1960 Buick Electra 225 four-door hardtop in Pearl Fawn Metallic / West Coast Classics
After a spectacular rise and equally dramatic fall in the 1950s, Buick reinvented its model lineup for the 1960s, dropping most of the familiar model names it had used since the 1930s. Here’s a rundown of the full-size Buicks of the ’60s, including the LeSabre, Wildcat, and Electra 225, and how they performed in a changing marketplace.
1955 Buick Roadmaster four-door sedan in Carlsbad Black / My Classic Garage
Buick was extraordinarily successful in the ’50s, for a while reaching No. 3 in domestic auto sales, behind only Chevrolet and Ford. In its mid-’50s heyday, Buick offered four model series: the popular low-line Special, the sporty Century, the bigger C-body Super, and the flagship Roadmaster (plus the rare, limited-production 1953–1954 Skylark). For 1958, the Buick lineup was expanded to also include the top-of-the-line Limited, with prices starting at over $5,000, over $2,300 more than the cheapest 1958 Buick Special.
1958 Buick Limited four-door Riviera in Blue Mist / Bring a Trailer
Like Icarus flying too close to the sun, Buick soon came crashing down to earth. Its 1957 models had quality control and reliability problems that soured the division’s reputation, and the 1957–1958 recession left many buyers in no mood for glittering extravagance. Buick sales fell from 572,024 for 1956 to 241,892 for 1958, a drop so big that the division’s future was suddenly in question.
1959 Buick Electra 225 convertible in Sable Black / Mecum Auctions
The 1959 Buick line had all-new styling, straight out of Gotham City. With Buick’s reputation recently tarnished, it also seemed like a good time for all-new model names, to put some distance between the new cars and their unpopular 1957–1958 predecessors. Thus, the previous Series 40 Special was replaced by the Series 4400 LeSabre; the outgoing Series 60 Century was replaced by the Series 4600 Invicta; the Series 50 Super gave way to the Series 4700 Electra; and the Roadmaster and Limited were replaced by the Series 4800 Electra 225.
1959 Buick LeSabre four-door sedan in Shalimar Blue / Classic Cars of Sarasota
Of these, the most important was the LeSabre, which, like the outgoing Special, was priced to tempt Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and even Chevrolet buyers with the prospect of Buick prestige. It had a two-barrel 364 cu. in. version of the Buick “Nailhead” V-8.
1959 Buick Invicta two-door hardtop in two-tone Arctic White and Sable Black / Bring a Trailer
Like the outgoing Century, the Invicta’s big claim to fame was offering the more powerful 401 cu. in. engine from the senior models in the smaller LeSabre body. Automatic transmission was also standard instead of optional.
1959 Buick Electra two-door hardtop in Sable Black / Ramsey-Potts via Hagerty
The standard Electra had fancier trim and a 3.2-inch-longer wheelbase than the LeSabre and Invicta, adding around 3 inches of rear legroom.
1959 Buick Electra 225 four-door hardtop in Sable Black / Jlechte via Shannons
At the top of the line, the Electra 225 sedan and hardtop added an extra 4.8 inches of rear overhang, for an overall length of 225.4 inches. The Electra 225 convertible was the same 220.6 inches as the Electra, but had standard leather upholstery and additional standard equipment.
1959 Buick Electra 225 convertible in Tampico Red / Broad Arrow Auctions
This was the lineup with which Buick entered the 1960s. By 1961, the Special nameplate was resurrected for the new Y-body “senior compact,” but the full-size LeSabre remained the mainstay of the line, even though it never sold as well as the older full-size Special. The standard Electra series and the smaller 364 cu. in. V-8 were dropped after 1961, and in 1962–1963, the Invicta series was subsumed by the Wildcat, which began in 1962 as an Invicta sub-model and completely replaced the Invicta after 1963.
1962 Buick Invicta four-door-hardtop in Glacier Blue / Copake Auction via Invaluable.com
By 1964, the full-size Buick line was down to three trim series, the fewest it had in many years. The 1964 LeSabre added a new wrinkle to the entry-level Buick format: All but the station wagons (which would be dropped at the end of the year) now used the 300 cu. in. engines and running gear of the latest A-body intermediate Special, usually with the new two-speed Super Turbine 300 automatic.
1964 Buick LeSabre four-door hardtop in Claret / RM Sotheby’s
Aside from being shinier and plusher inside, the Wildcat used the bigger 401 cu. in. or 425 cu. in. “Nailhead” engines. A four-speed manual was optional but very rare, so most had the new Super Turbine 400 (Turbo Hydra-Matic) three-speed automatic.
1964 Buick Wildcat four-door hardtop in Arctic White / Connors Motorcar Company
As before, the Electra 225 was longer (though it was now 2.2 inches shy of 225 inches overall), with a 3-inch-longer wheelbase and more standard features.
1964 Buick Electra 225 convertible in Arctic White / Bring a Trailer
Here’s how sales shaped up for each of these series from 1959 through 1964. You’ll notice that total production for the full-size cars still wasn’t great — it never topped 300,000 units in this period — but the addition of the smaller Special/Skylark and the stylish Riviera personal luxury coupe lifted total Buick sales back above 500,000 cars.
Buick Full-Size Production by Trim Series, 1959–1964
With its footing restored, Buick began to rebuild its former strength in the full-size mid-price market. Starting in 1965, it expanded its offerings by splitting each full-size series into standard and Custom versions. (They’d begun this process with the Wildcat in 1964, but the ’64 Wildcat Custom was an interior trim option rather than a separate model.)
1965 Buick LeSabre four-door sedan in Seafoam Green / Bring a Trailer
The main object of this expansion was to bridge the price gaps between the existing series while giving Buick salespeople additional opportunities for upselling. For instance, a LeSabre shopper who couldn’t or wouldn’t stretch to a Wildcat might still be willing to pay the extra $74 for the LeSabre Custom.
1965 Buick LeSabre four-door sedan / Bring a Trailer
1965 Buick LeSabre Custom four-door sedan with somewhat worn upholstery / ClassicCars.com
For 1965, the Wildcat line was briefly divided into three sub-series: standard, Deluxe, and Custom. The standard series seems to have been aimed at LeSabre buyers who wanted the bigger engines, but weren’t willing to pay for fancier trim, with the Deluxe version offering both the big engine and better trim, and the Custom adding an upgraded interior.
1965 Buick Wildcat Deluxe two-door hardtop in Arctic White with GS option / Midwest Car Exchange
1965 Buick Wildcat Custom two-door hardtop in Flame Red / Bring a Trailer
The Deluxe and Custom interiors were both available with a front bench or bucket seats, but aside from the door trim, they didn’t look terribly different:
1965 Buick Wildcat Deluxe two-door hardtop / Midwest Car Exchange
1965 Buick Wildcat Custom / Bring a Trailer
This seems to have confused everyone, including Buick (which didn’t differentiate Deluxe and Custom production, even though each version had its own VIN code), so the Wildcat Deluxe was dropped after this year, leaving the standard Wildcat and Wildcat Custom.
1965 Buick Wildcat Deluxe two-door hardtop with bucket seats and center consolette with arm rest / Midwest Car Exchange
1965 Buick Wildcat Custom with bucket seats and full center console / Bring a Trailer
Otherwise, this mix seemed to work well for Buick, whose full-size sales were back over the 300,000 mark by 1966 and kept improving from there, topping 420,000 units for 1969. Buyers increasingly preferred the fancier Custom series, but the standard versions sold well enough to be worth keeping alive for more price-sensitive customers.
1968 Buick LeSabre Custom two-door hardtop in Burnished Saddle / Mecum Auctions
Here’s the base price spread for 1968 Buick full-size two-door hardtops:
- LeSabre: $3,223
- LeSabre Custom: $3,311
- Wildcat: $3,521
- Wildcat Custom: $3,742
- Electra 225: $4,221
- Electra 225 Custom: $4,396
1968 Buick Wildcat Custom four-door hardtop in Ivory Gold / Mecum Auctions
Given the higher prices of the senior models, it may be surprising that the Electra 225 consistently outsold the Wildcat. However, the Electra also had more standard equipment, including automatic transmission, power brakes, and power steering. Few full-size Buicks lacked those features, but they were extra-cost options on the LeSabre and Wildcat. Thus, a standard Electra 225 was really only about $150 more than a comparably equipped Wildcat Custom, and was bigger and more posh.
1968 Buick Electra 225 four-door hardtop in Maroon with non-stock Dayton wire wheels / Barn Finds
At the same time, the cheaper LeSabre Custom was a better value than the Wildcat for a buyer who just wanted a big car with the cachet of the Buick name. The smaller Buick 340 and 350 cu. in. V-8s provided adequate performance, especially with the optional Turbo Hydra-Matic, and returned better gas mileage than the big 430.
1969 Buick Wildcat Custom two-door hardtop in Champagne Mist / Mecum Auctions
The Wildcat suffered another blow for 1970, when Buick added a Custom 455 sub-series to the LeSabre Custom series and dropped the standard Wildcat, which was now redundant. For the redesigned 1971 line, Buick replaced the Wildcat Custom with the Centurion, which was more or less the same thing at a higher price. It wasn’t very successful either, and it was dropped after 1973.
1970 Buick Wildcat Custom convertible in Glacier White / GAA Classic Cars
Starting in 1970, there was also a new full-size Buick Estate Wagon based on the B-body LeSabre/Wildcat body shell, but it wasn’t identified as either a LeSabre or a Wildcat.
Buick Full-Size Production by Trim Series, 1965–1970
Here’s the overall sales picture for the whole decade:
Buick Full-Size Production by Trim Series, 1959–1970
And in tabular form:
| LeSabre | LeSabre Custom | Estate Wagon | Invicta/Wildcat | Wildcat Custom | Electra | Electra 225 | Electra 225 Custom | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | 164,904 | 52,851 | 44,185 | 22,308 | ||||
| 1960 | 152,082 | 45,411 | 35,698 | 19,616 | ||||
| 1961 | 113,250 | 28,733 | 27,046 | 20,877 | ||||
| 1962 | 127,198 | 56,017 | 62,468 | |||||
| 1963 | 171,183 | 39,220 | 59,025 | |||||
| 1964 | 135,163 | 84,245 | 68,792 | |||||
| 1965 | 71,958 | 71,038 | 23,714 | 39,901 | 31,603 | 55,207 | ||
| 1966 | 70,729 | 76,670 | 41,934 | 26,650 | 27,366 | 60,811 | ||
| 1967 | 67,444 | 75,240 | 42,950 | 25,118 | 30,123 | 70,181 | ||
| 1968 | 62,413 | 109,335 | 41,082 | 28,907 | 38,804 | 76,568 | ||
| 1969 | 70,100 | 127,766 | 39,347 | 28,106 | 43,632 | 114,986 | ||
| 1970 | 64,384 | 136,238 | 28,306 | 23,645 | 38,931 | 111,270 | ||
| TOTAL | 1,270,808 | 596,287 | 28,306 | 495,504 | 172,327 | 106,929 | 463,545 | 489,023 |
In all, the LeSabre and LeSabre Custom accounted for more than half (51.5 percent) of full-size Buick sales in the ’60s, selling almost 1.9 million units between 1959 and 1970. The biggest flop was the short-lived, short-deck Electra. Its predecessor, the Buick Super, had been very successful a decade earlier, but the demands of the market had changed.
However, Buick had managed to rebuild remarkably well. Its total sales for the 1970 model year were 666,501, better than all but one of its best years in the ’50s.
1970 Buick Electra 225 Custom four-door hardtop in Desert Gold / GAA Classic Cars
Related Reading
If Two Fins Are Good, Three Must Be Better Yet: How The 1959 Buick Might Well Have Looked (by Paul N)
Car Show Classics: 1960 Buicks – If This Is A Slump, What Is A Streak? (by Aaron65)
Car Show Classic: 1961 Buick Electra – How Would You Like Your Four Door Hardtop, Sir? With Four Windows Or With Six? (by J P Cavanaugh)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1962 Buick Wildcat Sport Coupe – A B-Body Buick Joins The Bucket Brigade (by me)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1964 Buick Wildcat with 425 V8, Dual Quad Carbs and 4-Speed Manual – More Carbs and Gears Are Not Necessarily Better (by Paul N)
Vintage Car Life Road Test: 1965 Buick LeSabre 400 – Small Block Big Body Buick (by Paul N)
Curbside Classic: 1968 Buick Electra 225 – The Great Society (by Perry Shoar)
Car Show Classics: 1970s Buicks in Flint — Not The Button On Fortune’s Cap Nor The Soles Of Her Shoes (by Aaron65)
Hello Aaron,
It is always interesting to read your posts. Thank you for your meticulous work
By the way: Iis there any information about whether the Wildcat model name was intended to refer directly to Jaguar?
“Wildcat” was a name Buick had used for three ’50s Motorama show cars. They were fiberglass-bodied two-seaters, so the name may have been a sort of oblique nod at the Jaguar XK120, but they were mostly Harley Earl flights of fancy. The first two of them survive; you can see pictures here: https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/buick-wildcats/
I believe that an Invicta was the real “French Connection” car
Looking at the 1965 door panels, you had to go all the way up to a Wildcat Custom to get the lever type door handle like the much cheaper Impala had that year.
Not much to contribute, except the fact that I LOVE those 59 (and 60) Buicks.
Beautiful.
What do ya suppose in the difference between “Carlsbad”, and “”Sable”, black?
H’mm. ((feel this is one of those times my dad would have said “$40.00”.))
Aaron, always a great read and very comprehensive. I wasn’t aware how much of a bread and butter car the LeSabre was during this period. As I restore my 67 coupe, I learn more at every turn with you. Am I correct in assuming that ” Custom” denotes “LeSabre 400” ? Looking at the 67 full line brochure, the Special takes the front row with only limited space promoting full size cars. What are your thoughts on that?
Nope, the Custom sub-series were distinguished by fancier interior trim, which on a 1967 LeSabre meant Bracalla cloth and/or Madrid-grain vinyl upholstery. The LeSabre 400, known in the catalog as the LeSabre “400” High Performance Group, was a separate option, consisting of the ST-400 (Turbo Hydra-Matic) transmission and the four-barrel engine. You could have a LeSabre Custom with the two-barrel engine and ST-300 (or theoretically a three-speed stick, although that was VERY rare), and I don’t see anything indicating you couldn’t get the 400 option on the standard LeSabre; it was also optional on the Sportwagon.
I wouldn’t read too much into that — there were multiple brochures in each given model year, and their content and organization weren’t necessarily the same. The 1967 “stars” brochure, with a bunch of contemporary celebrities like Charlton Heston, Lloyd Bridges, and Robert Lansing, leads with the Riviera and features the full-size cars quite prominently. To the extent one can draw any conclusions about it, it seems like Buick was very keen to emphasize that the A-body cars were “real” Buicks, getting the same celebrity treatment as the bigger models.
Aaron, thank you and I will dig deeper into my brochures for the Custom features and agree that they may have been promoting the A body cars – the other lines were doing well and without a full size wagon it was the way to go. My car is an odd ball with all the 400 options but no call out on the quarters. The “stars” brochure is a hoot – many of my movie heroes represented.
Ah, when Buick was a car brand. I miss those days.
Back in 1986, my parents purchased their first ever Buick. It was a 1985 leftover (new) Park Ave. From that moment on, they were sold and so was I. In 1988 I began selling at a dealership with Buick, Cadillac, GMC and Honda. I can still recall the rows of Skylarks, Century’s, Regals, Lesabres, and Park Aves. Heck, they didn’t really want to stock them, but we even had a few Skyhawks, Riviera’s and Estates. Boy, those were the days and we sold a ton of cars. Buick had some really great sales numbers from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
And now there’s today. One kind of sedan/crossover and 3 SUV’s. None of them stand out in any way and the Encore is just ugly with it’s strange front end. The Enclave looks like a warmed over Toyota, and that’s not good. Oh, Buick sales are “up”, but they don’t talk about from where. They are up from a very down period. They have not one sedan or EV. Buick dealers seem to be uninterested in being a Buick dealer and would rather just have the GMC brand.
Oh, how I miss the good old days of Buick. Your article brought back fond memories of those days.
My father owned a 1968 Wildcat Custom 4 door sedan in tarpon mist green with black vinyl top. Because my father didn’t want to use the air conditioner (poor gas mileage), my two siblings and I would fight for the window seats in the rear. My father kept this car for 4 years before he upgraded to the Electra 225 in 1972.
Cheap as gas was in “68-72”, your dad was a bit a “thrifty”.
It’s interesting that Buick and Oldsmobile both started offering the “intermediate” engines in the Le Sabre/Jetstar in 1964, but Pontiac never seems to have offered the 326 engine in the Catalina (first year for 350 seems to be 1970). As if the “Sloan ladder” needed any more confounding factors!
My experiences with Buick were in college…
A friend whose aunt gave her a cherry condition ’58 Super 4 door wasn’t too hip on it so she sold it to me for 300 bucks. That Super body was the 6-window upscale Roadmaster type. I loved taking it out on the rural, straightaways in the western Willamette Valley in Oregon – flooring the accelerator pedal down, causing a brief pause, and then BA-ROOOOM!!
Right before my final year at OSU, at the end of summer the Buick was sold before a friend of mine took off in his TR6 heading north into Canada, then east then dropping down back into the USA in North Dakota where we got caught with a bag of pot. The Triumph was confiscated and we were stuck for a week until we, to make a long story short, were able to get the car back and continue our trip east.
Long story short, we had a great trip with many memories. Back at home, without a car to get back up north to Corvallis for my final year, I stumbled upon a 1060 Buick LeSabre 2HT for sale. It was well used up and needed a new brake master cylinder. I bought for $100, loaded it up, carefully drove it north and made it to Corvallis without issue.
Put it up for sale, and sold it for $150. Paid for my gas…
Sold to a Buick dealer in Henderson, North Carolina in 2019, I had a 20 year relationship with “Sylvia”, a Minnesota original.
StuartH, I’d like to hear the full long story of this trip. Sounds like a great read!
My Buick postwar history book states that Buick’s production capacity in the mid fifties was 400,000. The 1955 production was more than 700,000 and as you stated 1956 greatly exceeded capacity. I don’t know that 57 was bad for quality control, but both 1955 and 1956 were, with cars needing repairs when they got to the dealers.
Yeah, that’s what basically what happened: They were overstretched, and quality tanked. It started earlier than in 1957, but 1957 was where the chickens came home to roost. Their sales were obviously not impacted in 1955–56, but by the start of 1957, word had gotten around that Buicks weren’t well-built anymore. (People also didn’t love the 9157 styling, but I don’t think that was as significant.)
Steven King screwed-up. “Christine” should have been a ’59 Buick. It just looks angry and dominant all the time.
The photos of the black/red interior convertible, and the black/white two-tone coupe made me realize all over again how much I like that design.
Buicks were well above my pay grade even as a child .
I still loved them but from afar .
-Nate
An excellent article as always, Aaron. I always enjoy your in depth research and presentations and they are very educational. Thanks for the explanation and photos of the difference between the standard, Deluxe and Custom trims. They are confounding to a car spotter like me. But they apparently served a purpose.
One minor nit pick; photo #23 is mislabeled.
Could you be more specific about which photo is mislabeled? I’ll take a look, but I’m not sure how you’re counting.
The black over beige ’69 Coupe is labeled as a ’68 4 door. Actually, the label was duplicated. The proper car and label is two photos down.
Ack, you’re right! It should be fixed now. Thanks!