This begins a really odd chapter in my car ownership experience. Or maybe we should say “another” really odd chapter. It began with a harebrained idea. You know the kind – “Hey, what if I quit doing the normal kind of thing everyone else does and did something really unique that almost nobody does?” And of course, my idea involved cars.
My ’68 Chrysler had been treating me well. Better, in many ways, than the much newer Club Wagon. On which I was making substantial payments and was having more service issues than I had been expecting. Hmmm, I wondered, if one old car is good, wouldn’t two old cars be better? Why not sell the van and get a second older car? A really nice one that would be presentable and reliable. And wouldn’t have a big dent in it.
I think back now and realize that my aversion to car payments is something I have carried my entire life. For some, a monthly payment for a car is a lifestyle – something as non-negotiable as rent or a mortgage or health insurance. I only made it halfway through the payment book of my first new car before I sold it and bought a 20-year-old Plymouth sedan for cash. Although I kept up on the payment book that came along with the 88 Honda I had married – that one wasn’t really negotiable.
By this time in my life I was self-employed with an income that could swing fairly wildly from month to month. After my office move I was presented with a different set of incentives from before. Before that move I got a a fixed monthly check – the highs and lows among five partners evened out and allowed these regular draws. But now it was just me. I carried a fixed monthly overhead that I needed to cover, and I got what was left over. When I worked on other peoples’ files I got a percentage of the bill after the client paid. Most of these files were what we call “insurance defense” – where we defend the guy who gets sued after an accident but are hired and paid hourly by the insurance company.
The twist was that I now got 100% of the billings on my own files. I had brought with me about two dozen things called “subrogation” files that had been given me during the firm breakup. These were cases where my insurance company client had paid out on a claim caused by someone else’s fault – be it an uninsured driver who caused an accident or a careless plumber or electrician whose carelessness caused water or fire damage. My job would be to go after the at-fault party so my client could be reimbursed, and my fee would be a percentage of those collections. I had a knack for these files and soon had one client who started sending me as many as I could handle (and sometimes more). Because I kept it all, this work was more lucrative for me and I started working it harder. Now, instead of fairly steady monthly billings based on my time, I was on the lawyer’s equivalent of straight commission. The months I could settle a nice fire case would be fabulous, but when none of those came through and I was left with the small monthly payments from the uninsured drivers, good budgeting skills became important.
Think of all the money I could save without that monthly car payment! With Mrs. JPC as a stay-at-home mom and with Catholic school tuition getting started, the bucks were not stretching like they formerly did. Ditching the van payment seemed like a great idea – and certainly more practical than ditching children, which is quite illegal. And it was spring, so my car-fever was kicking up. But if I were to get rid of my van, with what should I replace it?
Two options soon crossed my path. Day after day I drove the kids to school in the mornings. Every one of those days I passed a dark metallic red Mercury Colony Park wagon that looked really nice. I knew it was from the later 80’s, given its slight attempts at aerodynamic updates. It had the full paneling package, the alloy turbine wheels and looked really, really nice. With the unpleasantness of the 5.0/AOD powertrain from my ’85 Crown Vic having receded into the far back part of my mind (and because turbine-style wheels make everything better), I vowed to take a closer look.
The other option came from my office. The senior lawyer there had just bought a new car for his wife. After much agony, they opted not to buy one of the Buicks that had long been their favorites and bought a new Toyota Buick Avalon, instead. This was probably around 1996, which made her old car about 11 years old. It was a 1985 Buick LeSabre Collectors Edition coupe. It had racked up a bit over 100k miles, but if you looked up the word “meticulous” in the dictionary, their family picture would have been there. Everything these people owned was exceptionally well cared for, so I had no doubt the Buick would be a good car. Yes, the Buick was a 2-door, but with a Chrysler Newport that could easily handle three kiddie seats in back, a 2-door was something I could work with.
After calling Mr. Mercury and getting some info (including a price that was higher than I wanted to pay) I went to look at it. I was going to be ready with one of my longtime negotiating moves. I went to the bank and withdrew the amount of cash that would be the most I would be willing to pay, and put it in my pocket. This was good for bargaining and also protected me from my weakness of getting carried away and paying too much money for a car I should walk away from.
The Mercury was very nice, but had extremely high mileage (to me at the time) – something approaching 200k. The man was a salesman who drove for his job which regularly took him to two or three states. He had done some recent maintenance that had been fairly pricey, like full brakes and new tires, and probably a couple of other things I no longer recall. I went into the evening with the Mercury as the favorite, but was put off by the miles and also by the squeaks and rattles which the high-mile station wagon exhibited. I was also reminded that the driving experience was a lot more like my Crown Vic than my late lamented Marquis Wagon (the smaller one, like a Fairmont).
“It’s a nice car” I began, after I returned to his house following a test drive “But . . . ” I ticked off the things that I found wanting. I made an offer that was well below his asking. He came down a little, and then I hit my cash limit. “Here’s the deal” I said – “I have $X (whatever that amount was, I no longer recall) in my pocket. That’s my top dollar, and if it’s not enough for you, I understand and won’t be insulted. I am going to look at another car anyway.” He hung tough and said my offer was not enough, given what he had just put into the car. Had I been selling instead of buying, I might have agreed with him. Anyway, we shook hands and I headed for Larry’s house to look at the Buick.
I got there after dark, and took a short test drive. It was about as pretty as these ever got (because the 2 door B body Olds and Buick of 1980-85 was never very attractive to me). Visually, this car was an awful lot like the best parts of my Crown Victoria. The outside was navy blue with a navy landau vinyl roof, and inside was lots and lots of navy blue velour. The car had the Buick fake wires (instead of the road wheels I wished it had), good tires, and everything was working as it should.
I noticed immediately that GM’s theory of how a 4-speed automatic transmission with overdrive should work was far more pleasant to drive than the Ford version I had so despised. I also noticed how the car felt so much larger and heavier than my old Crown Vic, which had felt light and nimble in comparison. But hey – isn’t a Buick supposed to feel like a big, heavy car? Larry’s price was fair (less than the money I had in my pocket, in fact) and I bought a car.
As I was driving it home, my recently purchased cell phone rang. “Hi” came the voice on the other end. “We talked earlier this evening about my Mercury station wagon. I’ve thought it over, and I think maybe I would be willing to accept your offer.” I can report that one of the most smug, self-satisfied conversations a fellow can have is when he gets to respond – “Gee, I wish I we could have done that when I was there, but I have already bought the other car. Sorry. It’s a nice car and I’m sure it will find a buyer.” “But that buyer won’t be me” was the part I left unsaid, because that would have just been mean. Two of us had a car that evening – I had my new Buick and that guy still had his old Mercury.
That is really the most interesting part of the story. I advertised my van at a fairly stiff price but didn’t really get any serious bites on it. I drove the Buick a handful of times. The biggest problem with the car was at the office. One of the secretaries there had worked for Larry for quite a number of years and was more than a little peeved that I had bought the car. She felt she should have been offered the chance because her husband was looking for a car, and she believed that I had swooped in and bought it out from under her.
Her dissatisfaction had become quite clear at about the three week mark in my ownership. She was tactful, but I still detected a bit of a chill in the air. I decided that 1) selling my van and replacing it with a 10+ year old 2 door Buick was – let’s go with not the best idea I had ever had, 2) I didn’t want to nourish ill feelings from a staffer at work who was both a great person and a great secretary, and 3) I wasn’t really in love with the Buick anyway. It was nice, and all . . . . I really loved the triple navy blue color and the extra luxurious “Collectors Edition” trim. The Buick’s dash was the nicest of that generation of B/C body, too. But all in all, the car left me sort of lukewarm.
“Hey” I said to her one morning. “Is Mike still looking for a car? I have thought things over, and if he wants to look at the Buick I would be open to selling it to him for what I paid.” Mike came, looked it over, found it acceptable, and he bought the Buick.
I had owned that car for three weeks. I had never gotten around to registering it. I had not washed it, had not cleaned or fixed anything on it, and had not even put gas in it. It was the shortest I ever owned a car, and until writing this I had forgotten that I had taken these photos. I didn’t make any money on it, but didn’t lose any either, and was a win-win. Mike got his car, our secretary felt listened-to and appreciated, and I went back to my previously scheduled life in terms of the cars we were driving (and that monthly payment on the van).
After my six months with a ’63 Cadillac while still a teenager, I had managed to avoid another GM immersion and I put that day off for awhile longer. Buick’s advertising from the 1960’s asked the question “Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?” I had been presented with that question, mulled it over, and answered “No, not really.” At least the list of car brands I had not owned was reduced by one. Buick – I hardly knew ye. But was pretty ambivalent during the brief time I did.
The reposting of GM deadly sin 26 (Calais) and this Buick Coal from the same year really point to the downfall of GM styling prowess. The formal roof-line of this Buick coupe and just about every other GM car of that era except the Corvette and Camaro/Firebird would never have been tolerated in GM’s golden years when different divisions might share the same basic body but have very different roof-lines, or where sporty coupe versions would have different roof-lines than the formal sedans of the same model, which all provided brand/model differentiation and a style for every taste. Thus I never understood why by the 1980s GM put the formal roof on everything – it isn’t like it provided aerodynamic advantages and it certainly wasn’t universally liked, because for every person who liked it, there was at least another person who hated it (or grew tired of it). Thus the only logical explanation is that beancounters found it cheaper to put the same roof on everything, which would explain why with 5 car divisions Pontiac couldn’t have “sporty” roofs, Buick the “formal” roofs, and Olds a mixture of the two (or vice-versa).
Same thing with the mechanicals, as GM stopped providing any positive differentiation (i.e. more technology, more power, better drivability) to separate the cheap brands from the status brands as Buick pushrod V-6s, Chevy small block pushrod V-8s, Pontiac Iron-Duke pushrod 4s, and Oldsmobile pushrod diesels all featuring designs that dated back to mid-50s to early 60s went in almost everything from cheap Chevrolets to expensive Cadillacs during the 1980s. It’s almost as if GM management thought that the only thing Cadillac buyers wanted to pay extra for was more fake wood, fake chrome, and overhang versus the Chevy buyer.
A close look shows that every single B body coupe variant used a slightly different rear quarter window design, along with a different wheel opening shape, which required a different quarter panel. It is possible that the Pontiac roof treatment may be the same as the Buick’s, but I am not sure. This looks more to me like some of those changes Chrysler would make between Plymouth and Dodge that involved different stampings where most of the public never noticed.
I just know that I found the treatment on the Olds 88 actively ugly, where the Buick version was at least moderately good looking.
Now that I look back on some pictures, I think you’re right, that the LeSabre coupe and 1980-81 Catalina/Bonneville coupes did use the same rear quarter windows. It’s just that the Pontiac coupes were so rare by that time, it’s easy to forget what they look like. And with roof coverings, I think the Bonneville would usually cover the B-pillar and part of the quarter window in vinyl, to make it look more like an opera window, whereas the LeSabre, even with a vinyl roof, kept the window opening large, and did not cover the B-pillar.
At least those formal rooflines did give excellent headroom for the rear seat passengers, repetitious though they were, which I can appreciate more and more now that I can bang my head getting in and out of newer cars in both the front AND rear seats.
Oldsmobile flowed in my blood in the ’70s and ’80s, and I owned this car’s direct cousin in 1982 Delta 88 coupe form.
The Olds was a little quirky compared with the Buick, starting with its shovel nose. The 1977+ Olds dash was a reprise of the 1967 Olds dash, and the tall vertical glove box door was an acquired taste, but I came to like it quite a bit. Interesting that Buick went with round gages in an era that used too many strip speedometers (such as the Olds). I had never seen it before today, but the slightly low round gages vaguely recall the far more radical gages on the 1965 Buick. The ’77-79 version of your dash included a large round clock over the glove box, just right of the center stack. I missed that detail when they went to the clock integrated into the stereo.
I’m in the minority that I wasn’t much of a fan of the ’77 LeSabre coupe, I thought they got better each year, and your 1985 was the pinnacle and a knock-out in my favorite color for many cars. I would agree that the Buick rallye wheels would have been the icing on the cake.
I slightly preferred how Olds rounded the kick up aft of the rear quarter window, and the way it resolved how the C pillar met the window, and as well as the integration of any vinyl top treatments. I don’t have any trouble with the LeSabre, it resolved its C pillar the way most big GM cars did, especially the sedans.
The Olds roof treatment…..
It was cost cutting, pure and simple. To be fair though, in ’77-79, the Buick/Olds/Pontiac B-body coupes all used the same roofline. It’s just that, at the last minute, the Delta 88 swapped out the large, triangular window for the narrower, rectangular one.
Also, sales of big coupes, and coupes in general, had been falling off. With midsized cars, personal luxury coupes were pretty much holding up the coupe market, but “normal” coupes, like the LeMans, Malibu, and the Aerobacks were falling off. There were no personal luxury coupes in the large car market to help prop up the 2-door body style in that segment, so that’s probably why they opted to give the 2-doors more of a “personal luxury” look.
To their credit, the rear quarter windows were at least still unique to each of the B-O-P and Chevy coupes. But, that more formal look probably allowed the Chevies to share the same backlite with the other cars, reducing cost a bit.
Also, remember this was a rough time economically, with high inflation/interest rates, and ever increasing government intervention leading to even more production costs, so the auto makers had to cut costs wherever they could.
Still, GM was doing a better job than Ford or Chrysler. Chrysler dropped their big coupes entirely after the big C-body Newport/New Yorker went away. And when the Panthers came out for ’79, it was pretty much just the easy-swap stuff they changed to differentiate the Fords from the Mercurys. As far as I know, the sheetmetal was all the same. And, as evidence of even more cost-cutting, the 2-doors were now, technically, 2-door sedans and not coupes. Which means they most likely shared as much of their roof structure as possible with the 4-door sedans.
Back in the late 1970s I was doing a consulting stint at Bell Labs and either nursing the aging ’67 OHC Tempest or enjoying the nicer and newer ’72 Impala.
Each morning as I walked from the parking lot to the main entrance there was a row of four or five big Buick chauffeured sedans, all in the same dark blue color, and all with little goose-necked reading lamps visibly arching over the back seat, (driver and car) waiting patiently by the door.
I was impressed. They were not Cadillacs (too obvious for a classy organization like Bell Labs), but still about as stately and as comfortable a ride as one could want.
I wanted one too. No chauffeur or goose-neck reading lamp needed!
Those long gone big Buicks, in dark blue, were beautiful.
Now if your ’85 had been a four door . . .
It is funny how certain cars implant in the memory like that. When I think of these I remember a day I saw a dark gray Electra Park Avenue of this generation (so maybe 1983-84) at the grocery store. It was a small elderly lady driving it, and it was in gorgeous condition, though quite old. This car reminds me of it.
My parents bought an ’83 Limited Coupe brand new (in Dusk Rose, a two-year color that my dad hated because “everyone knew what year the car was.”). If the lemon law would have been a thing back then, it would have qualified. The engine “ate” distributors regularly. After two years and a bunch of trips to the dealer, a factory rep figured out that the cam bearing bores in the block were out of whack, and they replaced the engine. I was only six when they bought the car, but I remember being stranded on a highway in Canada before cell phones. My dad took off with a truck driver to get help and I was worried that we’d never see him again. Luckily we did, but that was my dad’s first GM car and his last. I think he’s still a little bitter that I like GMs so much. 🙂
We eventually sold the car to my grandpa, and when he passed away, my cousin got it. He was……..hard on cars. One night, he was using the LeSabre as one might use a hunting truck, and something went wrong…and he burned the car to the ground. I guess that car had trouble written all over it from the get go.
This was one from the other end of the spectrum. My friend had bought it new, and the only problem they had was shortly after purchase when they took it on a trip out west. They ran over a leaf spring sitting in the middle of the road and punctured the gas tank. They made it to some small town garage and no new ones were readily available through GM. The mechanic said “Billy can weld it. Billy hates weldin’ gas tanks, though.” Billy welded it and it lasted the rest of the life of the car.
When someone gets a chance, please fish my comment from the trash. Thanks!
Aaron65, That seems to happen to me as well. Not sure what the perceived offense is, but eventually the comment in question does get posted. If it is also happening to you… well, I feel like I am in good company.
Karma, from yesterday’s post. Just kidding. 🙂
I can’t explain it, except that every so often it happens to even the most innocuous comments. I pay for the best spam filer available (Akismet) and you should see the dozens and sometimes even hundreds of spam and trash comments posted here that get caught in its pincers. So it’s just a minor price to pay.
Ha ha…I prefer to think that CC’s algorithms trash any comments that are remotely disparaging to GM products. 🙂
Similar experience. Occasional innocuous comments will disappear, but will eventually appear maybe an hour or so later.
…because a few human beings are keeping eyes on the conveyer belts and plucking the misrouted ham from amidst the spam. 🤓
Short term ownership, not too unusual I guess my shortest was around 3 hours involving 4 Holdens, I bought a panelvan 74 HQ $500 sold my now redundant 67 HR Holden wagon and got a 60 FB Holden sedan as part payment which after 3 hours gave to a mate to use push syerting it got old quick my mate had a very tired Holden Premier that used more oil than petrol but did have a good battery, a week later he gave me the $150 the FB owed me and was happy to not be buying paks of oil weekly, everyone happy.
You have me beat by a mile in short term ownership!
For a car that your owned for such a short term, that was quite the interesting story! Hopefully the secretary was appreciative of your actions; it was a nice gesture. I can also say only a car guy would rationalize that selling a big van for a old 2-door car along with a ’68 Chrysler would be a good idea for a family of 5. I can relate! 😉
I owned numerous 77-90 B-bodies, but never a Buick. I also never owned a 2-door, although came close to purchasing a ’84 Caprice 2-door. We had a ’79 Delta 88 2-door in the family that I frequently drove and also serviced, but it wasn’t my car. We had a ’78 Delta 88 4-door previously and the ’79 never lived up to it. While I am typically a 2-door guy, I generally prefer the 4-doors B-bodies, especially on the post 1980 models.
It’s interesting your comments comparing to the Panther. I owned an ’85 Delta 88 at the same time as ’88 Grand Marquis. I agree the B/C-bodies felt heavier, and this was more true with the Buick/Olds/Cadillac versions. My Olds felt much more solid and stable at high speeds than the Merc, but I didn’t find the Merc was any more nimble. Both my cars had upgraded suspensions and both were good handlers for what they were. The Merc was hands down more powerful and had better seats, but I still preferred the Olds driving experience despite it’s week chested 307. I kept the Olds longer and it proved to be a very reliable car, with ultimately rust issues causing me to part ways.
I also can relate to your aversion to car payments. My immigrant grandparents and dad worked hard to avoid debt and I inherited their fiscal restraint in spades. For years I drove what most considered were undesirable or beater cars, but I also never had car payments. It really set me up financially in my younger years which has paid dividends later in life.
Yes, car-guy enthusiasm does not always lead to the best results. I still remember how the total stupidity of the idea sort of washed over me.
I know my CV had the standard suspension and I suspect this Buick did too. Maybe the Vic felt more nimble just because it was lighter, on a shorter wheelbase and had lighter steering so that it always felt more eager to change direction than the big GM cars did, at least to me.
It’s subjective, but the styling on these two-door B-bodies just don’t as much for me as the four-doors do. Perhaps it is the semi-formal roofline. That said, this was still a very nice Buick.
My uncle had an ’84 or ’85 LeSabre sedan. He was 6’8″ tall (and large framed) and needed something (before later going to a Suburban) that gave him room plus the ability to haul around his wife and three kids. That LeSabre was one tough car to withstand all it endured.
While I said it last week, I have to say it again – you know when it’s time to cut a car loose. That is a true talent.
Also like you and VinceC, I have a phobia about car payments.
I agree that the 2 door B body cars always looked a little off in the 1980-85 version, but this Buick may have been the best of a compromised lot. And this triple navy blue combination remains a favorite of mine.
The original owner always used this as their primary travel car. He favored small, sporty cars, with a series of smaller Acuras with manual transmissions. It was funny, he was a really big guy, probably over 300 pounds, and watching the transformation of his driving style between the zippy little Acura and this big, lumbering Buick was something to see. This one had an easy life, with local shopping and such for a stay-at-home wife and then periodic interstate travel for vacations.
Cars can be like stray animals – sometimes they make it plain that they want to stay with you, and sometimes they make it plain that they would rather be somewhere else. 🙂
It’s interesting just how different the car the LeSabre nameplate is attached to is just one year later – never mind the obvious downsizing, transition to FWD, etc, but the rear window/roofline on the coupe. Going from the most formal thing this side of a funeral to something as laid back and relaxed as a fraternity party, relatively speaking.
Like others I’m not a particular fan of the B-coupes but Buick did a good job with the shades of blue, the triple dark blue was a solid choice that worked well visually and conveyed a sense of…something. Being all matchy-matchy is sometimes just a little much, on these (and yours) it worked. As you sort of alluded to, the road wheels would have changed the whole demeanor of the car. I wonder if that might have made a difference in your final decision.
I have also been able to experience the satisfaction of being able to convey my oh so heartfelt disappointment to a seller soon after a very good offer was rejected due to committing to another. Making it better is that it was a new car dealer, I can sort of feel for a private seller (a little) having been in their shoes.
Oh yes, more than once I have hung tough on a price as a seller and come to regret it, so I wasn’t without some sympathy for the guy. But he also suffered from that “I just put all this money in the car so now you should reimburse me for it” syndrome.
You make a great point about how the subsequent LeSabre coupes were much more youthful and sporting. Now that I think about it, the prior version (77-79) was that way too. These were kind of the anomaly. And yes, the road wheels might have been a game changer.
Your story reminds me that around about the time that you were providing short term shelter to this Buick, I was in a place in my household with car ownership where we always had to have at least one “new” car that was still under warranty (and therefore were likely to still be making payments on). The idea was that there always had to be a least one car that was sufficiently new and theoretically not able to turn our lives upside down with a catastrophic failure. I’m not sure if that’s a comment on the cars that I tended to drive (i.e., the NOT new car) or just general mechanical anxieties within the household…or both.
But suffice to say that the idea of letting go of a new-ish vehicle (your van) to get a used car, thereby owning both a kind of old car and a really old car would never have flown over here. Even for just 3 weeks.
And yeah, I agree with Jason about your skills in knowing when to cut loose. I don’t have those skills, and that’s probably one reason why I couldn’t be trusted to get rid of all of our new cars and just keep the interesting ones. 😉
I shudder to think what real life would have looked like if I had actually sold that van. Putting the Mrs with three tots in a 2 door LeSabre or in big 4 door that was almost 30 years old – I cannot imagine either of those scenarios working out well, and wonder what could I possibly have been thinking. As it worked out, the van got driven every day in the interim so there was never any dislocation in Mrs JPC’s world during this time – which probably kept the story free of marital strife.
Don’t give me too much credit on a superpower of dumping a car – as I have gotten older I think that superpower may have ebbed substantially.
Whether a car can turn your life upside with a failure often depends on external factors: Can you work remotely or take public transit to and from work, can you meet basic needs like groceries within walking distance of home, do you need to run errands on the way home, do you have children who need to be driven around?
There have been periods in my life when it wasn’t a big deal if the car broke down, and there have been periods when it was.
I didn’t see this car coming! Or going.
One of my oldest friends had a ’77 LeSabre coupe in dark blue with the Olds 401 in it, back in 1985. Man was it ever a terrific car. We still talk about it.
That sounds like a great one to have experienced!
I’ve enjoyed my ’82 a bit longer (25 years) than you did with the ’85, and have really come to like it. The similarities between it and the other B bodies are obvious, but each one seems to have a distinct personality. The dash has to be one of my favourites of the whole bunch, though. I don’t think that I can top a three week ownership period – my shortest has to be around 6 months for a ’90 Olds 98.
This closely parallels a three-week (or so) ownership of a Volvo 244GL. The company-paid 5 year lease on my MB 300E was ending, and the stated residual was pretty stiff. Our next dor neighbors had bought a new Volvo wagon for her, so they needed to sell her pampered 1985-ish 244 GL sedan. It was white too, with tan leather and a sunroof.
I decided to be thrifty and we made a deal. I started driving it and let the Benz sit for the time being. I liked the Volvo, despite being none too brisk with its automatic. But it suited me well enough, with its narrow and tall body.
But then I read an article that one could negotiate with leasing companies about buying out the car at the end. Due to the effect of the Lexus LS, MB new and used prices were actually going down. So I made a lowball offer ($13k, IIRC), and they accepted it.
Meanwhile, we had a young woman renting a little cottage on the property who was looking for a good used car. I too hadn’t yet registered the Volvo, so I called my neighbor and everyone was happy.
And I managed to sell my 300E for a bit more ($13,900) two years later.
I too have always had an aversion to car payments and…rent. We only ever bought one new car with a loan, the ’85 Cherokee, and with the high interest rates at the time, it really irked me every month. Never again.
It’s much better having folks pay me rent, and not making car payments. 🙂
If nothing else, both of us acted as conduits to get good older cars into the hands of those who really needed or appreciated them. And we got a brief ownership experience besides.
Now if only you can figure out how to get people to pay you for driving your cars. 🙂
Pop had a C-body 2-door for ’81, an Oldsmobile 98 Regency in black with an oxblood interior. That car was beautiful and distinctive, they just didn’t sell very many 2-door C-bodies in that era. I think in general the C-body 2-doors were much better proportioned than the Bs.
I agree, but still think the proportions of the ’80-84 C bodies were a bit off – too little middle, too much hood and trunk lid. Of the three though, the 98 looked best, in part because the skirted rear wheels smoothed things out as did the round corner on the rear quarter window. The ’77-79 C bodies were much more coupe-like yet still had a practical shape that allowed for good rear seat room and a large cargo opening. The Coupe de Ville was the most harmed by the ’80 facelift; sales of the CdV actually exceeded that of the sedan for the pre-facelift cars, but that changed quickly afterward.
These always looked great to me, the Electra and LeSabre and 98 and the Holy Grail, the Fleetwood Brougham 80-up coupes. When they were late model used cars they were rare and too pricey for early 20s me. I missed the period where they were affordable and now the good ones are rare and pricey again. I always pay cash too and I can’t bring myself to pay a lot more for one of these when nice Town Cars are at the bottom of their price curve. Plus I don’t think the engines of that time would really be practical for my 75 MPH freeway driving world without feeling like I was pounding the poor cars.
My aunt & uncle in SC always special ordered Buicks starting in the mid 1950s. A wagon for him so he could tow his fishing boats and 2-dr hardtops for her. In the 1960s she ordered her first Riviera when my parents bought TBirds. In 1976, I came to visit driving my new white Eldo conv. and thereafter she only ordered her Riviera’s in white. Late 1997, she called me in Texas and said she wanted to order a 1998 Riv. That was our unspoken request to get there fast so I could go to the dealership with her to place her order (they had been ordering from the same dealership since the mid 1950s). Car ordered & received. Only issue at around 80 mph she heard a little buzz she did not like. Dealership said they could not hear the buzz driving the max legal speed limit. Her reply was “why does Buick make cars that could drive faster than 95 mph (her max speed). She called me in Texas and said she was being treated like an old lady. My aunt and I had a sort of shorthand in our discussions so I knew it was my time to get involved without her asking. Emailed the district office, reviewed the issue, and ending with polite advice not to mess with an older Southern Belle who had been buying Buicks for decades. Basically, do not jerk around this older Southern lady, you have no idea the hell-fire she will bring to to GM.. Result a week later a district rep came to her home, aphorized. Offered to order her another Riv. to her specs,, and would even cover any taxes and registration fees. The replacement Riv. did not have a buzz sound at 80 mph or above.
When my aunt died in 2005, I inherited the pearl white 1998 Riv. and had it shipped to me in Canada where I was living at the time. .Always garage kept, pristine. End of story, 2014, I bought a 1966 TBird conv., had to enjoy one more conv. in my old age. Had to sell the Riv. I was selective to whom I sold to. Within 24 hours after I posted the Riv for sale, an elderly coupled wanted to buy, even if my price was high. Auto inspected, they give my asking price. The car was shipped to Scottsdale at their winter home. I knew the Riv was going to be taken care of..
That reminds me of a true life? submission to Reader’s Digest 40 odd years ago. A cop pulled over an old lady driving a Nova at 87 mph. When asked why she was driving so fast, she said because it shimmies so badly at 80.
My Dad bought a new ’85 LeSabre Collectors Edition to replace his gorgeous ’77 Electra Limited. What a disappointment. The 300lb weight loss dating to ’80 was achieved partly by using thinner gauge sheet steel in the body, and it was so flimsy that he once bent the trunk lid once when he closed it on a protruding suitcase. The car just felt flimsy altogether compared to the ’77, not to mention gutless. For some reason the ’91 Caprice that he traded the ’85 in for felt somewhat more substantial, whether it actually was I don’t know, but it was ugly. and also gutless with the 305. As far as I’m concerned the ’77 to ’79s were the good RWD B and C bodies.
I had a little exposure to the 77-79 cars, but never owned one. An aunt had owned a 78 Sedan DeVille from new and she was every bit as meticulous with her possessions as the prior owners of my Buick. I harbored a secret hope that maybe I could buy the car when she was finished with it, but my hope was evidently secret enough that nobody in her family thought to offer it when they went to sell it.
In 1977 bought an early B20 Volvo 142 (long gearshift) from a friend to replace my Vega as my daily driver, after buying the Alfetta which was my Showroom Stock racer. After two days I decided I liked my Vega better and my friend took the car back for a full refund. This was the same friend who had bought my own Volvo 122S a year earlier, when I bought my Vega. That was by my shortest ownership of a running car. The second shortest were my Alfa Spider and my TransAm, which were both around 8 or 9 months.
You had a good friend!
I had been doing a similar thing, a newer car for the Wife, and a motorcycle and an older hobby car for myself. I kept this up for many years. My commute was only ten miles one way, and my Wife stopped working fifteen years before I did. The kids were also gone. I had some good hobby cars and some crazy hobby cars ( a slammed patina’d ’66 Riviera that I drove for five years) but I kept everything up and running. Believe it or not the Riv was extremely reliable once I got it squared away.
In 2007 I bought two new vehicles, a Mustang and a truck, both of which are still around. As my new cars aged, I boosted my hobby car stable to four, all except one were runners. I would drive a different car to work for a week, to keep every car exercised. I completely retired in 2020.
This went on for years, If I needed a dependable car, I’d rent one for our Summer trip to Oregon. The Pandemic threw a wrench into that plan when rental cars became very hard to secure, and a family elder situation called for numerous trips to Southern Ca. My old Explorer suffered a mechanical problem in the So Cal high desert, and there just wasn’t an opportunity to take care of it. When I returned home in a rental, a ’21 Mustang GT convertible, I went looking for a late model, low mileage used car.
I decided that since I still drive a lot, we take a lot of road trips, we should always have at least one “good car.” I found a ’17 Flex with only 30,000 miles and we got an extended warranty. It’s been great for going on two years.
This year I started selling off my older hobby Jaguars, and decided that my hobby cars would now be newer cars, with lower mileage, that were still in really good shape. This year I added an ’06 Mustang with 116,000 miles, and just recently a 2005 Navigator with only 109,000 miles. Both in very good condition. So the question comes up, Do I even need the Flex anymore?
I haven’t answered that question… yet. I just turned 68, so I have only a limited amount of years left in my “Road Warrior” stage. I’m not going to let any recalcitrant vehicles mess up my final decade of freedom on the road, If it means that I buy new cars, then I’m going to do it. It’s a cost that I’m willing to pay before I settle down into that rocking chair!
So true – that sweet spot where dependable intersects with interesting can be a trick to find and a bigger trick to stay there.
It would be nice if we could all reconsider major purchases at about the 3-week mark! This one worked out pretty good for everyone involved. It’s almost like a stray Buick followed you home and hung around for a few weeks before moving on.
I liked these Buicks, largely because my uncle owned one (a 4-dr.), and I often daydreamed about how blissful life would be if my own parents would buy a car that nice.
When I first saw the title, I guessed this was a short-term ownership story, but for some reason I thought the reason would be something like “after a few weeks I realized it was impossible to open those mile-long doors in a parking lot wide enough to get the kids in the back seat.”
There were things about big 2 door cars that I liked. Stay tuned.
Isn’t that how the Carvana “peace of mind” thing works? Only, I guess they only give you 7 days for that.
Your three-week ’85 Buick reminds me of my three-week ’94 Camry: This is probably a solid pick followed by Oops, nope, undo!.
That was proof that even a Camry can withstand only so much neglect/abuse.
I had a 2010 Cadillac STS V6 for a month in 2013 that I’d driven 400+ miles to trade for. I didn’t realize it had the V’s stiffer springs, and having to wait for the 5 speed to downshift to accelerate drove me crazy after a week. Took a $3k bath when I traded it to CarMax. After 9 years with a Platinum DTS, I’m occasionally tempted to go back to an 04 Deville like I had before. Newer Cadillacs have too many things I don’t like, like black dashes and cramped footwells. They’re probably too stiff, too.
I had an ’84 LeSabre four door sedan similar to this. Blue also. It was a nice, comfortable car but I remember the air conditioning compressor went out around 1990 in the hottest part of the summer. That was an expensive fix.