This 1976 Buick LeSabre is another one of those oldies that the current owner wanted to get rid of rather than store for the winter. It's for sale out in Toledo, Ohio which is a good 90-minutes west of us here on the west side of Cleveland. Asking price is $8,500 which I guess is reasonable for a clean, fifty-year-old, full-size, two-door Buick. Even if it was half that price and, in this condition, if I was in the market, I'd walk right past it. Why? That rear roof.
There's just too much going on here. The roll down rear window behind the door, the offset center post or pillar, a second and massive rear side window that's stationary, the "carriage" vinyl top and last but not least, the painted roof panel. Throw in the rear windshield, please don't call it a "backlight", and that's six disparate design elements or themes clamoring for our attention.
Ah, this is much better. This is what the Buick LeSabre coupe of this vintage started out as back in 1971. It's in all its center post free, hardtop glory. There's an airy elan to it the 1976 LeSabre doesn't have. Mind you, this is no 1970 Electra hardtop coupe, but I wouldn't kick it out my garage.
Apparently, in anticipation of rollover safety regulations that never materialized, in the mid-1970's, The Big Three began moving away from hardtop coupes towards so-called "pillared hardtops"; curiously, hardtop sedans stuck around at GM through 1976. Seeing how popular hardtops had been, can't blame GM for attempting a "hybrid" of sorts. This car is from a 1974 Buick brochure, and without the "carriage" top, I think it better looking compared to the 1976 LeSabre. Still too damn fussy, though.
In the mid-'70's, Oldsmobile had the same roof on their version of the Buick LeSabre coupe, the Delta 88. The lack of a vinyl top on this 1976 Delta 88 makes the look, subjectively, the best it could, I still think it fussy. The battering ram rear bumper adding to the literal and figurative malaise.
No hybrids over at Chevrolet, though as they went all in with their pillared coupes. When I was a kid, I thought these big Chevies looked fresh, new, modern and exciting. The switch away from hardtops to pillars a natural evolution of design of sorts. Funny what ages well and what doesn't.
Chevrolet built their hardtop Impala Sport Coupe through 1975. Try to find one of those for sale in decent shape.
Pontiac hemmed and hawed transitioning away from hardtop coupes. Their 1974 "Grand Ville" was a "traditional" hardtop...
For 1975, the Grand Ville got a rear roofline similar to Chevrolet's; Pontiac dropped the Grand Ville nameplate for 1976. They kept the roof though, they just glued "Bonneville" where Grand Ville had been. The Catalina, as the Bonneville had been in 1974 and 1975, had a "hybrid" roof like the Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre had.
On GM's longer wheelbase "C-body" that underpinned Cadillac's, the Oldsmobile 98 and Buick Electra, designers went with the chunky pillared like Chevrolet (and Pontiac) had but with smaller side windows. To me, at least, these cars look as cohesive as two train cars coupled together. This is a 1976 Cadillac Coupe deVille.
The Chevrolet Impala\Caprice, Olds 88 and Buick LeSabre were built on GM's "B-body" chassis.
Meanwhile over in Dearborn, Ford wasn't having any luck with the look either. In fact, in the case of this 1977 LTD, they had a worse time with it.
Subjectively, of the big The Big Three, Chrysler did the best job transitioning away from hardtops with their 1974 to 1978 Chrysler New Yorker, this is a 1977 New Yorker Brougham. The trick was that gigantic, stylized C-pillar, more like a flying buttress, and a smaller side or "opera" window cloaked behind a thickly padded "carriage" type vinyl roof. Like the 1976 LeSabre, there's a lot going on and on paper, nothing works. However, unlike the Buick, though, here, my blog, my opinion, it does work, the old, "sum of its parts" two-step doing its thing.
I pity the fool attempting to change lanes in traffic in this thing, though.
Chrysler's Newport coupe remained a hardtop through the end of its production run in 1978. Begs the question why this was given these cars were built on the same 124-inch wheelbase as the New Yorker. When Chrysler introduced their downsized full-size cars in 1979, not only where there no hardtops, there weren't even any coupes.
The center post, off set or not, did give these cars much needed structural support. While not literally convertibles with steel roofs welded down, like GM's earliest hardtops were back in the late 1940's and into the '50's, GM's class-of-1971 full-size cars weren't exactly the sturdiest cars ever made. While there was a fair degree of flex dialed in to give them a cloud like ride, that flex became more like a furious shudder as the cars got older and got some miles on them.
When GM downsized their full-size models for 1977, while there were coupes, plenty of them, there were no hardtops.
This one appears to still be for sale although winter has clamped down on us big time already so it may be mothballed. Comment below or shoot me an email if you're interested and I'll send you the link.
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