There’s been a bit of an internet firestorm over this car the past few days. It showed up at BringATrailer, and the initial response was “photoshop”! Then someone called the seller and got an explanation: This was “a factory job”, one of two or three made by Buick to test the concept of a hydraulically actuated tag axle in order to increase trailering capacity to 10,000 lbs. And just about everyone is buying that. Not me.
There is NO WAY this abomination would have been designed and engineered at GM. You think Bill Mitchell would have let this go out the door? From the same company that engineered the superb GMC Motorhome with its air-spring twin axles?
What we are looking at is the work of some entrepreneur who came up with the hare-brained idea that it would really be wonderful if a big Buick had a second axle that could be lowered for extra weight capacity. American ingenuity at its finest; straight from the pages of Popular Mechanix. And he managed to build two or three in his shop to test the market, which obviously gave him a resounding answer: This is not what America had been waiting for.
I give him a wee bit of credit for at least covering it up with this, but he still went about it all wrong. IF GM had designed such a tag axle for the Buick, they would have used a little 12″ or 13″ wheel and tire, as a tag axle doesn’t need a giant 15″ wheel and tire to help support the rear end. And it would have been tucked up very discretely into the Buick’s bodywork.
But there’s no doubt that Buick would never have gone down this road anyway, as their cars were able to tow quite large trailers anyway, properly equipped. And the market for something like this was zilch, especially since the trailering market was moving to Suburbans and trucks. Nice try….
Although the misspelling has become common, it’s more accurate (and makes a bit more sense) to use ‘hare-brained’ as opposed to ‘hair-brained’.
Regardless of how it’s spelled, it’s certainly appropriate to use it in describing whomever came up with the idea to ‘improve’ a big, seventies Buick’s towing capacity.
I’m feeling a bit hare-brained this morning…
I am the owner of said abomination pictured in Hamburg. I invite you to see the car and inspect the build sheet which clearly states custom build. It is a concept car that was never put into production. It is all steel construction. I am currently in Fleetwood, feel free to contact me!!
I met Jason today at Sheetz in Hamburg PA. The car looks very legit to me.
Another claimed “rare factory prototype”……..right.
Yup, I saw it on BaT too, said “nope” to myself and left it at that.
I do appreciate the logic of your arguement.
Surely it would have been easier to fit a dually axle. One could even tub the trunk like the drag racers do to fit extra wide tires and thus retain the stock width.
I’ll bet it has that 100 mpg carb that the oil industry crushed years ago
+1 AND it would perform better in a crash than any modern car, too!
Plus, this would have been all over the pages of Popular Mechanics or some other such magazine and someone would have read all about it back then. Plus, these things would be well known in the Buick collector community.
Any brave soul volunteer to actually call the guy and find out what he wants for this rare ‘factory’ monstrosity?
Probably be a big hit at the car shows, but I can’t imagine it being much good for anything else (including towing).
I remember seeing one advertised in a Trader magazine and good 20+ years ago. Even then it screamed backyard engineering.
I stopped going to BAT because of the idiots who believed that crap stories like that were true.
Every body knows it was Oldsmobile and not Buick that was building the tandem rear axle trail-haulers. CC did a story about them back in August https://www.curbsideclassic.com/fieldside-classics/oldsmobile-toronado-custom/
Wow, that first photo looks JUST like a badly-executed airbrushing. Amazing to see it exists. But why?
This may well be the one Buick in the world with less trunk space than a Volkswagen.
Oh, and here it is back in 2010. Guess no one is waiting in line to snap this gem up
You couldn’t GIVE that thing to me. Even with the fender skirts on, it just looks ridiculous. The sweeping lines of the stock Buick are pretty much ruined by the bulging rear. Who cares if it’s rare? Some things are rare for a reason. I’ll admit that I’m curious about how having all that extra weight in the back would affect the handling and steering, but that’s the extent of it for me.
Electra 2225?
Did Electras come with 14″ wheels? Why do the extra wheels look so HUGE?
I really thought the first photo was a ‘chop. It wasn’t until I saw the subsequent photos that I realized this was not a late April Fool’s stunt.
Not in a million years would GM release a hideous mutation like this to the public…..wait…
but then there’s the Aztec.
Actually, this and 6-wheel Toronado would look right at home on a Gerry & Sylvia Anderson Supermarionation show like Thunderbirds or Joe 90.
The pimp from Magnum Force called. He’s glad someone found the camper puller he used for his famous “Ladies On Tour” operation.
I can’t believe you folks don’t recognize Buick’s innovative, twin sidemount, laterally juxtaposed continental kit.
But if it were original, it would have been covered in vinyl as well, maybe with a teeny little opera window for checking tire pressure. 🙂
Yeah this makes no sense. Dual rear wheels for the win! Although someone likely did that with a kit from JC Whitney at some point
Man is that an atrocity. The rear of the car must be so heavy with the extra weight. First thing I thought when I saw it was, “just get a truck!” Why bother botching up a car with that if you need towing capacity. GM definitely wouldn’t come out with this. Stupid idea, bad execution.
I’ve finally found a ’71-’76 B/C/E body car I don’t like*
*aside from donks
If that design was meant to pull something really heavy it might also have to have a gooseneck hitch. There goes the rest of the trunk space.
I have a vague memory of seeing a mid-sixties Thunderbird with just such a thing (probably in a magazine like Popular Mechanics). I could not find that in an admittedly quick internet search just now. If anyone else can find it I think others would get a hoot from seeing it.
To the point of the towing ability of the Buick. My parents next-door neighbor pulled a 26-foot Airstream with his 1969 Electra 225 (430 cu. in. V8) on several vacations out west including trips over the Continental Divide and through the Mojave Desert. Obviously the car had the proper towing set up including auxiliary cooling and it never gave a bit of trouble.
I have never considered suicide until I seen this pile of crap. I’m sorry, I’m the biggest Buick fan out there, however this thing is not worthy of the tri shield emblem that stands for luxurious, powerful and mature…..this thing screams welfare recipient. If this actually did come from GM ( and I cant believe it did) whosoever designed this thing should be charged and hit from the government with an existence tax. What a freak-en stupid….Id rather be seen in a Yugo!
Trent
This car does exist. I have personally seen it. It is a factory prototype that gm realized was garbage. They actually made around 100, and when they realized it was crap, they pulled all of em off the market and crushed em. But a few escaped. I agree that it is ugly, but buick did try to make this car.