(first posted 6/28/2011)
If you’re going to do something wrong, do it big (Jayne Mansfield)
When Bigger Cars Are Built, Buick Will Build Them
If you’ve got it, flaunt it: 225. Or 40-21-35. Inches, that is. In both cases, they’re the vital statistics that the big Buick and Jayne Mansfield blatantly flouted and capitalized upon. Where else but in the America of the times would a car proclaim its length as part of its very name? And where Jayne’s bust size was a household number? If the two of them didn’t have enough in common already, it turns out that Mansfield was killed in an Electra 225 in 1967, something I didn’t know at the time I decided to pair the two up for this article. But how could I resist forging ahead with this obvious pairing, even though it might be a stretch to write much about this overstuffed Buick other than describe its obvious assets. Like Jayne, it was meant to be looked at, not analyzed.
That was by Jayne’s own admission. She was acknowledged to be intelligent (she claimed her IQ was 163), spoke five languages, and was a classically trained pianist and violinist. Mansfield admitted her public didn’t care about her brains. “They’re more interested in 40-21-35″. And that first number eventually swelled to 46.
The Electra flaunted its size too, perhaps even more blatantly than Jayne. The Electra 225 first appeared in 1959, with the surname a handy reminder to the public of how just long it was, in inches. That would be like Mansfield changing her name to Jayne 40-21-35. Ironically, the ’67 is an inch shorter, at 224 inches. Buick obviously didn’t see fit to change its numbering; can’t have that, it would be like Jayne having breast reduction surgery and advertising it. For what it’s worth though, the original ’59 Electra 225 would have been an even more fitting memorial to Jayne.
Vera Jayne Palmer was born in 1933, in Pennsylvania. Aged sixteen, she secretly married Paul Mansfield, and they moved to Austin, Texas where she studied dramatics at the University. She won several beauty contests there, with titles that included “Miss Photoflash,” “Miss Magnesium Lamp” and “Miss Fire Prevention Week.” The only title she ever turned down was “Miss Roquefort Cheese,” because she believed that it “just didn’t sound right.” A few years later, they moved to LA, of course.
I don’t know of any beauty titles the Buicks were winning, but they were mighty handsome in this period. Whereas the big Pontiacs were hard to beat up through 1966, by 1967 the Buicks were giving them a serious run for the beauty gold. In my book, this particular model year stands out as perhaps one of the best of the whole classic big car genre: huge and excessive, yes; but with just enough restraint to keep it from winning any “Cheesy Big Car” awards.
Jayne’s career was a mixed bag, kick-started by an endless stream of publicity stunts that all centered on exposing her mammaries to one degree or another. In a period of 18 months in ’56 and ’57, she appeared in 2500 newspaper photos and had some 122k lines of copy written about her breasts. There were numerous “accidents”, which made Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe failure” look like child’s play. She was smart enough to know which of her assets to leverage, given the times.
Unlike for Jayne, I do have SFW shots of the Buick’s ample rear. This would have made a perfect car for her to plant her tush on the rear deck for a parade: “Miss Magnesium Lamp”.
It wasn’t only men that checked out Jayne’s assets. These two pics are the proof: Sophia Loren taking stock of the competition; looks like she’s finally more than met her match. Nothing subtle here; neither Loren’s gaze nor Mansfield’s dress. This incident was actually another publicity stunt designed to upstage Loren at a dinner party in her honor.
But then some things never change.
Drop the top all the way on the Electra, and there’s two big cushy seats to run your hands over. Looks to me like these are vinyl though, not genuine mammal skins. And if you really feel like cozying up, just flip up that center arm rest, and snuggle away. There’s plenty of room for two to have fun, preferably if the car isn’t actually moving. Just the thing to park at the lake on a warm and starry summer night. What else is a big convertible good for?
This shot appears to prove that Jayne really did play the violin (here right before her second marriage in 1958). But look at this simple fenced-in back yard pool and patio; it looks so middle class. It’s easy to forget how actually modestly paid the stars of the fifties were compared to today, and the impact a 90% top incremental tax bracket had in the fifties. Although Jayne’s house in LA was a bit less modest than this weekend retreat in Palm Springs.
The Electra Convertible wasn’t exactly the most common middle class fare either, but then it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch. Its list price of $4421 ($30k adjusted) was quite a chunk less than the next step up in GM’s convertible hierarchy, the De Ville, which went for $5600. For that extra $2200 one got the same basic car under the skin, but the Caddy name, prestige and a bit nicer interior. Performance wise, there was probably no real difference; Buck’s new 430 CID V8 Wildcat 475 (another big number, as in its torque) was a 360 hp gem, and every bit as smooth and silent as the Caddy. Money well saved.
The times they were a changing, for both Jayne and big convertibles like the Buick. Their heyday was the fifties; by the mid sixties they were both anachronisms. The platinum bombshell days were over in Hollywood, and Mansfield’s career steadily declined, until she had to resort to doing cheap magazine covers and playing nightclubs, and getting to them in a Buick Electra.
On June 28th, 1967, late at night near Biloxi, Mississippi, she met her grisly fate riding in a 1966 Electra 225 sedan driven by a twenty year old. He plowed into the back end of a stopped chemical tanker, shearing off the top of the Buick and part of Mansfield’s upper head (I really didn’t know this when I picked the convertible). The since-mandated low bars attached to the back of all trailer trucks designed to prevent such an accident are commonly called Mansfield bars.
The big Buick convertibles, like the rest of GM’s big rag tops, were nearing the end of the line too. Less than 6k of these ’67s were made and within a few more years exposing one’s large private spaces in public became passé. Air conditioning and changing social values made folks want to ride inside, not outside; sitting out on front porches after supper went the same way too. But the joy of floating along in a big open-top deuce and a quarter is still as timeless as certain female attributes, as this owner will tell you. And if I’ve made a mistake co-mingling Jayne with this Buick, at least it was a big one.
“He plowed into the back and of a stopped chemical tanker, shearing off the top of the Buick and part of Mansfield’s upper head (I didn’t know this when I picked the convertible.)”
Never has reading about massive head trauma been so enjoyable!
I think it either was just her scalp, or more likely her bouffant wig, but her skull was crushed, but didn’t leave her body according to the autopsy.
This also reminds me that Martha Reeves of Martha & The Vandellas bought Deuce and A Quarters exclusively each year she made money at Motown through 1968, compared to the Cadillacs, then Mercedes Benzes, Jaguars and Bentley’s The Supremes would treat themselves to. I guess it was the car of choice for Celebrities that didn’t really make more than your average lawyer in the 1960s.
I like how the bush seems to be growing out of the interior of the car 😉
This car, allthough it has the same coulour as the car in the foreground of the CC clue, still isn’t the same car? Or was that clue for something else?
My first car was a ’69 Buick Wildcat that I paid $300 for and sat at the curb for a month beckoning me until I got my license back in late ’77. Ugliest car but with the aforementioned 430-4. Fast, smooth and silent and also conducive to hauling your crew while literally drinking and driving. Clearly a way different era.
Convertibles are a bit narcissistic. Look at me! Look at me!
Hilarious to see the seemingly floating head exposed to the elements while stuck in freeway traffic.
Deuce and a quarter is cool but could “Coupe de Ville” be the greatest automotive moniker ever?
I nominate “Rocket 88.”
First of all…
Jayne Mansfield’s car is obviously a 4-door hardtop sedan, not a convertible, and it is a 1965 Electra 225 – not a ’67.
The 1973 movie “The Seven Ups” has a chase scene involving two Pontiacs…
A 1973 Grand Ville and a 1973 Le Mans.
The chase ends with the LeMans slamming into the rearend of a stopped tractor trailer. This is said to be a tribute to Ms. Mansfield and her tragic death from the choreographer of the movie’s chase scene.
That wasn’t a Lemans that was a Ventura (Nova variant) They used a Lemans in The French Connection chase.
The car in which she was killed was a 1966 Electra 225, but that happened in 1967 (and that’s what’s written above!).
I have a similar story but a few years later (as I was born in 1977).
My first car was a 1968 Wildcat 4 door hardtop that I paid $600 and I couldn’t use it much before I got my driver’s license in April of 1993 (I got the car in October of 1992 when I was 15). Well I did get a temporary driver’s license when I turned 16 in January of 1993 and that allowed me to drive the car if there was somebody in the car who actually had it’s driver’s license. And I happened to have friends who had that so…
This car wasn’t pretty either but it had a 430, a 3.42 posi rear axle and it was more powerful than most 1980’s econoboxes my friends were driving at the time! I kept the car until I had a big accident with it in 2000 and by then, it was still a driver but in much better shape than when I got it.
I replaced it with my current 1967 Riviera GS which was in better shape when the insurance finally paid for it (they paid almost 10X more than what I had originally paid for the car but I had to add a few $$ over that to buy the 1967!
I also kept the Wildcat as a parts car for a while as the insurance let me keep it.
Great article. Riding in the back seat were three of Jayne’s children – including Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order – SVU. Fortunately, the children were asleep and slumped over, and thus out of the way when the accident happened. They escaped with minor injuries. Mariska was three years old at the time, and has no memories of the accident.
By the early 1970s, convertibles of ANY stripe were very rare. Most people wanted air conditioning.
When I was a kid, our next-door neighbor had a brand-new 1969 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight convertible, which stood out as much as the brand-new Corvette driven by the son of a local service station owner who also lived on our street.
But there were rumors of drinking and marital troubles. Soon his wife moved out, and then the Ninety-Eight was replaced by a 1957 Ford Custom sedan (when those were just old cars driven by people who couldn’t afford anything better, not special-interest autos). Finally, the house went up for sale. I still remember that Ninety-Eight…dark blue with a light blue convertible top. It was a very sharp car, but, like this Buick Electra 225, it was rapidly going out of style.
@geeber: I knew there was a reason why I liked Mariska Hargitay!
Actually, that was a Ventura (Nova variant).
Great CC, and these cars are beautiful. What is surprising is how Jayne was really not all that attractive though. She had the chest, of course, (but in todays silicone world they would not be all that attractive!), but her facial features were merely plain “Jayne” so to speak. The followup CC with Suzy Parker further emphasized that, as she is extremely attractive!!
What’s the matter with you? Yes, the wig could have been jettisoned, but her face and her chest were phenomenal.
That’s nothing new. Check out photos of many of today’s actresses without makeup…they look surprisingly plain. They’re not ugly, but they wouldn’t necessarily turn heads on the street among people who have no idea of their true identity.
I agree that the ’67 Electra was one of the better looking big cars of the 60s.
About that “middle class” house – I’m from that neck of the woods, and judging from the hills in the background, I’m pretty sure that this was the house of her second husband, muscleman Mickey Hargitay. When they married, she moved in and lived there until buying the famous “Pink Palace” (think heart-shaped swimming pool) on Sunset Boulevard. While the house itself may have been modest, the Benedict Canyon (Beverly Hills Post Office) location was decidedly upscale. However, your point about low movie star pay in those days (due to the studio system) is well taken.
Funny that you should run this story just now. I saw one of her better movies, “The Girl Can’t Help It” (think red 1957 Lincoln convertible) the other night. She was a much better actress than one might think.
When I was in Jr. High, a classmate lived in our neighborhood and we carpooled for a confirmation class at church. Her dad was a doctor and their “old car” was a metallic blue 67 LeSabre convertible. I got to take a number of rides in that car, but it was during the colder months, so never with the top down.
When I was older, I got to drive another 67 LeSabre convertible (white with red interior) that belonged to my Aunt Norma’s second husband. He brought the car to Indianapolis to sell in a collector car auction there and I got to drive it through the ring while he and my aunt sat in the back seat. It was an expensive day for me because I bought a stunning 64 Imperial Crown Coupe that day, but that is another topic.
I agree that the 67-68 Buicks were very attractive cars, and the convertibles were beautiful. And these big Electra 225s were the best looking of all.
Does anyone remember the speed-minder on the speedometers on these 60s Buicks? Set the needle at a particular speed, then if you go over that speed a buzzer would go off. The annoyance factor was probably the reason I never saw anyone actually use it – they always had the needle set on 110 or something.
I remember it very well. On our ’69 E225 I used to have to remember to move it back to “60” before my dad drove the car after me.
My Imperial has the speed minder feature on its “Auto-Pilot”. It doesn’t ring a buzzer. It adds resistance to the pedal to remind you that you’re at your limit.
I had a buzzer on my ’72 Buick Estate Wagon (so called because parked it took up the space normally associated with a medium-sized estate). I used it once, the time I got the best mpg I ever achieved in what I called the Road Monster. It was on a weekend trip from DC to New York in the winter (AC off, but windows up). That’s how I managed to achieve an astonishing 13 mpg.
If I used that Buick Wagon to make the two-mile round trip from my home to my job twice in one day (home for lunch) then wintertime gas mileage when the choke never came off was also astonishing–2 mpg!
The Speed Alert wasn’t available on 1967 or older Buicks when the “Electro-Cruise” option was ordered. I have the Electro-Cruise in both my 1965 Wildcat and 1967 Riviera so no speed alert on these but the same pointer for the Speed Alert is used to set the speed for the Cruise Control. .
Starting in 1968, you could get both options together as the cruise control was now mechanically controlled by a mechanical transducer under the hood. My 1975 Electra has both the cruise control and the Speed Alert but the speed alert doesn’t have a buzzer anymore. Instead, it uses an electronic chime that you can barely hear at 75 MPH, even with the radio turned off!
My 67 Electra 225 conv. has both. One owner car so know it came that way.
Yes JP I do remember the speed minder. My father’s 1970 Olds Cutlass Supreme had an identical feature except it was called the “Safety Sentinel”. It seems to me this was part of a package that also included a map reading light which was attached to the bottom of the rear view mirror. Remember this was in a time when rear view mirrors were attached to a bracket that attached to the roof which concealed the map reading light’s power wire. I have never really liked rear view mirrors being glued to the windshield. The first one glued to the windshield I ever saw was in my mother’s 1961 Thunderbird and they just proliferated from that point on.
Wait, were we talking about Buicks in this thread?
I have to laugh, the pix on the front of “Modern Man” magazine is Jayne Mansfield; if you didn’t understand English well, you could be mightily confused…
What really makes me chuckle is the pix with all of the animals. I call my wife Dr. Doolittle, as anytime there are animals around, they seem to flock to her. If my wife could play the violin, this would not look too different from our household…
In the back seat of the Buick that horrible night, were three of Jayne’s children, who suffered only minor injuries.
One of those children was Mariska Hargitay, then 3 years old. Mariska has for many years played Detective Olivia Benson on “Law & Order SVU”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayne_Mansfield#Death
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariska_Hargitay
Our neighbor had a Maroon 67 225 conv…with Black Top & Interior, until they replaced it in 71 with the Eldorado .
My well off grandfather had a 68 Lesabre which he replaced with a 73 or 74 LeSabre “Luxus”, actually I think he had the lesser Custom…. I could never understand why he didn’t at least get the Electra 225, though his 65 Fleetwood looked Presidential by comparison, he was driven at this point by a rather modest Kentucky woman.
Many thanks for a real fine article Paul. I really love the Buicks of this period. I have driven my share of these on an open highway and it puts a smile on my face everytime. Boat loads of fun, no doubt.
Having owned 2 convertibles in my life, a 66 Deville (30 years ago) and an 85 Lebaron(currently), I can state that I never really enjoyed driving with the top down. Top down driving is very uncomfortable most of the time. My neighbor, elderly like I guess I’m getting, told me the best time to drive top down is just before sunset on a warm summer evening. He added at that time he thinks about going to bed, not driving around. I sadly told him I agree with him fully.
They have their time and place. I’ve never owned a convertible but for my honeymoon to the Florida Keys last year, we rented a yellow Camaro convertible. Driving through the keys, over all those bridges with the blue ocean all around, is a pretty fantastic experience in a ragtop! It can get hot quickly though in bright sunlight.
On the topic of the Buick, the mechanic who worked on our family’s cars through my childhood and teen years owned a ’68 Electra 225 that had been his father’s car. I always admired that one!
Some peak experiences I remember while driving my 1956 Plymouth convertible (30 years old at the time): driving around the financial district of San Francisco at night, over the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge at various times, and driving through the redwoods and other forests. Convertibles are pretty fantastic now and then, and also with cars from that period the windshield is much less slanted than in a modern car which puts the sun visors a lot farther away, so you are more out in the open in the front seat. Now I have a Forester, which has about a double sized sun roof. Far better than the usual slot, but not the same.
I am confused – the article is dated 01 August, 2014 but the other comments date from 2011. Premonition??
These are old posts that are being re-posted again so that the new people here have the opportunity to read them. Hence the word “Classic” in the title of the post.
This is a Classic Curbside Classic, a re-post.
i think we can safely say ‘reissued’ CC
Certified Pre Read
For all who point to Miley Cyrus or Rhianna as the personification of cultural decline, there is Jane Mansfield to remind them that even in the “innocent” 1950’s, bared breasts had cultural currency.
–I am more of a Sophia Loren fan, btw. Mamma Mia!
Loren’s appearance in the Grumpier Old Men movie with Lemmon and Matthau was where I got acquainted with her. Still a knock out into the 1990s. Ann Margaret wasn’t bad either!
+1 on that! I remember Ann Margaret from seeing ‘The Villain’ as a kid. But even in the 1990s, she and especially Sophia Loren were DAMN gorgeous, even to my early 20s eyes.
Two beauties , both well written about here .
Sad to have passed when her kids were so young .
-Nate
It’s unfortunate but true that a famous person has to die before certain safety issues get public notice. Another example was TWA Flight 599, caused by a wing failure. Because Knute Rockne was one of the victims, the accident investigation got huge public interest, which resulted in widespread adoption of all-metal airliners, a business dominated by American manufacturers. This was signified by British P.M. Chamberlain attending the 1938 Munich Conference in a Lockheed 14 instead of a British type.
Connecting the Electra to Mansfield before realizing that she owned one and met her end in one is one of those coincidences that went well. The comparisons are quite apt, but the facts seal the deal.
Amazing body on both her and the car. It’s a bit unfortunate she felt she had to put her assets out there to quite the extent as in the photos with Loren. Sometimes a little subtlety is sexier.
In the mid ’80 a college friend had a ’65 Electra 225 convertible, dark maroon with a black top and interior. It was in decent shape, but it was a daily driver here in rust country, and the few winters he had it took some toll. He decided to sell it before it really went bad. I had several open top rides in it, and helped him work on the power windows one time. Quite a car!
She didn’t own the car, she was only riding in it. It belonged to a man by the name of Gus Stevens of Biloxi, MS, who owned the supper club where she was performing. She was given use of the car and a driver to go to New Orleans for a TV interview. Obviously she never made it.
I drive a 68′ Electra and seeing the taillights of the 67′ always makes me think about a possible transplant….grrrrrr
Between this and the contemporary Skylark/Gran Sport….dude, WHAT is up with that weird drooping body line? To my eye, it ruins the whole look of the car!
Still, a well written and entertaining article. Never knew Jayne Mansfield’s story, but she was before my time. That said, she’s a knockout!
I always thought the 55 Buick Special was the Jayne Mansfield of cars.
Thanks for this great little history lesson on Mansfield. The pics with Sophia Loren are priceless. I’d be willing to bet the one with the dogs is from her home in LA, the backdrop does not look like Palm Springs.
While the 225 appended to the Electra name in 1959 was the length of the car then, there was also a basic Electra model, which was shorter and replaced the 58 Roadmaster model. The Electra 225 replaced the Limited model which was new in 1958. Both Electra’s survive through the 61 model year after which the base Electra is dropped.
I have always like Sophia Loren, don’t know that I have seen Jayne Mansfield in much of anything.
>> He plowed into the back and of a stopped chemical tanker
Back END, not “and.”
Jayne Mansfield was often called “the smartest dumb blonde”…
Trivia: Mansfield was the first mainstream actress to have a nude scene in a movie (Promises, Promises from 1963), save for some early silent B&W movies (it was released on 8mm film for home viewing too!). As was all too typical for Jayne’s career, the film was promoted specifically for that rather than the merits of the plot. Footnote to that trivia: Marilyn Monroe would have appeared nude a year earlier in Something’s Got to Give – the scene was shot – but she died before filming was completed and the film was abandoned.
I long assumed Mansfield bars were named for the engineer or company that designed them; I only learned they were named for Jayne Mansfield a few years ago. I certainly can’t think of another actor or actress that has a truck part named for them.
More of a car part than a truck part, except perhaps on a late-fifties GM pickup, but how about Dagmars? The uh, pointed bumper caps. They’re named after an actress.
Betty White had a truck company named after her. I saw that on the Internet so it’s true!
During WWII life preservers were called Mae Wests.
Looking at the pictures of Sophia Loren gawking at Jayne Mansfield’s tits, I am convinced that there had to be a frog hiding between Jayne’s jugs and Sophia was very worried that that frog might jump out, unprovoked, at any time.
My Dad was a writer and got to interview her. She was not her screen persona. He said she was one of the most fascinating, intelligent people he every spoke to. She did love her dogs.
No surprise there. I doubt anyone that makes it in Hollywood, male or female, could do it with an even an average IQ, no matter how attractive and/or good an actor they might be.
Jayne was one of the big three ‘M’ sex symbols of the time, those being Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Mamie Van Doren. Interestingly, the least successful of the three is the only one still alive (even closing in on 90 years old).