Ever since my family bought a 1970 Electra sedan back in 1977, I've been searching, casually, for a coupe. A coupe, of course because life is too short for sedans. I could care less about a convertible but it seems this is all that's left these days. The coupes getting roasted in demolition derbies or succumbing to neglect. If you're interested, get ready to pay through the nose for a solid copy like this which has obviously spent its life in a warm, road salt free climate. I found this very nice, albeit somewhat drab, drop top in Southern Utah. Owner's asking $25,000. Geez, Louise. He's got serious money in it too and between us, he'll be lucky to get a third of what he's asking. The crushing reality of owning an old car that no one cares about.
In many ways, 1970 wasn't so much the beginning of the 1970's as it was the end of the 1960's. At least as far as General Motors was concerned. 1970 the last year for what may have been GM's finest, full size automobile; the 1965 C body. Additionally, with engines having to run on low lead gas beginning in 1971, thus the drop in compression, it was the last year that engines had real power. It was also the last year that Buick offered a convertible on their range topping Electra.
Cars like the 1970 Buick Electra hearkened back to not so much a simpler time, seriously, was there ever a time that really was "simpler"?, but a time when pure grandeur was in vogue and stylists ran the asylum. If Clark Gable was alive in 1970, he'd buy a 1970 Buick Electra 225 convertible. In red.
The Electra nameplate first appeared in 1959 replacing "Roadmaster" as Buick's top of the line model. "225", at least at first, referred to the overall length of the automobile. The lengths of the 225 fluctuated somewhat over the years. 1970 "225's" were actually 225 inches long.
"Ergonomics", which refers to the user friendliness of interior cockpit design and layout was more than a decade off when Buick introduced this ergonomic free interior in 1968. The horn pad for these cars was on the inside of the steering wheel rim; sharp turns resulting in unintended "blaps". Best to have a passenger load up the Perry Como on that dealer installed eight track player too. That slot above the eight track is for the ashtray. It's big enough for you to squash out an entire carton.
Under the hood our big, beautiful subject is powered by Buick's venerable 455 cubic inch V-8. Note, that this is a Buick engine and is not to be confused with other 455 cubic inch power plants produced by Pontiac and Oldsmobile. Before the mid 1970's, all of GM's divisions made their own engines. With some rare exceptions, you would never find a Chevrolet engine in a Pontiac, or an Oldsmobile in a Buick. Buick built this engine through 1976.
Despite the, what is this anyway, grey? paint and black vinyl interior, this is a fantastic looking, albeit overpriced car. The owner pricing it over the moon hoping, perhaps, that he'll find someone with more money to burn than they know what to do with and they'll cut him a check after some mild negotiations. The owner kicking away low ballers, like me, who offer what the car is most likely worth, around $8,000, as opposed to giving him what he thinks it's worth. Good luck! If it was red or at least even brown I'd offer him $10,000.
While technically baby boomers, us "tweeners" are too young to have either benefited from the changes sweeping the country in the 1960's and too old to sit back and ridicule the changes, as kids will do, that baby boomers claim to have achieved. I looked at cars the same way too. I loved the recent oldies, like this Electra, while loathing the shrunken, emasculated, fuel economy and ego friendly conscious models that were then new on showroom floors. Yesterday seemed much more interesting and the future made me nervous. Enter the neurotic New Yorker; when I was a kid, I never lived in the "now". No surprise I've gone completely grey before my time. In many ways, the older I've gotten the younger I've become.
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