Now this is more like it.
If 1990s GM didn’t make an entirely convincing argument they’d finally transitioned away from cars like the lovely Buick Electra 225, this big ol’ Buford at least shows they knew what they were doing with soft, fluffy cars in the 1970s.
Of course, this Buick has the luxury of being 20+ years older than the above-linked Intrigue, and time does funny things to memories, erasing sins big and small. I’ve often heard you tend to remember the good things more than bad, and I’d say this is true, at least about many cars.
Certainly on an objective level, cars like this left much to be desired, and the 1977 Buick that replaced this monster was better in so many ways it’s almost frightening. (As the daily driver of an older Lincoln, I can attest that nostalgia doesn’t ride quite so smoothly after a year or 2.)
Time doesn’t stand still, though, and neither do expectations. That comparatively trim, taut Lexus behind the Buick became one expression of the new expectation of what makes a really nice car in the early 1990s. I have a hard time believing people will remember a LS400 as fondly as they do an old Deuce and a Quarter, but then not as much time has passed, either.
We’ll see soon enough.
(Thanks to Tom Klockau for the photos from the Cohort!)
When these gargantuan monsters came out, I was mildly horrified. I mean, my avatar wasn’t small and neither was dad’s 1966 Impala, but these were far, far over and above the call of duty!
What really alarmed me the most was, experienced on the Chevys first, was how weak the stunted B pillars were on these hardtops. When you closed the door or doors, the entire side shook. I could only imagine not wanting to get T-boned in any of these.
As much as I am a wide-open window kind of guy, these and their cousins across all car lines – no way, José!
Yes, after the 1966 and especially beyond the 1968 models, these cars really changed, and not for the better.
For many reasons, the boxy, downsized 1977 models, in spite of…er…”design” flaws, well – they were a breath of fresh air – even if it had to come from the A/C!
A friend of my fiances family likes to tell a story about hitting a deer with one of these monsters. Buick 1, Deer 0. They drove away from the scene but destroyed that deer. Buick didn’t suffer too much damage.
I just love the in-your-face attitude of numbering a car after its measurement bumper to bumper.
Talk about bumpers!
My brother-in-law had one of these in the early 1980’s – can’t recall the year of the car, but he had some sort of accident where his front bumper mounts were severly bent – the bumper itself looked like new!
I borrowed my buddy’s oxy-acetylene torch and we somehow got the thing removed – man, was it heavy – we needed a scissors jack to help keep it steady! I heated and straightened the mounts, we bolted the monster back on and the car was no worse for wear! All this in my driveway for all the world to watch.
You remind me of the goofiest stories, sometimes…
The bumper to bumper “225” was correct when it was first applied sometime in the early or mid 60s. The 75 Electra had swelled to 233 inches in overall length.
Yep; the 1971-76 Electras were longer than a Cadillac Sedan deVille of the same vintage, and within an inch or so of the stretched wheelbase Caddy Fleetwood Brougham — even though the Buick’s wheelbase is a couple inches shorter than the deVille’s. All the extra length is in rear overhang, which translates into a significantly bigger trunk than the Caddy.
I know this car is too big, too willowy, and too thirsty, but THAT’S a Buick!
So tell me why do we have the Buick Cruze (Verano) today?
One word: China. Still…
I’d argue with you on this one Zackman: Four letters. CAFE…
That’s the word I was vaguely searching for, but the other “C” came out of the keyboard.
I’d have to agree with you.
Funny, but I like the modern-day Buicks better than the subject in question.
As a Canuckistani, I am also totally against CAFE. That is because Canuckistan is America’s largest oil supplier. Every gas guzzler that goes on the road in America makes us richer. It makes our Peso even stronger, making international travel half the price it was decade ago.
Hail the 455 cid sled!
i wish we could keep all of the gasoline we make from the Canadian oil! Apparently, we (the US refineries) are making so much product that the US is a net exporter of transportation fuels!
If you would have told me that in 1979, I would have asked for a hit off of your bong…
A real bone of contention here is about the Northern Gateway pipeline, which is to send Canadian bitumen to Texas for refining. The question many here are asking is why don’t we refine it here in Canuckistan and export the finished product ourselves?
Actually I’m starting to take a shine to them too. I was very impressed by the Verano when I saw it at the local car show. I expected Cruze clone a-la GM from the bad old days.
But the new little Buick has a much different look and feel than a Cruze. For the better.
My daughter (21 y.o.) went nuts over the new Regal. I liked it a lot too, but it’s way too rich for me…
EDIT: This was in response to Zackman.
I must keep trying to remind myself that I hated these cars. The entire run of 71-76 B and C bodies were utter crap. OK, their mechanical parts were pretty stout, but the bodies and interiors were nowhere near what a GM car was supposed to be. Still, this Buick was my favorite of them all and has some allure. Maybe it is the passage of time. Or I am older and more forgiving. I don’t know what it is, but I almost want one of these. But I must keep slapping myself and trying to recall why I did not like them.
I remember the front fenders and hood of my parents’ 1976 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale hardtop sedan shaking like crazy over bumps. As you noted, the mechanicals were quite good, but the structural integrity of the body was nothing to write home about, even for that era.
These Buicks are good-looking cars – the front, in particular, is better looking than the “flat face” front used on the 1976 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight and Delta 88.
Interestingly, if I recall correctly, the full-size Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs rebounded strongly in sales after 1974, and scored big gains in 1976, while the full-size Chevrolets and Pontiacs didn’t. But the Chevrolet scored a big sales increase with the downsized 1977 models.
It was almost the same situation at Chrysler – the full-size Chrysler sold well after the effects of the first fuel crunch faded by 1976, but the sales of full-size Dodges and Plymouths never recovered.
I saw one of these in nice original (not quite nice enough to have been restored) condition the other day, in Pasadena. Still an impressive beast.
For some reason, when I was a kid I always thought of these as “feminine” cars (along with the Skylark), possibly due to the swoopy lines, although there’s nothing to suggest that was the intent or that driver demographics skewed that way.
The 74-76 Deuce’s seem twice as big as the 71-73’s, with nearly as much trim as the 1958!
In an effort to improve fuel efficiency, these were available with the 231 V6 (making what? 90 H.P.?). I respect underpowered cars, but UGH! Take your time, indeed.
The 231 V-6 was an economy option in only the ’75-’76 LeSabre; not the Electra 225. HP ratings on the 2-bbl V-6 in this period varied between 110-118 net.
I stand corrected about the power output.
But the Lesabre and Electra were essentially the same car as were the 88/98 and Impala/Caprice. I think part of GM’s downfall in this era came from expecting the public to be as obsessed with differences in nomenclature as management was.
I would quibble a bit with your statement. Although the Impala/Caprice were indeed the same car in different trim levels, the Olds 88 and the Buick LeSabre were B body cars (a structure shared with Pontiac and Chevy), while the Ninety Eight and Electra were C body cars (a structure shared with Cadillac). There were shared powertrains and the dashboards were usually shared as well, but an 88/98 or a LeSabre/Electra were otherwise substantially different cars on longer whelbases.
Nope 993cc – Electras were “C” bodies; 98s and Caddies were kin.
The 231V-6 wasn’t available in the 75-76 LeSabre either it’s base engine was the 350 4bbl with the 455 4bbl optional.
According to Wikipedia, the 1976 model did come with the V6 standard. It was a late addition, not mentioned in the brochures. I can remember reading an article (somewhere lost in time) how Buick engineers were explaining how the V6 gave so much more mileage, particularly with the bigger fuel tanks these cars had.
That’s correct. I read an article on the ’71-’76 Buick article in an issue of Collectible Automobile and the V6 was available on the LeSabre in ’76. In 1974 and 1975, Buick sales were tanking due to combination of the gas crisis and their V8-rich lineup, so they bought back the tooling from AMC, who had inherited it from their purchase of Kaiser-Jeep in 1970.
Not true, Eric. V-6 a no-cost option mid seventies LeSabre. I personally have seen two in the flesh, one with the hood up. I had to contact missing persons to find the 231 between the radiator, mile long fan shroud and the firewall. The ’76 LeSabre with V-6 proudly displayed that it WAS a V-6 with a badge above the side marker light.
You’re kidding right? This era Deuce and and Quarter was only available with the Buick built 455 backed by the Turbo 400.
Correct, the V6 was for a LeSabre, though I have never seen a V6 engined 76 LeSabre, with 110hp or so in a 4000lb car, it had to slooooooooooow.
Our neighbors had a light blue 1976 LeSabre four-door sedan with the V-6 that they purchased brand-new. The engine sounded awful from day one, and I can only imagine how slow that car was. But they were retired and in their 70s, so they probably didn’t care.
A family that went to our church had a 4 door V6 LeSabre. Bench seats all around, they managed to get all 4 kids and parents in that car.
None of them were too skinny, either.
I represent that remark. We are retired and in our 70’s, and I don’t notice any big change in our automotive likes and dislikes.
Whippersnapper!
Could these be only 4000 lbs? I would have thought they were closer to 5000.
A LeSabre would, the Electras were heavier, they were closer to 5K.
I drove a downsized 77 LeSabre with the V6 and found it excruciatingly slow. The car was maybe a year old at the time. I can only imagine that engine in one of the bigger 74-76 models.
And a downsized LeSabre is a featherweight compared to a dreadnaught 76, a 77 Lesab is around 3600-3700(maybe less) or so for a base model.
So what would be slower? A ’76 LeSabre with the 231 V6 or a Type 2 VW Bus? What a horse race…
Having owned both a 1975 Limited Laundau (the model between the Electra 225 and Lesabre at the time) and a 1978 Electra 225 I’ll take the 1975 anytime, except when pulling up to the pump.
If a drunk didn’t do a hit and run on my Limited I’d still be driving it on occasion. It did some pretty good damage to the quarter panel and popped the Th400’s glass like parking pawl sending it rolling down the street. If it weren’t for the large bush/tree it ran into it would have T-boned my neighbor’s Caddy sitting in his driveway. That little episode proved to me just how worthless the City’s police dept was. I saw him leaving the scene after dropping off his girlfriend that lived on the other side of the neighbor with the Caddy. The police did talk to her, she gave them his phone number and he admitted he did it over the phone. Despite that the police wouldn’t fill out a report nor did they charge him with hit and run and told me I had to go to small claims court if I wanted recourse. But they wouldn’t give me his full info to make even that happen.
I respect the 71-76 GM B and C cars but I truly do not like them. It puzzles me to see people call the 73-77 A and A “special” cars Baroque when the B-C cars were just over the bloody top. There’s no elegance in a car that looks like the Vatican on wheels!
The only reason I ever saw to buy one of these was as a big block donor for a much smaller car. The sad thing is that most of these were gone in my area by the early to mid 90s.
A buddy of mine bought one of these in the late 70’s, right about the time for Gas Crisis II. By the time I remember cars our family had, my father had started buying mid-sizers, the Marauders and Montclairs were long gone by then.
So I had not spent a lot of time in a GM C-body with the exception of the one I was paid to wash and detail back then. During that time, I was too young to drive legally, so I just moved the car around.
But when Joe came over with this aircraft carrier of a car I was impressed. It was as nice of a car as I had seen in my 17 years. I remember he paid a lot of money for the car (at least to me), but he definitely got his money’s worth.
Until you filled it up. The 455 could suck down fuel like a drunk on a bender! I drove it a couple of times, but I was firmly in the mid-size camp, this thing was too much to maneuver around town, at least for me.
By the time he sold it five years later, the car had aged badly in the NE Ohio environment. It was pretty rusty, and many of the power accessories no longer worked correctly or at all.
It went from being Disco Dan 280 ZX Kryptonite to just magnetite (iron ore) in five years. I think he sold it to another long haul trucker for his yard car. Kind of sad.
You would be very hard pressed to get 8 mpg on a 455 Buick with the a/c running. No a/c and a light foot and you would maybe get 10 mpg, and that is US gallons.
But you might hit 14 on the interstate 🙂
Mine never dropped that low a solid 10.x around town and 12-13 on the freeway, US gallons and often with the AC pumping out ice cold air.
Not with me driving it. I can’t resist gunning a big V-8 whenever I get the chance! 🙂
I have 1970 C body (Cadillac DeVille) with the 472. I’ve found that you get 9-10 mpg in suburban driving regardless of how heavy your foot is that day. BTW, the AC is on in the Cadillacs if the climate control system is in any other position that “vent” or “off”. It’s a rare day to get more than 13mpg on the highway. Good thing the C bodies had 26 gallon tanks!
I don’t really remember what that old beast got, although my 1969 390 Torino was no slouch in the swilling department, either. If I kept my foot off the accelerator pedal, I could pull a very thrifty (for that car) 17MPG! Freeway mileage, no less… 🙂
As a comparison, my TL at 120 km/h on cruise control can achieve
7.2 L/100 km or roughly 35 miles per US gallon. The best I ever saw was 6.8.
I just love these, I understand that there are people here that equate them with the antichrist, but I just flat out love them, could be that my first automotive memories are of my old mans trip-brown 76 Electra 225 Limited coupe.
I already do have a 1975 Estate Wagon, and i have been looking for either a “deuce and a quarter” or a 98 Regency of the same vintage, I have a full size hardtop jones going on.
I kick myself for missing a couple of these that got away from me, one was a clean 74 Electra 225 sedan with a factory Stage 1 option (by 1974 Stage 1 meant dual exhaust and a chrome air cleaner lid) and Max-Trac (Buicks 70’s traction control system), there was another super nice black 74 225 loaded to the gills, and a clean light metallic blue 1976 98 Regency 4dr hardtop with all the the toys too.
I am glad to see someone with an unabashed love for these. As a college-age kid in the late 70s, I worked for a large funeral home that had a lot of vehicles. For general errand running, we were to pick one of the sedans. Most of the time, the choices were a 76 Electra, a 77 LeSabre V6, a 76 Fleetwood, a 77 Fleetwood and occasionally a 79 Town Car.
Until the Town Car came along, the 76 Electra was my favorite, just because of the size. Even then, I knew that the really big boats were on the way out and knew that I had better enjoy them while I had the chance. Especially with free gas. The 76 Fleetwood was my second choice, but I considered the Buick better looking. The 77 Fleetwood was smaller but really fast, and that V6 LeSabre was my absolute last choice of anything in any of the garages. I preferred the 4 cylinder Scout to that miserable LeSabre. In truth, I was in love with Town Cars and the final big New Yorkers, but there were no Chryslers in the fleet, and the Town Car was usually in the hands of one of the owners.
I have a 1976 Independence Red with a white vinyl top Buick Electra 225, garage kept, with 3,800 miles original miles on it. This was one of the last cars on the assembly line before the 1977’s shortened version came out. If interested, please contact me.
My parents had a 1971 Electra, dark blue with white vinyl top and dark blue cloth seats. It was a good looking car, and relatively subtle, compared to the later years in the series.
Somehow, the 75’s and 76’s, with the new opera windows, look so much longer, and I know they’re the same size car (with the exception of the bumpers). I thought GM did a decent job of givig the various C bodies different, well, bodies, but the top halves – the windshield, roof, windows, were just too much the same. Why’d they give them all the same opera window on the sedans?
Shared greenhouses and rooflines was sort of the “GM Way”. Go back through the 60s, 50s and before. You can always identify whether it was a GM A, B or C body by the roofline and greenhouse, which was shared by everything that used a particular body. All of the inter-divisional variations were from the beltline down.
You do make a point on the opera window. If there were ever an inexpensive way to differentiate the rooflines, it would be to make the opera window available on only one car. But it was the 70s, and no GM division head would have allowed GM to strip him of his opera window. So, it was a shared feature just like rooflines had always been.
Interestingly, though, look at the rooflines on the 1974-76 “Colonnade” B-body COUPES…. Caprice got its own, while 88 and LeSabre shared a different one with opera window + narrow roll-down hardtop window. Bonneville got still another (I think). There was much less differentiation in the opera windows for 4-doors on both B- and C-bodies. Also, of course, the Fleetwood Brougham, at least, never got the opera window.
Oh yes, and don’t forget that all the ’75-’76 B-bodies offered a “Town sedan” 4-door seda bodystyle along with the 6-window hardtops. A lot of choice!
Wow, I remember all those variations now. I forgot about the sedan style with frames and b-pillar. And yes, the Fleetwood stood out more in ’75 and ’76. it’s one of my guilty pleasure cars – I know it’s totally over the top, but there was something about it. McMillan (and wife) had one of these, although I think it was an earlier model year.
Big oie barges go like a crippled frab and handle like a dog on lino.
You know what, they are not as bad as you would imagine them to be, once you get the dimensions down and your are brave, you can hustle these around, they will never be sports cars, but they are better than a wet sponge on waxed floor.
These sleds were designed to be piloted on Interstates and in suburbia. Those in NZ would never understand.
Bryce should drive US 54 through Kansas and the Oklahoma panhandle to understand what and why these cars were.
Yup, set the cruise at 70, crank the a/c and the 8-track. Nothing ate miles like those old sleds. Plenty of road hugging weight.
Ive driven around OZ some places all day in a straight line no speed limit but not enough gas stations for one of these cattle grids at 80mph on soft US suspension mightnt be much fun either but yeah I get the clandscape these were for Buicks this model are in NZ but not common.
Not really, sure they aren’t sports cars, but put a decent set of tires on them and they weren’t that bad. Even choked by the early smog controls with a 455 they weren’t that slow, certainly faster than the majority of non-performance oriented cars of that time. They may not have made a lot of HP but even the primitive smog controls couldn’t stop their torque and the Buick 455 was GM’s torque king, Cad 500 excluded.
Say what now?
I helped a buddy of mine put an aftermarket camshaft and lifters in one of these. I still remember looking in my rear view mirror and seeing him coming with the front and rear suspension at full droop and the tires barely touching the ground as the 225 attempted to take flight at about 130 mph.
If I could equate this vintage big GM expensive car(Electra/98/DeVille/Fleetwood)with a person, it would be Jackie Gleason, big, brash, outlandish, heavy drinkers.
I always enjoyed these pieces of crap about 5 or 6 years down the road, when due to a accident the rear panel filler was gone or the color so faded to no longer match the car color.
A excellent advertisement of what could be in store for you if you bought a GM.
Even in the photos above, that plastic filler looks horrible. But, GM was too cheap or too incompetent to do it right. “Get ‘er done!!!”
So, you replace them, on these cars they are considered a wear item, like tires and wiper blades, I had an Eldorado that kept its original fillers from 78 until 96 when one cracked badly when someone leaned on it, so some were better than others.
I believe that GM continued using the same material on Cadillac Broughams into the early 90s. They start out soft and pliable, but eventually get brittle.
They did get better after some point, after a certain year you stop seeing big Caddys with missing fillers, its around 86 and up I think, and I dont think I have ever seen a later composite headlight 90-92 one with missing fillers
Frequent waxing helps – I know – living in California and Hawaii and having a body colored filler on a ’78 Skylark, ’85 LeSabre and ’86 Cutlass.
It seems like the Eldo ones were the worst The 77 Eldo I had they were seriously tattered when I got it in the early 90’s and the last time I visited my storage yard the ones on the 75 Limited were still good, at least on the side that didn’t get hit.
Oh, this is giving me severe Electra lust. Below is a photo of the ’74 Electra Limited that was my daily driver from 1992-96. This was a $500 rusty beater, but with a perfect gold velour interior, that I rescued off the streets of Philly and had it de-rusted and repainted at Maaco — and took it to a show, where nobody believed who did the paint job. If you ask me to pick my favorite of all the cars I have ever owned (lots of ’em), I will always say this one. It handled better than the Cadillacs of the era (I’ve had a few of those), and despite its size I never had a problem jockeying it around town. Gas mileage about 15 in mixed driving — not a Prius, but lots better than 70’s Lincolns that usually don’t do much above 9.
I always thought that Buick got the best styling of the 1971-76 GM full size cars. In fact, the design is subtly retro in some respects. Compare the hood, the location of the ventiports, and the bodyside creases to a 1950 Buick and you will see. Also, 1971-72 Le Sabre taillights evoke the early 60’s cars.
As for quality, mine was solid. 1971-76 interior materials are miles ahead of 1977-79 with their self-shredding seats, Insta-Sag headliners and detachable seat controls (was that intended as a feature?). Paint quality was better too on the earlier cars. Some 1971-76 cars seemed to rust very quickly. But the ones that survived past 1990 were the good ones and generally held up as long as the roof didn’t rust under the vinyl top — when it did, you got leaks everywhere.
Mmmmmmm….Electra.
I like the 74’s best for some reason, they have the most unique dash of the series, they combine the 71-74 “wraparound” dash that I like best, with the swank silver faced gauges of the 75-76 cars.
Speaking of retro, I always thought the 1985-1991 FWD full size Buick dash was inspired by the 75-76 “2 tier” dash.
I forgot about the silver gauges. I did really like those! Didn’t they use those in some of the post 76 B Buicks too?
Oh yeah, they were on everything except the little Skyhawk and the 79 and up Riviera, they started slipping out of the Buick line up around 81-82 and were gone by 85, I think the last car that had them was the RWD Regal until the dash was re-designed in 1984 or so.
Mercury I think was the last silver faced gauge hold out, it think they still had silver faced gauges on the Grand Marquis into the mid-90’s.
Man that is one fine sled! You should have kept it!
Did Collectible Automobile use your car in an article?
I still have a 1975 Buick Electra Limited 2 Door that has been in the family its whole life with me being the third driver. It’s deep sky blue with a white Landau top. 99,900 Orig miles. I kept this car and sold my GTO before I moved out west due to it having good memories. (We always took it to weddings, parties, and Holiday weekend family gatherings. Well ok, funerals too…)
I moved to Oregon back in 2005 and left it behind in New York at a relatives house. I went and got it in September that year. The A/C seals had been dried out for the last few years and the plan was to drive it out here in a cooler month. Unfortunately the ride was 90+ degrees in every state until I made it to Utah where the next morning it was 30… I drove just before dawn to sundown per leg.
She covered 3000+ miles in 4 days and 3 nights at 70 MPH stopping for fuel every few hours. I believe I averaged 16 MPG on the 455. (Not too shabby)
I could have drove non stop if I didn’t need to sleep because my rump and back never hurt on that front seat sofa ! I rolled into PDX 10pm and knew she would never let me down the whole trip.
I guess it was a cool thing to do with a car that has history. I have a bunch of family and friends that have classics but never take them anywhere other than local rides. But, I have to say this Buick had seen a lot of country.
I’d like to find her a home however. She sits in my garage these days dusty and it seems wrong. She’s not perfect but I’ll bet she’ll take you 3000+ miles again anyday.
You can contact me at duce455 and thats a yahoo addy. (yes deuce was taken…)
I purchased a ’71 Electra 225 4 door hardtop from my best friend’s parents, who had bought it new, around 1981. 75K on it, carport kept, forest green paint & vinyl top, lighter green classy cloth interior, for what the pittance price the Buick dealer had insulted them with on a trade in offer.
Easily the most solid, well built, high quality car I have owned (so far)! Not a squeak or rattle in it, factory paint still shinny and smooth, no cracks on the vinyl top or dash board top. A set of used Michelin radial tires and a new fan clutch was all I added to it.
10 to 13 mpg around town (that 455 pulled like a freight train!), 14 to 16 at 60 mph on Interstate 10. As mah Daddums commented “You Pay for your Pleasures.” (Just for a point of reference, my 2.0 Ford Pinto got 18-19 around town and 21 on the highway in the same time period).
Once you got your depth perception down it didn’t drive like a Huge car. The variable ratio power steering was accurate and light, the power disc/drum brakes stopped in distances short enough to make me question the laws of gravity and weight. The 455 4-BBL engine and 3 speed TurboHydraMatic automatic transmission made for a smooth, potent and subtlety quick power train.
We had 7 full sized Americans inside for a hurricane evacuation, still had lots of “spread out space”, the trunk still had room left over.
Even my “sporty” car college friends expressed somewhat reserved admiration and gave guarded, low key compliments for this Buick. Quite the tribute from early twenty year olds!
When I finally got tired of it/needed tuition money the next year, the first person that looked at it bought it at my full asking price.
I know they were all the same basic body; but somehow the ’71-72 models appeared to be much shorter than the later models?
Must been those dayum 5 mph bumpers??
Did the structural solidity and assembly quality of this generation of GM full-size cars improve by 1976?