We finally moved to Tokyo a couple weeks ago, so things have been a tad hectic, leaving very little time for CC hunting. Fortunately, I had found a bunch of stuff in France over Xmas, but that’s almost done too. A few days ago, I was wondering if my new digs would offer me some good CC opportunities when I found this. Sure, you US-based folks will find it a bit common, but around here, 25-year-old Buicks are anything but. And the weird thing is, this Century is called Regal. That warranted a bit of digging.
I haven’t uncovered the entire story, but it seems the A-Body Buick Century wagon was something of a hipster hit in mid-‘90s Japan. I know, I’m baffled about that too, but the Japanese websites seem to all agree on this. The sedan was also on offer (but never the coupé, AFAIK), but the trendy one was the wagon, offered as a Buick only. I’m unclear as to when official imports really started; I think it might be 1990, but I’m not 100% sure. The local GM importer is Yanase, who still sell GM, Chrysler, VW, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo (among others) in Japan and have been the biggest car importer since the pre-war days, though most of these carmakers also have their own dealership networks nowadays.
Our feature car is a Yanase import, but I understand demand was so high that some grey imports were also allowed in. However, those would have been badged as Century. On the JDM, by the ‘90s, that was not a name to be trifled with – Property of Toyota, no trespassing. So Yamase and GM had to finagle a replacement nameplate. I’m guessing that the US-market Regal was not imported, so it probably didn’t matter too much for JDM buyers what the wagon was called, just as long as it was a Buick name. They could have gone for LeSabre or Electra, but they picked a name that used to be associated with the Century. It sort of makes sense.
One notable difference compared to North American models, aside from the nameplate, are the rear lights with amber turn signals. Now that’s a modification that I can get behind – red turn signals are really not the smartest aspect of the US Highway Code. I kinda flubbed this picture, unfortunately, but then this is a Buick wagon trying to fit inside a Tokyo parking space. There wasn’t too much of an angle for me to work with here.
I mean, look at the dimensions of this thing. The Buick is 7cm wider and 13cm longer than the space is designed to hold. Owning one of these in this country must be really a source of constant joy and amusement. The thing is, I can relate: my father owned a 1986 Pontiac 6000 wagon. He bought it when we lived in the States in the late ‘80s and brought it back to France when we moved back again. Sheer lunacy on his part, as that model was never imported there. He had to go through a mountain of paperwork in order to get it legalized (it took over 18 months), and when anything broke, parts had to be ordered from overseas. That car served us well though and I remember it fondly. It died of a broken transmission in 1995.
Anyway, back to our “Regal.” As I understand it, the official Japanese imports only came with the 3.1 litre V6 – no slow-poke Iron Dukes or smelly Diesels – and with the front bench seat, so that it could be registered as an eight-seater. Our Pontiac had bucket seats and a floor shifter, which never made sense to me in a wagon. This configuration is much more in keeping with the car, IMHO.
Buicks are no longer imported these days. Maybe they only liked them here when China couldn’t afford them. Now, it’s all Cadillacs and the odd Chevrolet, though there are still a few Hummers about as well. Most are LHD, like this Buick (though I did find a RHD Caddy), which is not an issue for the Japanese authorities, strangely enough. They used to forbid LHD cars, but changed that rule in 1965. Still, you’re likelier to see a new RHD French or an Italian car here than a new LHD American one, so I guess having the steering wheel on the wrong side is still not too popular, because it’s a real pain in everyday life.
I’m not sure when they quit offering Buicks on the JDM, but it seems Yanase imported the first ones in Japan in 1920. They published Buick brochures in Japanese on a yearly basis, some of which can be found on the Internet. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a decent scan of the Regal Sedan / Estate Wagon JDM publicity material, so the above will have to do.
It’s always fun to find a familiar car with a weird local variation or two. That’s one of the reasons I like living in Asia – you never know quite what you’re seeing, sometimes. So when someone asks you when the last Buick Regal wagons were made, and they expect you to say 1987, you should reply: “1996, because Toyota forced GM to find a Regal loophole.”
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1994 Buick Century Wagon – Fighting A Losing Battle, by Tom Klockau
CC Outtake: c. 1995 Buick Century Wagon – A Century Ago…, by Joseph Dennis
Ballotside Outtake: Buick Century Wagon, by Tom Klockau
Curbside Classics: 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser & 1996 Buick Century Wagon – Separated By Ten Years And A Few Hundred Yards, by Brendan Saur
COAL – 1988 Buick Century – My First Wagon, by TJ1977
Cool and different, American cars French cars British and Japanese cars have all emigrated to NZ as ex JDM, LHD or RHD like Japan you can drive pretty much anything here as long as it meets compliance standards but the range of used cars in Japan is amazing. Consequently the range on NZ roads is quite amazing too gawd help you if something breaks though you are left at the mercy of the postal system getting your part ordered on the internet from the original or pirate part supplier.
I agree about amber turn signals being better than red.
Red is preferred by carmakers in the USA because it permitted the use of only one dual-filament light bulb; the brake light must be red so an amber turn signal requires a separate bulb and wiring. Cheaper to build (Follow The Money and you will find the truth).
Some American cars with substantial overseas sales did have amber turn signals on their USA versions.
> So when someone asks you when the last Buick Regal wagons were made, and they expect you to say 1987, you should reply: “1996, because Toyota forced GM to find a Regal loophole.”
Regal Wagons were long gone by 1987 in the States too (at least for the next few decades) and were involved in a odd name game too. When this generation started out in 1978, all Regals were coupes, and everything else (including the unpopular Aeroback coupe) was a Century. But when that car was replaced by a new front-drive model, the old rear-drive ones became Regals, including the wagon for 1982 and 83 only. In 1984 the FWD Century wagon with the same body as the Japanese car debuted, allowing the slightly larger (but 2 row only) Regal wagon to be discontinued. But that turned out not to be the last Regal wagon either, as the Opel-based Regal TourX wagon would be offered for 2018-20.
Just the point I was going to make.
Yeah, no kidding. That’s one of my favourite harps to play. I often say when the U.S. joins the rest of the world in requiring amber rear turn signals, I can die happy, and I expect to live a long and cranky life.
The wagon you found also has side turn signal repeaters, another good idea (other countries require the turn signal to be visible, like, to the side where the vehicle intends to move…LOLROFL haw haw haw, that’s dumb! It must be or else it would also be required in America!)
Too bad no brochure; I’d be curious to see the taillight setup they put together for the Japan-market sedan.
As to this car’s dimensions—well, at least it’s not a Caprice or an Astro/Safari!
The ridiculous thing is now that LEDs are replacing incandescent bulbs, there’s no longer any significant cost disadvantage to providing separate amber rear turn indicators over dual-intensity red ones. Side repeaters OTOH do seem to be common now in the US, especially on cars also sold in other countries, despite not being legally required.
Oh, it’s much more ridiculous than that. Click the “no kidding” link in my comment above yours to read about the 50-cm2-of-lit-area requirement for brake lights and rear turn signals that drives much of the use of red in the USA. Then, the next time you’re in traffic behind a stopping or stopped Tesla Model 3 (or S, or X) or a ’19+ Toyota RAV4 or a current Mazda 3 or any of a number of other makes and models, see if you can plausibly count up to 50 square centimetres (7-3/4 square inches)—I dare ya.
So because of a reg that’s routinely disobeyed and not enforced, we can’t have real turn signals. USA! USA! USA! USA! Pfft.
Apparently, it’s like this below.
The amber turn signals are embedded into the bumper. I presume the original US-market turn signals are just tail lights in these Japanese versions… they do light up though, since I saw a Japanese market photo of one of these at night, highlighting the full-width light bars.
Judging solely by the number of Internet pictures, it seems that the wagons were much more popular in Japan than the sedans.
Eek, barf! Nowhere near as clean as on the wagon. Typical of a wide variety of American cars sent in low volume to Japan.
We also see here (and on the wagon) that compliance with Japanese regulations was a mixed bag. Red turn signals weren’t going to get a pass, but other requirements were sometimes sorta enforced or not. Japanese regs don’t permit full-width taillights (easy enough to remove bulbs to pass inspection), and at that time they required that the side view mirror be visible through glass swept by wipers—hence the fender-mount mirrors common at that time, and expensive unusual solutions like the Toyota Mark II with sideglass wipers so conventional door mirrors could meet that reg.
Speaking of mirrors, though, the wagon in this post does have ECE (European)-compliant sideview mirrors: hinged for foldaway on impact, rather than the rigidly-mounted US-spec items that are much more injurious to pedestrians.
this car having the folding mirrors has nothing to do with being ECE (European)-compliant. so that if it whacks into a pedestrian they are less likely to be hurt.
In most of Japan things are really close together so you run the risk of whacking off your mirrors driving through a narrow alleyway. Plus parking is at a premium in a lot of places in Japan (Tokyo especially)
Back in the old days the mirrors were mounted on the fender so that they were not taken off due to an impact with the wall of an alley
Those look hastily tacked on, with the visible screws.
Plus, they are so low on the car, and not even all the way to the sides they represent.
It’s like they went out of their way to make them obnoxious.
I don’t like the way orange and red look together without some kind of partition. With LEDs, a light can be red but turn orange when it becomes a turn signal. Maybe this is already being done.
I have always let some of the snow get melted on the car by the lightbulbs. Just take it for granted because it was that way for my whole life.
LEDs don’t do that because there’s almost no heat created. Some municipalities have had problems with snow not melting on the traffic lights like it used to, because of using the new lights. Then a crew has to come and remove the snow, which defeats the cost-saving. At least they’ll last almost forever.
There’s heat created by LEDs—just it goes rearward out the back, instead of forward out the front with the light as in all previous light sources.
That thing about LED traffic lights getting snowed over is mostly fictional; it was ginned up and publicised some years back in support of a bogus lawsuit, and it’s the kind of legend that tends to catch fire on the internet. There’s a pretty good takedown of it on a lighting forum (of course, being the internet, you’ll have some noise and static to filter out if you choose to read it).
I didn’t know that. Thanks for the update.
Supporting “these were popular” theory, I found one north of Tokyo in Utsonomiya back in 2013:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-capsule/cc-capsule-the-cockroach-of-utsonomiya/
Look at all that glass. Compare it to the 2020 highlanders slit windows. I never thought id miss 80s designs but…here we are.
Subaru Foresters including the current year old model are still pretty glassy.
I see Japan also mandated the side parking/turn signal repeater light as in Europe. GM also imported some US model(s) with similar interesting modifications in Europe in the 90’s like the Pontiac TransSport. They used non-Pontiac lower cladding from the Olds or Chevy version and a different version of the lights around the license plate area in order to accommodate the Euro license plate etc.
(Repeaters don’t light with the parking lamps—they flash with the turn signal only.)
Love it. While everyone was lapping up Taurus wagons here (well, maybe an exaggeration) the Japanese were grabbing these.
I see that the need to be constantly accompanied by a plastic bottle of water is a worldwide phenomenon.
Not all of ’em, though. Here y’go—amber turn signals, Japanese licence plate and all!
Well there was a time when the Taurus and Escort accounted for about 50% of the wagon sales in the US. Subaru took ~25% and with the rest splitting the remaining 25%.
That car would be a hellva sleeper with the LC2 set up from a 86/87 TR.
You just need a factory setup – either the the 3800 or even the 3300 that was available here in the states on Century wagons.
Here is probably the nicest, most accessorized Century wagon in all of Japan.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/64933018@N06/sets/72157630028858166/?fbclid=IwAR3A537cy5KrXH5y1f43I_kjqMvO6qDa8k0PHg0k__ZkgEioC_fvugMpxSE
My first thought: wagons and Continental kits don’t mix
My second thought: rear door mounted spare tires on SUVs are really just glorified Continental kits, aren’t they?
“Most accessorised”, I’ll grant you that.
“Nicest”, I am finding very…challenging.
The featured car has a rear wiper, as does the promo pic car. I’m not sure if the one from 2013 did under the wind deflector, but probably not. I’ve always found US manufacturers’ (and GM in particular) reluctance to equip a rear wiper to be strange. There weren’t many of these in the US with the rear wiper. All are very equipped overall anyway-alloys and third seats weren’t super common, either.
That’s what I found hands-down most interesting about this. I know many 1990s Japanese sedans and coupes sold in that market had rear wipers, which I always found interesting and cool in a nerdy, that’s different kind of way. They seem to have all gone away around the turn of the millennium.
This, though… The complexity of offering that in the Japanese market and not at home… Wiring to the rear, a switch or button of some sort, a mount for the motor, a hole in the rear glass. That’s actually alot of engineering for such a small addition. I find it very uncharacteristic of GM, but also a huge undertaking for a local importer. The lights are… A different color mix in the injection molding machine that fit the same cutouts in the body, maybe with a different housing and additional socket. But that rear wiper is intriguing.
I’ve owned one of these with the rear wiper and several without (which had the wing). Both methods of keeping the rear window clear, so you could only get one or the other. However they would fit and work together. I put a wing on my wiper wagon, just had to swap the window hinges.
I’ve actually seen way more with the 3rd seat than without. Without seemed to be rare.
Great find T87, and like many of your posts, this one sent me down the rabbit hole of curiosity. Although the fact that some Japanese folks are fascinated by rather ordinary American sedans is, I suppose, no different than JDM importers selling rather ordinary Japanese cars to Americans.
I came across the image of this brochure cover for 1990 Yanase-imported Regals. When I find amusing is the cover is woodgrain… I suppose the wood trim on these wagons was a selling point, and it was a much more manageable size in Japan than a US-market Roadmaster!
Some have done photoshops of a wood-grain-ed TourX. Personally I would make the wood more of a mahogany or cherry tone but it doesn’t look bad.
Don’t do it, some things are better left in the dust bin of nostalgia…
Never would. My wife is a little younger than I (basically a late GenX vs Early Millennial by some measures) but we have totally different viewpoints on the old “woodie”
To me the wood paneled wagon represents kitschy nostalgia, to her it is a bad childhood memory and associated with daycare.
She’d make me sleep in a car if I had one with di-noc
Absolutely. The Japanese had an obsession with American wagons with wood grain sides. The days of the Country Squire were long over, so the Century wagon was the perfect way to satisfy that obsession. I’d bet very few if any of the sedans were imported. It wouldn’t have been of any interest to them, unless it had wood grain sides too. 🙂
These are finally reaching the age and rarity that one of us might take pictures of it were it stateside as well. Maybe. But in Japan, absolutely! That’s a pretty blue too, over here I recall mainly a dark blue instead.
Excellent find and congrats on moving down to the Big City!
That tailpipe seems very out of place/different from any US market Abody I’ve seen. I wonder if it’s some Japanese regulation about how exhaust needs to be routed out past the bumper, or even a market preference where a simple turned down tailpipe is seen as cheap?
Yes, any other one of these would have the pipe coming out sideways behind the driver side rear tire. I wonder if it’s a regulation in Japan that it come out the rearmost part of the car.
At various times, various countries and blocs have prohibited side-discharge tailpipes, typically allowing anything between rear discharge and not more than 45° outboard angle. Therefore, often the export version of a car with a side-discharge tailspout in North America has a regs-compliant tailspout even in countries without such a reg.
Made an account specifically for this. I have an original Japanese sales brochure for Buick in 1994. If you’d like some more pics of it let me know.
I owned an almost identical wagon,but it was a ’93 with the fantastic 3.3 v-6. I bought it in 2005 with 95,000 miles. It was a great car, and I wish I still had it. These wagons are very hard to find now, especially in good condition like the one in the article.
I hadn’t realized that the “Regal” wagons in Asia had those amber rear turn signals. I
wish American models had those.
A couple of other things I noticed about the Regal wagon:
1- This is actually a ’95 or’96 model because it has the redesigned seats and door panels that were new for ’95.
2- These also had folding rear view mirrors, which is another great feature that the
American models should have had.
Thanks for a great article, it brought back some good memories!
It was almost certainly built along with the domestic ‘95s sometime in late 1994, because if I understand correctly, in Japan the build year is simply the year of the vehicle which would explain this one.
I’ve been wondering if these wagons ever had amber tails for export, and then I see this! I wonder if GM only made a set of Celebrity taillights with an amber section for export. The lights from all 4 GM divisions interchanged. Since all these Century wagons in Japan have Celebrity tails. The actual Century light would have made more sense with the top as amber IMO, because it was 2 sections instead of 3.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bf/%2791-%2793_Buick_Century_Wagon_–_Rear_%28Auto_classique_VACM_mardis_%2711%29.JPG/1200px-%2791-%2793_Buick_Century_Wagon_–_Rear_%28Auto_classique_VACM_mardis_%2711%29.JPG
Unless just the bottom section lights up for brake and the middle is a dedicated reflector. I’ve rebuilt a Celebrity light from pieces after an accident because I had no money.