Some old Buicks, like this 1967 LeSabre, beg the question, "what is, or was, a Buick?" On one hand, Buick was (still is) a prestige brand, one rung below Cadillac on General Motors' famous pricing ladder. On the other hand, they sold entry-level, no-frills strippers like this one.
This car, which found me on Facebook Marketplace less than fifteen minutes south of The Triple Wide, is delightfully bereft of luxury amenities you'd think any Buick would have. No power windows, power door locks, or air conditioning here. It even has a cloth interior.
For the roughly $400 premium the original owner paid over a Chevrolet Impala, they didn't get power steering or power brakes without paying extra. They did, however, get a Buick V-8 and an automatic transmission.
With the Chevrolet, a six-cylinder engine was standard, along with a row-your-own three-on-the-tree manual transmission.
Ostensibly, while the LeSabre rode on a four-inch-longer wheelbase and was about four inches longer overall, the Impala and LeSabre were essentially the same car beneath the styling and trim differences. What's more, equipping the Impala with a V-8 and an automatic transmission still cost less than stepping up to the Buick.
Pay more for essentially the same thing because it wears what some perceive as a more prestigious badge? In a vacuum, it makes little sense, but it does, I guess, in a keep-up-with-the-Joneses world.
Also helps if you prefer the styling of the LeSabre enough to cough up the extra cabbage for the Buick. I know me, I'd have a hard time paying extra for the Buick no matter how much I liked it.
Buick built entry-level, rental-grade cars like this LeSabre to cash in on the brand's perceived cachet while broadening its appeal. It was all fun and games until you realize it wandered directly into Chevrolet's low-cost lane.
The blurring of GM's brands was already well underway in the 1960s, and everything was fine until it wasn't. As foreign imports gained traction during the 1970s and into the 1980s, GM's myriad brands, many of which were remarkably similar, suddenly became a huge and costly liability.
Choice is good for the customer, it's not good for business.
As for this particular car, I don't know whether it's the time of year or a sign that the market is truly cooling, but like that 1961 Chevrolet Biscayne I recently wrote about, this very clean, supposedly ultra-low-mileage 1967 Buick LeSabre appears to be available for surprisingly little money. The asking price is $10,800.
That's not a lot of money for a lot of car, especially one claimed to have just 28,000 miles on it. It seems like quite the deal, particularly if you can get it out the door for something closer to $9,000. Bonus, looks like it's a Florida car.
I swear this car would have carried an asking price approaching $20,000 in the years immediately following the pandemic. I'm not saying it would have sold for that amount, though.
Naturally, it's only a bargain if you're into these types of cars. Compared to today's vehicles, these things ride and handle like riding lawn mowers. Sure, a few Gen Zers and younger millennials may appreciate the styling as much as old-car nerds like me do, but thirty seconds behind the wheel and they'd running back to their Hyundai Palisade and head home.
My only quibble with this car is the after-market rims; sorry, they don't work on this car. Neither do the raised white letter tires. I'm all about a chunky tire and how it fills the space and improves ride and handling somewhat, but "sporty" tires on a supposed luxury car to me is like wearing sneakers with a tuxedo.
Buick introduced the LeSabre nameplate for 1959 as its new entry-level full-size model. The LeSabre remained in production through the 2005 model year before being replaced by the Lucerne.
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