Thank you to Matt Z
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day – 1969 Buick Electra
– Posted on November 23, 2019
Thank you to Matt Z
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Different generation, I know, but I like Olds 98 styling as recently featured, so much more than the Buick’s. But this one is certainly clean.
I always loved the unique Buick styling….The ubiquitous sweapspear and full width tailights…
The sweepspear thing looks like such an afterthought on this car. On the ’71-76 generation it was much better intergrated.
A much-abused version of this was featured in Sir Mix-A-Lot’s 1989 music video for “My Hooptie”.
You beat me to it. I seem to remember Joseph posting a reference to this car and video a little while back. I think it was Joseph. Hopefully I credited the correct CC Contributor….
I remember posting a comment about this picture, too. I did a google search and it didn’t come up as an article, so it must have been under another article.
Amazingly body condition for a WI car being driven through the winter.
This Buick isn’t being regularly winter driven. If, for whatever reason the driver chose to take it out of storage, a dry day like this would be the least damaging. Though there is lots of salt on the ground, and likely blowing around.
Judging by the interior contents, my guess is that a young person bought this vehicle and is/was probably daily driving it. If it was a seasonal driver, there would be no reason why they wouldn’t have the blue collector plates on it since you only have to pay for registration once, and the plate and tags are good for as long as you own it. The only caveat is that you can’t drive the car for the month of January, which keeps people who own old daily drivers from taking advantage of collector plates.
Noticing the trailer hitch, it may have belonged to sunbirds who went South in the wintertime.
There’s one in similar condition for sale. Let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll give the info.
I knew two people who had these – both old men. Neither got good reviews from the younger men I knew who occasionally drove them. One opinion was from my friend’s dad with the R2 4 speed Avanti. His father in law’s Electra “felt like every part was heading in a different direction.” My Dad drove his father’s (the last car my grandfather would own) and described the car as having “a resisting air about it” compared with his Lincolns.
I think the Big GM cars of maybe 67-70 were in kind of a tweener period. Later versions would handle much better and earlier versions had been known as smooth and quiet riders. These were in a time when Chryslers still handled better and when Fords were smoother and quieter, so these didn’t really do anything outstandingly.
But they were nice looking cars – these C body Buicks were so much more attractive than the B body LeSabres. And is that a painted roof?
It appears to have started life with a vinyl halo roof. When they removed the vinyl and painted it, they painted the A pillars and space under the halo the same as the top color, probably out of convenience.
Some of the rocker chrome is missing, was well as the rear quarter extensions. This car was likely brought back from some pretty rough days.
Buick did offer a painted top as a factory option in that year. I remember a friend’s father bought one new with a painted roof, but I believe the painted roof was only offered on this model, not on the pillar less four door hardtop.
I prefer this model with the pillar between the doors over the four door hardtop. The C pillar is wider in this model than if this were a four door hardtop and gives the car more of a formal, limousine look.
Pardon my OCD, but I noticed the front side marker was low and reflective while most (if not all) ’69 GM cars has non-reflective side markers. Was this a mid-year change of some kind?
It’s NHTSA that changed the rules in 1969 to include both side marker lamp and retroreflector in one unit for the 1970 model year onward.
Initially, it was either side marker lamps or retroreflectors for 1968 and 1969.
The feature car and the picture I provided have the markers with two different locations and types, but are the same year – 1969. I’m just wondering why.
I think the feature car may have 1970 front fenders. With the exception of the end cap and location of the ventiports, from photos they appear to be the same pieces.
The requirement from 1/1/68 was for amber front and red rear sidemarker lights and/or reflectors. From 1/1/70, the “or” was dropped and the requirement became amber front and red rear sidemarker lights and reflectors. There has never been a requirement that the light and the reflector be in one unit.
I also noticed this one has the very rare pillar in between the windows which makes it unique among the pillarless hardtops of the Electra’s of this time period.
Occasionally I have a spotless clean car in my garage, and I take it out on a winter day and the weather is so damn cold that the snow and ice stay solid, allowing the car to stay clean. This Buick appears to be experiencing such a day.
I have a soft spot for the ’69-’70 Electra, so this Buick shines bright for me in its cold gray background.
This brings back memories of my grandfather’s last car, a 1970 Electra 225, in a peculiar green-gold metallic with black vinyl roof. At the age of five, I thought the patterned cloth interior was very classy. I still do. He’d driven Wildcats before that, having switched to Buick after Packards went away. He was a very successful businessman whose taste in cars seemed to reflect that classic view that he needed a car that conveyed success but not excess. He did get my grandmother a ’61 Cadillac, but he wouldn’t have bought one as a company car. I imagine that in today, a Lexus or Suburban would be the equivalent. I’d love to have an Electra of that era, though I don’t have the garage space.
There’s just something so sinister about this car’s design to me. I find it a bit unnerving.
If this Buick is sinister, I wonder how you feel about the Tesla Cybertruck. Or even a black Buick GN.
When I was in my mid teens in the 70s, and two (sometimes three) friends and I used to bicycle on the country roads surrounding my parents house. We could bike for miles/hours on winding forest roads, and not encounter many cars. We’d know people in the occasional house. And it always felt safe, as it was so quiet. I remember on one occasion a dark late 60s Dodge Polara sedan slowing and appearing to follow us for a short distance until we pulled off the road and watched the car pass us. It felt creepy then, and I somewhat associated Polaras of that vintage with this incident. The frowning hood peak of the styling, and the very serious and anonymous slab sided appearance of a number of late 60s sedans contributing to my cold feeling from those Dodges and other domestic full-sizers.
The Buick Grand National was old-dog cool… the Tesla Cybertruck is just hideous and rather comical. If there’s any more recent car I’d describe as “sinister”, it would be the 1990-1997 Lincoln Town Car. The car of the feds.
The trunk, and gangsters might come to mind.
This car is a classic butterface…everything is nice but her face.
1970 cured that. Same car, no butterface.
Ugh. Those crammed-together headlamps just don’t look right in the middle of that broad front end. They never have and never will, to me.
If you see faces in car front ends, then this one looks like an old tired man with giant sideburns, like Ebenezer (sp?) Scrooge. Just missing the sleeping cap.
Deuce and a quarter baby! Back when a Buick was a Buick instead of whatever it is (piglet on stilts?) that is being passed off as such today.
Nice car, looks pretty clean. I`m just not too wild about that fecal brown color though.
My octogenarian neighbor Zeke has a ’70 Electra 225 four door hardtop in the same colors he drives in summer months. His late brother-in-law had the car before. Zeke drove Buicks fifty years ago when these were new, had two LeSabres four door hardtops in succession, bought through GM Employee Discount as his career was with Rochester Products.
Funny how I wouldn’t have paid much attention to his Electra when it was new, but its a pleasure to see it on the road now.