1971 Buick Electra 225 - What If?

 

"Alternate History" is the fascinating discussion of "What If?" Example, what if Napoleon's First French Empire was victorious in the French Invasion of Russia? What if the Axis powers had won World War II? What if the south had won the Civil War?

 

What if...the energy crisis' during the 1970's never happened? If there was no energy crisis would American automobiles have been downsized? Or would they continue to get even bigger? Hard to imagine them getting bigger than our 1971 Buick Electra. American roads are only so wide so its debatable that cars would've gotten wider. They did get longer when 5 mph bumpers got bolted on starting in 1973.
 

The sheer bulk of these cars is hard to fathom. There's so much size here, for no other reason than just to be big, that even drivers standing north of six feet tall had issues driving them. As a wee nipper in those now sepia toned days, the thought of driving my dad's 1970 Buick Electra was terrifying.

I woke up in the middle of many a night in a cold sweat from nightmares about being behind the wheel with my younger brother manning the gas and brake pedals because I couldn't reach them. Our brotherly communication skills needing much improvement. "Not the gas, idiot! I said braaaaaaake!"

Within a decade, these two and half ton monsters would be passed over by "taste makers" for more refined, and more expensive, machinery from Mercedes and BMW. 

That shift to European luxury makes accelerated by the two gas crisis' of the 1970s. Would the shift have occurred without the kick in the tank of those two embargoes? Yes. Unquestionably. The timetable may have been delayed five or ten years but that shift was to happen and for reasons above and beyond how many miles per gallon the Buick Electra Deuce and a Quarter could muster. Cost of a gallon of gas notwithstanding. American makes, like Buick, following Mercedes and BMW (and others) path to making better automobiles.

 

Some scholars argue that no matter what happened or didn't happen, what is "now" is the way that it was meant to be; good, bad or indifferent. Albeit with a different timetable. Europe and the United States being reunited ultimately. American automobiles, once again, becoming as good, if not better than anything else in the world.