949 12″ Westinghouse B&W television for all of my childhood. It would need repairs every so often, at the exorbitant repair bill of 5 or 6 dollars. The TV was a tabletop model, but extremely big and heavy. One of the last times it needed repair, I was a teen and we took the tubes out to check them at the store. The tubes checked out OK, so the trouble was in the circuits. The dreaded repair bill again.
Before I got drafted in 1972, my Dad came home with a 12″ Philco portable, cost $ 69. In 1974, during my “all I did was throw away money” days, I bought a 19″ Zenith B&W portable for around $ 200.
This served us until 1979, when I “arrived”, and bought a 25″ Zenith color console, around $ 600. My Mom was quite upset with me for that purchase, but she watched it.
As far as car radios were concerned, my uncle installed a tube radio from his 61 Apache truck, to his 66 GMC. My uncle installed the unit upside down. The tuning was on the left. My Dad never had a radio in his car.
I think it was around 1972 or 73 that my grandma got a 25 inch Magnavox console color TV. It was the first new TV she had owned since the cabinet b&w set she got in the 1950s, and was absolutely the biggest, most luxurious and decadent television I had ever seen in my life. My Uncle Bob worked for Magnavox and our family got insider discounts for years, which is I am sure how grandma was able to afford such a monster TV. Now, anything short of 40 inches and you have to squint to see it, and you get a remote control with even the cheapest TV from WalMart. Times change.
I remember the tube testers . . . and tube car radios! (My parents’ ’55 and ’61 Pontiacs).
As long as it’s not rusty underneath, it would certainly be worth fixing up the interior. A real piece of automotive history. Time to break out the chrome polish and the simonize.
For some reason, the 62 is one of my very favorite 60s Buicks. The tail end was just so well done. I also agree about the A pillars in 1961-62 GM cars.
I have two memories of these, both vague. My father had a company-issued 63 Bel Air wagon. Every now and then, the owner of the company (or his grown son) would need a station wagon, and Dad would drive home for the weekend in a really nice car. One was a yellow 62 Buick convertible. Dad parked it in the garage with the top down. It must have rolled back a bit, because when he went to raise the electric garage door (we must have had one of the few at the time) the lower lip of the door would catch the bumper and raise the car an inch or so before the door would reverse. When he started the car with the door down in order to inch the car forward, my mother was freaking out about carbon monoxide.
The other, about that same time, was a guy my dad worked with. He had been a WWII bomber pilot and our families did things together. They had a 62 LeSabre sedan in that awful metallic pink. He must have been quite secure with his masculinity to drive around in that car.
I think that these 6 window C body sedans were my least favorite body style of these cars. The 4 window cars (and the 2 doors) were much better looking. A nice find.
Always loved these Buicks, and yes, the fluid lines of the A-pillars/vent windows in the GM 61’s-62’s were perhaps the most attractive of any car anytime (btw, my parents always referred to them as “wind wings”). Ever notice how the pillared sedan versions were fatter and squishier than the hardtops, though, much less appealing. Now why would you go to the expense of buying the upscale Electra and not even treat yourself to power windows, for pete’s sake? I agree, too, the 4-window hardtops were much better looking than the 6-windows.
My grandmother traded in her ’56 DeSoto Firedome on a new ’62 Buick LeSabre hardtop coupe, white with a blue interior. It was her first car with power steering and power brakes and air conditioning, although it eluded me why she took a model with a clock-delete plate staring at you from center dashboard. It, too, had the Sonomatic radio. She always liked this car, but when the A/C failed four years later, she decided to replace it with a new Dodge Coronet, it being almost as much as the car was worth to repair the A/C, as I recall.
Funny you guys brought up the radio tubes and tube testers, yes, I am old enough to remember taking out our TV tubes when the thing went on the fritz and biking down to our local grocery/liquor store and plugging them in to the tester machines. Hadn’t thought of that in years. They were pretty ubiquitous in those days. Our family’s ’59 Ford Galaxie was the last for us that had the tube radio, I can remember how agonizingly long it took to warm up. We were so impressed with the instant-on transistor radios that came in our later cars. Little did we know what electronic marvels would follow.
WERE the A-Pillars different on the 1962s from the 1961s? I thought that body-style, including the windshield and A-pillars, were a carryover. Just as the 1959s were identical to the 1960s and the 1963s the same as the 1964s…and on and on.