Although the evolution of the automobile has slowed down quite a bit, a lot has changed in the past 40 years. Perhaps the definition of fun has changed quite a bit as well.
When it went on sale for the last time, in 1973, the short-lived Centurion was a relic of a carefree motoring past. Ever more-strangled by emissions controls and dropping compression ratios, the high-flying concept of a speedy middle Buick was on the way out, never to truly return. But there were still takers of this outsized, wind-in-the-hair, torquey-455-V8 fun time.
While I’d prefer it’s predecessor the Wildcat, I’d certainly take a Centurion convertible.
Another nice looker though the grilleless front is a bit odd but not bad looking.Another car you don’t see in the classic magazines.I had a look in the shop at a classic mag today,Dodge Charger,57 Chevy again!
Thats why I come here great variety all makes and tastes catered for.
So funny how this article exists, as I was thinking just the other day how it’s almost impractical to take a road trip for the hell of it, anymore. With gas climbing again (touching $4/gallon in north suburban Chicago as of today), it’s sad that the cost of gas has to be figured into your casual activities, and going for a pleasure trip or Sunday drive incurs, for some, a serious expense.
I’m just old enough that I remember taking family Sunday drives “just because.” Slowpoke drivers (any day of the week) were usually referred to as “Sunday Drivers” for that very reason – folks just out enjoying a casual drive to enjoy the scenery.
You’d have to have a lie down if you knew the price of petrol in the UK!
Well, what is it? Enlighten us, please…
£6.82 if my litres to gallons calculation is correct
Unleaded prices average 132.1ppl. Diesel prices average 139.8ppl. If my cypherin’s correct, that’s somewhere around $9/gallon.
On the other hand, if my cypherin’s wrong and Gem got it right, it would be $10.38/gallon.
At any rate, 1/2 of the price is taxes.
$4.20-$4.30 in Honolulu.
Try here in Aotearoa $2.20L regular 91 $1.55 diesel 4.5 L to a real gallon 3.7L to a US gallon you do the math it aint cheap to run a car here.
Great pics Laurence. Don’t know if its intentional or not, but the street pic looks like it was shot in sepia tone for that old timey effect.
It’s too bad the inetriors of these cars were so cheap. These cars were all about outward style and not much else.
Your future family Sunday drive…….
“Although the evolution of the automobile has slowed down quite a bit, a lot has changed in the past 40 years.” This is an interesting observation. To me, it really does feel that the evolution (or perhaps revolution) has slowed a lot. 35 years ago I bought a Ford Fiesta. It was a hatchback with folding rear seat, rack and pinion steering, transverse 4 cylinder engine, radial tires, vacuum-assisted front discs and a catalytic converter. Many of those features were fairly recent innovations which significantly changed the driving experience from a then-35-year-old early ’40’s Ford. Today’s Fiesta isn’t really that different, to me. But to my kids, an early Fiesta or a 1st-gen Rabbit seems as historic as a Model A did in my youth. BTW, my wife and I still occasionally take Sunday drives in our Prius. And while the hybrid bits are obviously different from the ’78 Fiesta, the rest of the driving experience is not that different: tan bucket seats, black plastic dashboard, rear hatch, steering column stalks for lights and wipers. Very unlike those big Buicks that are just a few years older than the Fiesta … though all three cars have rear drum brakes!
Taking a Sunday drive is harder to do, as life gets more hectic. Wifey and I used to take Sunday cruises often, especially in the fall with grandma and the kids and cruise Missouri highway 94 west out of St. Charles to Augusta and sample the wineries as well as the scenery over 20 years ago before we moved to Ohio.
That ride was always a nostalgia ride for me because I spent many years of my youth on weekends in Augusta with my parents at a friend’s who had a house in town – back in the 60’s.
As recently as last July, when we had a convertible, we just took the “long way around” to and from our Saturday dinner destination. I guess now we just have to roll all the windows down and open the sunroof on our cars, but it isn’t the same…
In the air force, I put 50,000 miles a year on my 1964 Chevy – my avatar – cruising ALL the time. Perhaps if I would have parked the doggone thing once in a while, I may have found better things to do? I’ll never know… maybe have saved some money, rather than putting it all in the gas tank for three years?
Cars now are created for comfort and isolation as in a cocoon, to keep the outside world out, which on the highway or in an urban or even suburban environment makes sense, but it’s not the same.
FWIW, on the old Lincoln highway between Delphos and Van Wert, OH, there were NEW Burma Shave signs! Now THAT is a blast from the past from a long, long time ago.
Along with the times, cars have dramatically changed, too. The “fun” and “flair” is gone.
I always ask the question: Why does beauty have to suffer for efficiency? Cars CAN be flashy and inviting and fun again. I wish the OEMs would take that into account.
94 is a great ride, especially in the fall. Years ago my brother and I had Harley’s and we’d ride over there to Augusta and Labadie all the time. highway T is also a good one. Good memories.
“Why does beauty have to suffer for efficiency? Cars CAN be flashy and inviting and fun again.”
Case in point – the Fiat 500’s pictured above!
When I was a kid, my parents never took a vacation. But the Sunday drive was an almost weekly thing. The ride to Negley, OH was only 10 miles or so from our PA home, but it was excitingly out of state. Milk, apples, and other fruit from roadside stands made up the rationale for such long rides.
Once or twice a year, we’d actually ride to Columbiana, OH, ten or so miles farther. A quaint little town back then, we’d get ice cream cones. There was a nice community park there, which I think is still there. Now, the village portion is filled with antique (junk) shops, where 1950’s business commerce took place. Modern civilization, strip malls, fast foods, car lots, abound the outskirts.
Sadly, the most economical getaway, the Sunday drive, has gotten too expensive for a lot of Americans.
Well the semi-useless “Sunday Drive” has become more like a “take the car out on a nice day when you have to go somewhere where you can park the car without it getting damaged” experience. At least that is what we do. I don’t remember the last time I drove aimlessly for the hell of it, but do enjoy driving one of the old cars somewhere when it is practical.
Craig, you said it all. I don’t drive for the “heck of it.” I try to rotate my 3 old cars. A drive to the bank, grocery store, golf course is normal driving for me. Although I have no “valuable” classics, I park out of the way of everyone else. That gives much needed exercise.
Back in 1972, when my Dad bought his beloved Dodge Polara, we used to make a 10 mile circle, through neigboring towns back to home. I recall stopping at the newspaper store in one town, the grocery, and drug store in another, and a newly opened shopping mall. Then, home. Forty years later, I live in one of the neighboring towns, and that little ride is still my favorite. Even though developed with fast foods, strip malls and other modern places, on Sunday, driving a vintage car on that route is a great time machine.
My Dad had a ’71 Centurion 4 door hardtop with the 455. Beautiful for the time and it really hauled. Around 13 mpg on the hwy but gas was cheap and nobody had heard of OPEC yet. BTW the ’73 was a letdown stylistically because of the bumpers. IMHO the ’72 was the sharpest but the ’71 was the fastest.
I’ve loved Centurion convertibles ever since the beginning of the movie ‘Used Cars’ when Rudy Russo (Kurt Russell) gets Stanley Dewoski to buy one and the bumper (held on by chewing gum) comes off as he drives off the car lot:
It seems like only yesterday we would pile into the Buick and take a drive out to the country to shop for a new horse. No internet searches or anonymous eBay bidding either, just good old fashioned driving and looking. It was not uncommon for the seller to meet you in person, donned in a sport coat with a bottle of wine in hand.
Today horses and country are out, urban and Fiats are in. It’s heartening, at least, to see young folks still make the trip in a Buick, no doubt on a perfectly timed GPS route sharing a joint along the way.
A friend of my father bought a new ’73 Centurion convertible with a 350 CI engine. He was disappointed with the performance and had the dealership swap the 350 motor for a 455 CI engine and Turbo 400 transmission. I was incredulous when he told me this as I can’t imagine how much that must have cost. I did drive the car once when it still had the 350 motor and it was a dog. Seems it would have made more sense to trade the car up for one with the bigger engine.
You all know that the 1971-76 GM B body is no favorite of mine, but I will admit a certain warm feeling for the Buick Centurion. That was a car name that deserved to stay around longer. I certainly do not recall seeing many around. There was a librarian in my high school who owned a 1975(?) LeSabre convertible.
I can’t say that we regularly take Sunday drives, though we do look for restaurants or activities that are a bit out of town. Back in the early 90s when I owned my Model A, I joined a club. About 8 or 9 months out of the year, they would have a Sunday tour that usually involved a drive to a museum or antique market, and a stop for a meal. It was certainly a fun way to enjoy the car, and also fun to see all of the other similar cars up ahead as you rounded the curves. Of course, we avoided interstate highways.
The Centurion convertible sure reminds me of Rudy Russo’s ride in ‘Used Cars’…..
Sunday drives? Every Sunday, to go hiking (or skiing), as long as the weather permits. It’s about the only driving I do all week, except to the home improvement store. I find the drives very relaxing. Every so often, I think how nice that would be in a rag top, given the wooded back roads we drive on.
What a car! No better way to reclaim the past than driving in a classic full size convertible. And I’ve always been a sucker for big buicks, especially convertibles. Hopefully the owner’s not planning on trading it in for a 500!
My Mother loved to take Me for rides all over NJ it was her time with me… first in her 63 GP, and later in the T’bird> I Tried awful hard to get her to buy a convertible, however she never bit. This Would Have been a beautiful choice in 1973.
Agreed. I tried like crazy to sell my mother on the Viking Blue Cutlass Supreme convertible with white bucket seats on the showroom floor in 1972. Unfortunately, she ended up with a light green hardtop. Which would be quite a desirable car today, in its own right. But I still wonder who drove that blue ragtop home and what ever happened to it.
I’ve never understood why anyone bought a Centurion, unless there was some contingent of buyers in the early 70’s who liked Buicks except for those dadgum portholes. Centurion literature and advertising never really explained that the car was supposed to be the successor to the Wildcat, and the concept of the full size muscle car was pretty much dead by then anyhow (the Impala SS was history, the Grand Prix had moved to a smaller platform, and the Ford XL and Mercury Marauder were toast as well). Centurions came with the 455 standard, but exactly the same engine could be had in a LeSabre for the same or maybe a slightly lower price. Absolutely nothing else distinguishes a Centurion from a LeSabre except that it has no portholes and just about every Centurion I have seen has a vinyl interior, usually brown, a fate that mercifully escaped a decent number of LeSabres.
It was kinda the last hang on of the 3 model range big car line up that had existed at Buick since the 50’s, Special, Super, Roadmaster. Century snuck in there after 54 making it 4, until 1959, when it was back to 3, LeSabre, Invicta, Electra, and the 225 if you want to count to, it was sort of an extension of the Roadmaster 75 from 1957-58. Invicta became Wildcat and then Centurion, but that was the run of its course.
Sort of in the spirt of the Century, the middle Buick usually had the “big car” motor in the “smaller” car body, the Century did it using the Roadmaster engine, the Centurion had the 455 standard, from the Electra, but as you pointed out, it was available in the LeSabre too, which is why the Centurion had bit the dust by the time the 1974 model year started.
My last experience with Sunday driving was in ’91, the year I managed to arrange things so that I had a Mustang GT convertible (triple black for max Darth Vaderness) as my management lease car for the summer (picked it up in April and turned it in just as the first snow flurries were falling in November).
As it happened, we had a miracle summer in Michigan that year. Every weekend in the summer was beautiful and the rain fell during the week. So once the warm weather hit I would put the top down Friday night and not put it up until Monday morning, and hit the roads in a triangle roughly bounded by Plymouth, MI, Jackson, and Lansing, using my trusty Michigan county road atlas to find my way.
The objective wasn’t max speed but working on quick smoothness, although there was one intersection that always came up unexpectedly, causing locking of brakes and some rear axle hop as I slowed for the corner.
Great fun, but there were some Sundays when I killed off close to a tank of gas, which these days would be close to a $60 ride.
A true study in contrasts was on Wednesday I was standing at the corner of 5th Avenue S and 9th Street in Naples, FL and when the light changed out went a late 1970s Toyota Corolla Coupe that had been repainted in a very dark brown or red metallic paint that was obviously not an original color but otherwise the car looked to be in good shape. The owner evidently likes to drive it hard as when he launched it at the light you could hear the engine whine and the exhaust howl and he lept forward from the other cars. The contrast is that, while being South Florida should provide prime climes for preservation of such an aged car, but given Collier County has one of the highest per capita incomes and every 10th car is a Rolls or a Bentley there was one in the lane next to this Corolla. I wish I was able to whip out my camera phone in time to have seen that.