(first posted 7/28/2014) This is almost too nice of a car to be a true CC, given that it spends most of its time in the garage, but when I caught it during an evening walk, it was left outside where its owner’s late G-body Park Avenue usually sits. Brand loyalty dies hard, in this case. And if the said owner stuck with full-size Buicks after this A-body, it’s hard to think of any which would’ve failed to satisfy. Then as today, Buick’s remained one of the most consistent lineups in GM’s portfolio.
Where do the Colonnades fit into this, though? Skylarks had up to 1972 been one of the more obscure versions of the GM intermediates, though that doesn’t mean less worthy. Songs were sung about the GTO, certainly, but GSs had their appeal and outside of the sportier versions, the more subtle Buicks weren’t without their merit. As if the underscore that idea, the introduction of the Century in 1973 capitalized on the brand’s strengths of understatement and quality, helping this big brown coupe certainly make a good case both for itself and for the Colonnade coupes in general.
As if to downplay the name debasement, Buick introduced the Century Regal (Regal after 1974) as an entrant similar in concept to the Cutlass Supreme. Seeing this relatively well-preserved example in a domestic setting gives it some context as an everyday device and it’s easy see why someone would have bought it new. It helps that this is an earlier model in more basic trim, with no wheel covers or hood ornaments to busy its appearance, but enough gingerbread to match the formal roofline.
That Curry dealer badge shows this is a local car; they’re still in business today, selling both Buicks and Cadillacs. Don’t let the rub strips fool you; the faded paint and non-historical registration shows this car likely spends time outside the garage. I wonder whether the owner prefers to drive this or the Park Ave, and whether he notices or cares about the latter’s unibody or front-wheel drive. Buick always did an excellent job of mating a traditional driving experience with newer technology and unlike other divisions or domestic brands, rarely had to face disappointing customers by promising a European-inspired driving experience.
Odd that after GM’s recent reorganization, they actually do a very convincing job of delivering the latter. I don’t see a ton of people dropping their Accords for Regals yet, but the car being offered under the nameplate today is a most respectable effort. It will be interesting to see if the renewed focus on the brand after dropping Olds, Pontiac and Saturn continues to be successful or if my generation fails to be successfully wooed in the Tri-Shield’s direction. The current car is arguably more desirable than anything seen in Acura showrooms, and I wouldn’t fault anyone for purchasing one over a Passat, CC, S60 or ES350. I’ve heard that its successor will be built off of a stretched version of the next Delta platform–if true, I hope this use of Opel platforms pans out as well as VW’s similar strategy.
No such worries plagued top GM brass when this car debuted, bigger than ever before. One would’ve expected that if anyone stood to gain from the new A-body’s enormous size, it was Buick, who had less stock in cultivating a youthful image in its midsizers. Even Chevy and Pontiac, however, could boast that the new cars could handle as there was evidence that engineers began to take roadability more seriously. Buick had a variety of suspensions-tunes and powerplants on tap; this car has either a Buick 350 or optional 455 (axed after 1974), in one of the expected two-or-four barrel carb/single-or-dual exhaust configurations (150 horses at minimum; 225 tops).
There were no six-cylinders until 1975 when the Buick V6 joined the line-up; unlike the equivalent Oldsmobiles, additionally available with a variety of small-displacement V8s and Chevy I6s, the Buick coupes stuck with their own division’s engines and weren’t hobbled by any especially loud styling touches (like skegs on the bottom of the Oldsmobile’s doors or faux fender vents). That might not have been enough to make the Regal the biggest seller when it was new, but confidence is a different, more enduring quality than popularity.
With the Skylark name gone, it seems clear that Buick’s aim was to more directly link their A-bodies with full-size offerings. With Pontiac and Olds nomenclature keeping the lineage with the original senior compacts of the early ’60s more overt, and Chevy trying somewhat to keep the muscle car era alive with its early Chevelles and Lagunas, the Century’s and Regal’s understated quality was more or less a given. They sold in far less numbers than the other division’s intermediates, too, but then again, their role was simply to give more frugal Buick customers a place to go within the same showroom.
As a rule, it was the high-trim variants of the A-bodies which got the big sales in those days (maybe because the base cars were so barren). With its extra-Broughamy touches, the Cutlass Supreme was more popular than the Regal (the best-selling Buick variant), selling over twice as many two-door examples even before really taking off by the end of the model run through the early ’80s, but with so much pressure to keep up the performance, Oldsmobile was at a major loss to maintain volumes as tastes began to change.
It would seem the Regal was much more comfortable in its unadorned skin, with less to prove. By the time imports became too big a force to ignore, Buick’s honest image became less of a liability than Oldsmobile’s eventually ill-defined “has-been” reputation (not to mention Pontiac’s perpetually precarious position within the brand hierarchy). But the basic trend was still evident as early as when this Regal rolled off the line in Flint. Just imagine driving home from the dealer in 1973, knowing your stodgy choice actually made you ahead of your time.
Related reading:
Curbside Classic: 1990 Buick Century Coupe – If We Make It Forever It Will Be Good
1973 Buick Century GS455 C&T Video: The Best Performing Colonnade?
Curbside Classic: 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham: Finest Brougham In All Of Hampton, IL!
The Colonnade Cutlass Cult (And Have I Escaped It?)
Nice find. I always kind of liked the Colonnade Regals. This color and also a burgundy seemed like the most common colors for these.
Nice find.
In my eyes the Regal didn’t come into its own until the later 70’s. The 76/77 wear the size/style better than this early one. Its mini Centurion look doesn’t translate quite as well when downsized from the B-body in this time frame.
I still wouldn’t kick it out of my driveway though.
If there a surviving brown Colonnade Century 4-door sedan. We could imagine Kojak driving it. 😉
Here a vintage road-test of the 1073 Century GS-455
Thanks, Mr. Dumas- great footage of serious hooning with the scotch and cigarette voiced narration. A must see.
The sweet sweet soothing Kent III sounds of Bud Lindeman.
My wife and I had a black one, not a GS but with the 455. It was a very good car, but we didn’t like the front bench seat.
Our next one was a ’74 Monte Carlo 454, also black with swivel buckets.It was not as good a driving car, and would not re-start when it was hot. (starter couldn’t crank the engine.)
We had a ’76 Grand Prix SJ with the 455 after that. It was a very quiet car, but did not handle as well. It did get better mileage. The front end was pretty much shot after 70k miles (ball joints and shocks).
Wow Mark, you were quite the Colonnade aficionado back then! You did’t have a Cutlass? I’ve had three of the Colonnades, but all when they were 20+ years old: 1976 Cutlass Supreme Brougham, 1976 Monte Carlo (still have it), and 1977 Grand Prix LJ. Love them all and found them all amazingly different in character.
Even though Lansing was just a couple of hours away, we didn’t have a strong Olds dealer in our area (that you could do business with.)
The only Olds I have owned in 44 years of driving were Silhouette vans, a ’96 (sold it to window treatment guy – still going strong and looks new), and an ’02 with a 3400 that drank it’s antifreeze and left us stranded.
I always admired the Aurora, but bought Bonnevilles instead.
Makes sense. I’ve always lived in large urban areas where the dealer not being there wouldn’t be a consideration. I think those early Silhouettes are cool (I think the ’96 may fall into that category).
I love those old Car & Track road tests. They always whined about the “smog boys” strangling formerly potent mills. That GS 455 test was awesome. I love how they pull the reverse 360. Not sure what handling prowess it proved, but it looked great on camera.
“…since breathing clean air became popular.” – LOL
“Body lean was very light”
Cars proceeds to nearly destroy the entire course.
Wow! That’s one dignified Colonnade. I like the traditional Buick design language. The square headlight refresh tried too hard to be a jr Cadillac, V6 fender badge and all. I hated Colonnade coupes as a tall lanky kid, riding on the back seat; yet to be fair, the coupes were intended for solo drivers or couples. I agree modern Buick has got the mojo back.
Was this one of the cars GM wrongly called a hardtop? (Like gages and litres) I bookmarked Paul’s excellent entry re true hardtops. I get irritated when people call my Lexus SC300 a hardtop, and I once heard a car salesman call a fixed roof Solara a hardtop, he was over 50…
Well the doors on the coupes are pretty huge and frameless, so its a pseudo hardtop, the window opening is so big that it does partially extend into the back seat, I would allow it.
The frameless windows on my ’73 Cutlass Supreme 2 door, in addition to being big windows were also a big problem. They frequently came out of alignment and the interior door panel had to be removed to repair them.
The rubbers were really soft on the frameless windows and degraded quickly. My dad’s 1970 Pontiac whistled like a banshee on the highway!
So that’s where the inspiration came from!
I think that most of the reason for calling these cars “colonnades” was as a way to avoid using the word “hardtop”. I recall them being called Colonnade Coupe and Colonnade Sedan, and remember thinking “just what the hell is a colonnade?”. It sounded so much nicer than Ford’s “pillared hardtop”.
Styles were changing and true hardtops were not really a selling feature by the 70s. Frameless glass and an opera window were in, and GM gave it a name. Who would have thought that the name would come to identify the entire generation of GM A bodies. Certainly not me.
Isn’t the telltale indicator of a hardtop the absence of a B-pillar? The fact that the doors are extra long on this car, and thereby allow the front window to extend into the back seat, seems moot to me. If this is a hardtop, then Paul’s efforts to straighten me out the other day, which I thought at the time were successful, were for naught.
It’s not a true hardtop, I assure you. There’s a B Pillar, and then another window. These are called “Colonnade” for a reason; the word means “a row of pillars”.
GM first called their 1949 cars without center posts “Hardtop convertibles” as they had a fixed hardtop roof on a convertible-style body. Soon after, this style became known as “Hardtop”. In fact, every vehicle that has a top that’s not soft has a hard top!
But what GM did in 1973 was changing the definition of the thing they first marketed in 1949! And this wasn’t widely accepted as even back then, people and automotive journalists who saw the new Colonnade Hardtops were questioning the appellation!
Ford did the same with the full size 4 door models two years earlier referring to some 1971 models as “pillared hardtops”. These Fords were just like the 1965-70 GM “C” bodies with center posts and no window frames. However, GM didn’t call these hardtops but rather “Semi-thin pillar sedan”. The thin-pillar sedans were the regular ones with window frames on “B” bodies. The “B” body’s window frames, in addition to the thin pillar between them (as seen from outside), looked much more obstructive than the “C” body’s “semi-thin” ones!
A few years after having introduced their “pillared hardtops”, Ford was the first among the big 3 to completely stop making real 4 door hardtops in 1975. GM stopped on the downsized models after 1976 and Chrysler stopped after 1978 when they also downsized their full sized cars.
After that, I think that the only true 4 door hardtops that were produced were some Nissan models which were not offered in North America.
The most fascinating ‘frameless window’ feature on a modern car is a VW CC.
On many of the trim levels, the window rolls itself down about 2cm when you touch the door handle. This retracts the top edge of the glass from the door seal. After you get in, it closes fully.
That’s a good looking old Buick. In hindsight, I don’t think anyone did a better job of visually linking the A body car to its B and C body companions. I agree that there is a quiet, dignified traditionalism about this car that has worn very well over the decades.
How much better would this car look if GM had been painting cars with acrylic enamel instead of lacquer. Ford and Chrysler cars painted a similar dark brown had such hearty paint finishes, I am not sure I ever saw one that failed to shine, no matter how big of a rusted POS the car might have been. But even after a few years, otherwise pristine GM cars would begin to chalk and fade, and only prodigious amounts of abrasive cleaners and elbow grease would help, and then only temporarily.
Perry, I always enjoy your stories, but allow me to express a peeve regarding “the new A-body’s enormity.” That word doesn’t mean “hugeness,” it means “hideousness.” Chalky brown paint and fat bumpers aren’t THAT bad…
You learn something new everyday (well, ideally).
The cover car is a nice vehicle that suffers from GM’s one year only front bumper freakout. Fortunately by ’74 they had reduced the depth of the front bumper somewhat. You could build a bookshelf on the ’73s. And I never liked the mismatch on the front and rear bumper regs for ’73 that gave all that year’s models a front heavy look.
The bumper regs were phased in, so the makers didnt have to have 5 MPH rears for 1973. Wasn’t just a “GM thing”.
While car fans hate them, the middle aged American car customers of the day liked them*. The 1973 Model Year was a record year for car [non-truck based vehicle] sales. This not counting trucks, which started kicking in around the same time.
*I just remember hearing adults of the time saying they like the feeling of security that the bumpers gave them
The ’73 is to me the best looking of this genertion of A body. As Perry noted, Buick was not likely too worried about sales of its A body in ’73. The Electra had a record year, producing some nice margins.
Buick did continue to have fairly robust full size car sales even after the oil shocks, where Pontiac and Oldsmobile started to rely more on midsize cars as a crutch as their full sizers started to wane by the mid to late 70’s.
I like both the Regal and the Century / GS / Luxus from that year.
About 10 years ago, I went with a friend to look at a 1969 LeSabre 4 door that was for sale (for him) and the owner also had a 1973 Buick Electra 225 and a 1973 Century GS 455 4 speeds in his garage. I didn’t look at the LeSabre much as I was more interested about the ’73 Century and the dual quad 425, which the owner said came from a 1964 Wildcat 4 door hardtop, that was sitting on the floor of his garage!
And back in the 1960s and 1970s, Buick wasn’t targeting really old people like it did in the nineties. And not all Buick buyers were loyal to that brand either!
It’s hard to imagine today but my father who was born in 1948 and the father of two of my good friends who was born in 1949 both bought a Century Custom back in 1976 when they were 26-27 years old… My father had to get rid of it after just nine months as my mother (who was 22 by then), complained about the vinyl bucket seats! So he replaced it with a 1977 base model Grand Prix with a column shifter, a cloth bench seat and a vinyl roof… He kept that one just over a year and got a ’78 Bronco XLT after, this one also had vinyl seats but he got those thick synthetic sheep fabric seat covers for the cold seasons to keep my mother happy! He got rid of the Bronco in 1980 as it had minor mechanical issues that were bugging him and a thirsty 351 (and a relative gave him a used Pinto to use as a second car and that didn’t help him to trust Ford products!) to buy a less thirsty and more reliable Rabbit L diesel and bought mostly imports after. My grandfather who continued to have problems with Oldsmobiles throughout the eighties started to buy Hondas in 1990 and he influenced my father to do the same after my father had a not-so-good experience with a few Volkswagens!
My friend’s father did a similar move as he traded his ’76 Century Custom Coupe for a ’78 Pontiac Parisienne. When the Parisienne was 3 years old, it had a small mechanical problem which required that it be towed. In the days following that incident, he bought a 1981 Cressida (at age 32) and he never bought another american car. He currently drives a Lexus IS. He still drives a lot and now keeps his cars much longer (until they reach about 180,000-200,000 miles) and he never needed to be towed since!
Most people seemed to be changing cars often back then and my parents also had a new house built in 1975, two kids in 1977 and 1978 and by 1980, their house was paid with my mother who had stopped to work as a secretary in 1976 and my father who was a teacher… Not likely to see a situation like that today just one income and an ordinary job!
A simpler time back then….Buick was selling over 800,000 cars with just 3 chassis’s…not including the Apollo which was introduced late in the model year….and only 2 engines in various states of tune…350 2bbl and 4 bbl, 455 and 455 Stage 1.
Talk about bang for your buck…or bang for your Buick
As you point out, one of Buick’s strengths was/is consistency. My family was big into Buicks overall, most especially my grandmother (and great grandmother before her). She began driving the mid-size Buicks in the 1960s because she liked their size. She felt the Electras were just way too big, and liked the way she could load up the “smaller” cars and still get that “big car” feel. She had a ’73 4-door colonnade, a Century Luxus (odd trim level designation, but that’s what it was). So not quite a Regal but still quite nice. The car was finished in Willow Green (light green) and was very comfortable and reliable. My Pop had a ’73 LeSabre Custom at the same time, and in many ways I found the Century to be nicer. Both were solid, respectable American cars, though, and represented Buick at its best.
In 1973, the Century Luxus was the fanciest midsize 4 door Buick available. The Regal was a two-door only. That changed in 1974 when the Regal series expanded to include 4 doors.
In 1974, the LeSabre Custom was also replaced by the LeSabre Luxus which also replaced the 1973 Centurion, the standard interior trim of the 1974 LeSabre Luxus was very similar to what was used in the 1973 Centurion.
In 1975, the Luxus name was gone from the Buick lineup as they went back to “Custom” to designate the fancier trim level on the Century and LeSabre for a few more years. By the late seventies, the fancier versions of various models started to use “Limited” for their fancier versions rather than Custom. Limited had been used by Buick to designate it’s most luxurious series from 1936 to 1942 and in 1958. Starting in 1965, the name returned as a trim option on the Electra 225 Custom and became a separate Electra model (with it’s own model number) in 1974.
In 1977, there was a “Limited” version of the Estate Wagon which featured LeSabre Custom interior trim and Electra 225 exterior trim while the base version was trimmed like a base LeSabre.
An excellent explanation, but the Limited package was first offered on the Electra in 1967.
I have been a Buick admirer/sometimes owner since the 1960’s. Several 60’s/70’s/80’s Buicks have graced my driveway with their presence.
The newest Buicks, however, all look to me like a last generation Acura with an uglier grille.
” like a last generation Acura with an uglier grille.”
If that’s what they copied, they had something already ugly to start with!
Those gorgeous wheels.
+1! That Magnum style is equally great with blackwall, whitewall, or white letters. Like good shoes you can dress up or down. Buick used them for the longest, well into the ’80s I think?
Buick was also the first to use these wheels. Similar ones with the 5×5″ bolt parttern were introduced on the production Wildcat in 1964 and in 1965, the use expanded to the Riviera and the 14″ version with the 5×4¾” bolt pattern was introduced in the Skylark/GS. By 1970, they were available on all models in a few variations. In the eighties, still more variations of these were used on the FWD Skylark too and until 1987 on the Regal and Estate Wagon.
When I was a kid, I think it’s these wheels that made me like Buicks so much! Kids don’t see cars from the same perspective as adults. I remember looking mostly at the wheels, bumpers and even mud flaps of vehicles! My family members told me that I was quite good at identifying car brands by the emblems on their wheelcovers at age 3!
This is the first use for the full-size car chrome-plated wheels, the 1963 Wildcat 445 show car.
I thought they were around longer on the Estate Wagon, weren’t they available until the end of the 1977 style wagon in 1990?
Apparently, the last year as a factory option was 1987, I can’t be 100% sure about that as the wheels must have been still available as an accessory and the center caps were too until a few years ago so if someone wanted them badly on a 1990 Estate Wagon, I guess it was still possible to have them. I have seen the following generation Roadmasters with them too but I guess the owners got them used to mount their winter tires!
The 5×5″ wheels had quite a few revisions from 1964 to 1987, the first was a color change and the addition of register rings in 1965 as full size Buicks got smaller hubs that year. The center caps were also changed as the 1964 Wildcat caps were tiny and they got bigger with different plastic inserts for the Wildcat and Riviera that year. In 1966, the webs were again painted darker and the holes for the new cone-shaped center caps were enlarged from 2″ diameter to 2 1/8″. In mid-1967 (January apparently) the shape of the wheels was slightly modified to fit on cars with disc brakes and the webs were painted black for the first time. Cars with drum brakes continued to have the 1966 style wheels with charcoal-painted webs for a while. In 1970, the chrome wheels could be ordered for the first time on the LeSabre, Estate Wagon and Electra 225 and a cone-shaped cap with a Tri-Shield emblem was made for these. In 1971, the offset was changed so the backspacing increased by 1/2″, the bead type also changed and the center caps were changed to almost the same style that was used in 1965 but with different plastic inserts. In the mid-seventies, some wheels had their webs apparently painted in red for Rivieras but I don’t have much information about that. Later their width was increased from 6″ to 7″ and the some of the downsized LeSabres started to have the wheels from the mid-sized cars with the smaller 4 3/4″ bolt pattern. I couldn’t figure which LeSabres got the smaller wheels or the bigger ones, the Estate Wagons never had the small ones and it seems that all the sport coupe and turbo models also kept the large bolt pattern but after 1980 or 1981, I don’t think LeSabre sedans and coupes were still available with the 5″ bolt pattern chrome wheels. So the chrome wheels remained available on the RWD Park Avenue and Estate Wagon but they were less popular as the aluminum rims were also available. The Riviera also stopped to use them in 1979 when it became FWD.
I wanted to edit my last comment but it didn’t work…
I forgot to say that the 1971 version of the rims also got rid of their register rings, they got a smaller diameter hub, a smaller diameter hole (back to 2″) as the 1965-style caps were re-used from 1971 to the end of the production. The convex shape that was used from mid-1967 on disc brake cars and all 1970 models was also gone as the sliding calipers didn’t need that extra space anymore. Because of the different offset, the part that extends at the center of the wheels extends more then the outer diameter of the rim. So if you lay a rim flat on the ground without the center cap on it, the 1964-70 rims will stay flat while the 1971 and newer 6″ rims won’t. The later 7″ model will stay flat too.
The wheels on my 3 cars look the same but they don’t interchange. The 1967 Riviera has the disc brakes so the wheels from the two other cars won’t fit on it. Note the shape of the center caps on the ’65 Wildcat and ’75 Electra, they are almost identical.
That’s a handsome collection btw.
God the early Regals and Cutlass Supremes were so damn ugly, and the Monte Carlo the whole time it was a Colonnade. Only the Pontiacs were attractive at the beginning. Well maybe the Laguna.
In the eye of the beholder only.
This past June i bought a 73 Regal ,bought from original owner low miles 46000 miles original paint,interior and engine bought from a little old lady,,no joke,,88 yrs old. I also have a 1990 Regal gs bought new
Here is another example of a brown ’73 Regal that is a twin to the featured car. This one has been lovingly cared for in the same family since new. Yes, there are “Colannade” fans out there.
Buick is now simply a Chevy Malibu with lipstick.
And those Buick sport wheels are the best looking wheels this side of Rally II’s.
My dad had a ’75 Regal when I was young. What a beautiful car that was. Dark green metallic paint with black landau roof and black interior. Loaded with every option except a/c, including mag wheels and a dual carburetted engine. It was a special order that the factory fouled up and forgot to install the a/c, so the guy who ordered it didn’t want it, and ol’ pops got a great deal on it. Spent the first 6-7 years of my life riding in the back seat of that bad boy, and have very fond memories of it.
Well, I guess we all know now how the resurrected Regal turned out. And who would have thought in 2014 Opel would become part of Peugeot-Citroen-Fiat-Chrysler-Alfa-Sunbeam-Oster-Hyatt-Regency?
I do remember when younger, successful people bought Buicks, all the way up through the ’80’s. It was considered a car for older people then, but very much like Lexus doesn’t scream youth. Young people did aspire to Buick even though a lot of older people bought them. A lot of the parents at a private school I attended in the early ’80’s drove Buick Regals and Electras, and they must have been in their early to mid 30’s.
I was trying badly to get a friend to look at a Regal Sportback, since he likes the Audi Allroad, but he flat refused, even though with rebates the Regal was very attractively priced. I don’t think Buick is on anyone’s radar for a new car purchase, despite some marketing. I have no idea what their brand image is supposed to be, and I find their vehicles boring.
I thought the swoopy curves of the Buick was the best looking of the Colonnade cars. The Malibu looked like a clay model waiting to be sculpted. The Cutlass was attractive, but not as curvy as the Buick; the LeMans had nice curves but not as nice as the Buick. I even liked the stacked headlights.
Whatever deficiencies the Colonnades had, they definitely had more presence than the boxy, expensive replacements and were better built (by 70’s) standards and handled better than their Chrysler and Ford competition.
I remember these cars new and thought the design to be pretty odd. They seemed not to have been designed for the Federal bumpers, so when they showed up in 1973, they had a full five mile per hour cow-catcher bumper on the front, and a more integrated rear bumper, (2 1/2 mph), in the back. So, the front of the cars appeared more square than the rear, yet the front fenders were designed to mimic the rear fenders. This problem wasn’t as apparent with the Pontiac Grand Am, or the Chevy Laguna with the new plastic bumpers.
Just as the 1996 Taurus went overboard with their ovals, the Pontiac Colonnade went overboard with the oval shaped fenders, resulting in a strange-looking trunk that sloped to nothing at the rear bumper. The 1973 Pontiac Colonnade tail lights appeared to be flattened and pointing up, they were so horizontal. Then many of them had fender skirts, accentuating the stretched oval design. This resulted in an odd wasp-waist effect and the rear of the Colonnades looking like closed clam shell.
I was impressed at how well the Colonnades were able to become Broughams. While the C pillars became huge blind sails with little “opera” windows, it seemed not to have had any negative impact on sales.
The station wagons had tail lights in the rear bumpers that couldn’t be seen in bottleneck traffic. If any vehicle needed a HMSL across the rear gate window, it was the Colonnade wagon. Then as these bumpers rusted, the tail light assembly was also impacted. I also recall the rear gate on these wagons to be immense, as the design opened the entire rear of the vehicle and they needed a solid mounted rear handle to handle the weight of the gate.
The Colonnades were incredibly popular. They were better proportioned than the Torino from Ford, and more modern than the Coronet or Satellite from Dodge/Plymouth. The Colonnades became popular Personal Luxury Coupes, a-la-Monte Carlo and Gran Prix. These cars were also quite dependable as daily drivers, and GM benefited from their durability. These weren’t great handling cars, but they were better than the competition.
Muscle Car from the TV show Powerblock did a nice job on this buick as a ‘restomod’.
The video in several parts is on Youtube.
I like this article, in that it shows all four family size Colonnade offerings for that year from B-C-O-P, (excluding the Monte and the GP).
To me, this was the best year for the Cutlass and the Malibu. Nice clean designs with nice eye catching swoops. I never liked the Buick, I thought that the brow above the grille was too heavy, leaving the car with a sleepy look. Mind you, the Cutlass wears that same look well, with a painted nose also.
Seeing the Le Mans in profile, shows how awful a design it was. The knife job ending out back, the diamond shape coming off the front wheel wells to finish in the middle of the doors, and the large rear passenger side windows, make this look completely thrown together. It’s my nominee for the worst looking car of the decade, from GM at least.
The Buick and Olds were the best-looking of the colonnades, and I believe it was by design since those two divisions did not have intermediate PLCs like Chevrolet or Pontiac. In Laguna or Grand Am guise, the latter two weren’t ‘too’ bad, but lower trims just didn’t look so great.
Of the ‘good’ four, it’s easy to pick the worst (the Cutlass) but choosing the best one is substantially more difficult since the other three (Regal, MC, and GP) were all decent. Frankly, it would come down to price and I suspect the Regal would be cheapest, meaning you could get a nicely-equipped one for about the same price as a strippo MC or GP.
IMO the Luxury LeMans rear fender skirts ruin the car. Without them, between the big quarter windows and the tapered tail there’d be a lightness to the back half of the design that’s completely lost on the formal-roof jobs.
That being said, the only early Pontiac Colonnade with a good-looking face was the Grand Am with the full Endura nose. The chrome-bumper cars looked like a cheaped-out afterthought at best. They made up for it in the facelift with the best deployment of square headlights of any of the Colonnades.
Buick OTOH had the best 1973 styling but the sedans/wagons shoehorned-in stacked squares marred it terribly it while the more thorough redo the coupes got was just boxy and bland.
Not a particular fan of restomods, but if I had the occasion (I never will) to own a 73 colonnade (Buick’s front end simplicity is my fave), the major alteration would be to shrink that front bumper, which this one does quite nicely…though taking out another 1/2 inch wouldn’t hurt.
One reason the 5-mph front bumpers looked like an afterthought on the ’73 Colonnades was that they were.
I remember seeing these pics in Collectible Automobile, which indicate the direction Chevy wanted to go at least, and I’m sure the other divisions were similar. These look like they belong on the car, unlike the grafted-on bumpers that made production. Over time, Detroit integrated the bumpers better, though the imports lagged behind a while more.
I should add that the Colonnades were originally scheduled to come out in 1972, and a UAW strike delayed them until ’73. Had they come out as scheduled, they may well have looked like the proposals pictured above for one year at least.