Car shoppers who were looking for a big, conservative, luxurious sedan could have done a lot worse than stopping at their local Buick store in 1970, a model year when the Electra 225 Custom Sedan measured up to a righteous 225.8 inches in length, as its name implies. A big Buick is still a good buy for those who want something a little different from the usual collector car fare, and this example is for sale by the second owner on Craigslist in Sherwood, Oregon, with an asking price of $12,500.
You may be asking why there’s a “Big Sky” reference is in the title when the Electra is for sale in Oregon, and that’s a fair question. The seller says that the car spent its entire life in Montana, and we can see that it was sold at Eileraas Buick in Anaconda, Montana, a town in the southwest corner of the state that’s averaged around 10,000 residents for the past 120 years. From what I’ve seen, the Big Sky State is easy on cars’ sheetmetal, a good thing to remember when you’re Buick shopping.
One thing that’s harder to remember is how to differentiate between the “regular” Electra 225 and the somewhat posher Electra 225 Custom. Based on the upholstery, with its 60/40 “Expanded-Vinyl, Notch-Back seat,” this sedan is a Custom, which cost $216 more than a “base” Electra 225 ($4,677 vs. $4,461). Sales of the two sedans were comparable, with the Custom outselling its lower priced brother 14,109 to 12,580. The runaway leader in the Electra 225 line, however, was the Custom 4-Door Hardtop Sedan, which sold a whopping 65,114 units.
Regardless of its status as a Custom (or not-Custom), all the options that a luxury-minded buyer would need are here, including power windows, cruise control, power steering and brakes, power trunk release, and a working 8-track player. Considering that there’s an air-conditioning compressor under the hood, yet it’s not mentioned in the ad, it’s probably a safe assumption in assuming that that amenity doesn’t work.
Despite that, the interior looks almost immaculate for a car with a reported 128,000 miles on it.
Buicks were also known for their effortless torque in 1970, which may have been the peak year for the famous big-block 455. It was rated at 370 horsepower and a massive 510 lb-ft of torque, and when channeled through the robust Turbo-Hydramatic 400 transmission, it was almost the perfect powertrain for a 4,274-pound Buick. The rear gear was a tall 2.56:1 for quiet cruising and perhaps a little better fuel mileage. Perhaps.
The seller mentions that the Electra has new tires and “many spare parts in the trunk,” which is always a fun couple of hours spent when a new/old car shows up at the curb.
This Montana-by-way-of-Oregon Electra is even painted in a shade of brown that was certainly right-in-style in 1970 (it most closely matches Burnished Saddle Iridescent on the color chips). It does have a crack in the windshield, and it has been for sale for a week as I write this, so there might be room for bargaining if your collector wishes incline toward the big and luxurious.
Related Reading
1968 Buick Electra 225 Limited: “I Didn’t Know They’re Building A Car Like This Today” (by Aaron Severson)
Curbside Classic: 1969 Buick Electra 225 – Drive It Like It’s 1979 (by Jon Stephenson)
Hate to say it, but $12,500 feels a little strong for a 1970 Pillared sedan. Fix the A/C, and if the motor’s healthy, that 2.56 gear will let it cruise effortlessly across the plains at 80 MPH all day long.
Nice car; the last roar of the un-smogged GM big-blocks. If only I had a garage big enough to pull it in…
It is the right year IMO, 1970 is kinda a holdover from the 1960s big GM cars. 1971 was a pretty radical redesign that was a major step backwards in many ways. Body rigity, squeaks, rattles, cheaper interiors, they felt slapped together vs the stuff GM made in the 60s.
And I agree the price is high, especially given the broken windshield, a/c and relentless brown. The pillared sedan bodystyle is fine by me, means the windows seal better and fewer squeaks/rattles. The color combo and vinyl seats arent talking to me, if this were some non earth tone with a blue or red cloth interior that would be sweet.
Nice, yet nice like a lot of honest Grade 3 cars on the market. Although a sedan which needs a few things fixed so divide by 1.93.
I just spent about two weeks in rural Montana-adjacent Idaho. In some small towns, 25-35 year old Buicks of the FWD V6 variety seemed to be the most common sedan, second only to full-size pickups and newer crossovers.
My folks had a 1968 Buick LeSabre 2 door in that shade of brown. It’s the earliest car of theirs I can remember.
Nice example, but can’t imagine buying a car like this and specifying vinyl seats, the brocades of this era were bodacious and typically of very high quality on these type of US luxury cars.
I agree with Zarba on the price. Maybe if the A/C worked, no cracked windshield and if the second number started with a 1 instead of a 2.
Anyhow, I love these big old boats. Not sure I’d want that fake leather seating though. I recall my aunt and uncle had one of these in the 2 door version many years ago. I recall the odometer rolled over at least twice (over 200K) by the time one of the kids wrecked it and it was totaled. Same color outside, but with a black roof and interior.
I was always enamored of Electra styling, particularly in the taillights. Always the slenderest of oblongs, and often with backup lights in the tailfins, which I thought an interesting choice. They glowed red with the headlights on, and I like designers who sweat the details!
I have a Buick elective 225 1976 with 25,000 miles on it and everything on it is original
Car appears “curiously, well”. No interior shots from in the car though. H’mmm.
My cousin just recently shared with me that in 1971 my uncle special ordered a Buick Electra 225. At that time dealerships weren’t open on Sundays, but after church, he was so excited to see that Car that he took the family to the dealership and look through the windows. My cousin said it was a very favorite car. Good to see these things still around, but I think that price might be a little steep.
Inflation strikes everywhere.
It’s not that it costs more. It’s that your dollar doesn’t have any purchasing power.
When these were built, average Americans had purchase power. These cars were the “thank you’s” for saving the earth from Nazi rule. I’ve had a 1973 Olds 98, and 1973 Buick 225. Great cars. 1970 still had 60’s quality. This one should come in about 9K.
My grandparents on both sides had 1970 Electra 225 Customs; one the sedan, the other the true hardtop. Both cars were beautiful, and a pleasure to drive. And I agree, the asking price is overly aggressive.
I just wanted to add a few comments about the town of Anaconda, Montana. It was the sister city to nearby Butte, Montana (about 25 miles away) and named after the Anaconda Company which owned the copper mines in Butte. Anaconda was home to the company-owned copper smelter where the copper ore mined in Butte was melted down into ingots. The Anaconda smelter featured a huge smokestake that was, for many years, the largest smokestack in the world. At a certain point in history it was a symbol of industrial might and a point of local pride. Butte and Anaconda were both blue collar, union, “company towns” and they stood in contrast to most of the rest of the state which had more of an agriculture-based economy and character.
Butte turned to open-pit mining in 1955 and created what was, for many years, the world’s largest open-pit mine. Things started slowing down in the 1970s (declining quality of ore, competition from imports, and the costs of addressing the environmental pollution that mining and smelting created). The Anaconda Company was purchased by the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) in 1977. The Anaconda smelter shut down in 1980 and the Butte mines shut down in 1982. Most of the smelter was torn down, but they left the giant smokestack. When mining ceased, the open pit became flooded with toxic contaminated ground water. The two cities both became superfund cleanup sites.
An interesting side note is that cars in the Butte and Anaconda areas did not usually suffer from rust because they, and the counties where they were located, did not use salt on their streets and roads in the winter. Instead, they used “slag” (a leftover silica-like byproduct from the copper smelting process that was sort of like a cross between sand and glass). While not corrosive like salt, slag had its own problems.
There were huge slag piles located just outside of the smelter and the slag was used to create walls to create settling ponds that contained polluted leftover water from the smelting process. During windstorms hapless motorists had their cars’ paint jobs ruined and their windows pitted by blowing slag. At some point the Anaconda Company started watering the slag and then covering it with soil and dirt that kept it from blowing around in the wind. It also contributed to air pollution and lung damage.
Anaconda is located several miles off of Interstate 90. If you’re driving the Interstate you can see the giant smokestack off in the distance, rising, like a giant middle finger, saluting the world.
Thanks for the history! It sounds like a town that could have a streaming series made about it, something between “Erin Brockovich” and “Yellowstone.”
The car featured is a twin to my late friend’s 225. I don’t remember if his was a ’69 or a ’70. He loved that car, and to be honest, drove it very aggressively. That aggressive driving would eventually catch up with him when he went speeding through an intersection on a yellow light, and was hit by a drunk driver (at about 730am!). He was deflected into hitting a tree, was ejected and spent the next 42 years in a wheelchair. If he had been wearing his seatbelt, he would have been killed instantly as the engine wound up in the front seat. Once the doctors told him and his folks he would survive but it was almost impossible for him to ever walk again, he started looking for a replacement. That would be another 225, a slightly used one, same color with a white vinyl top. He had that car until about 1980 or so, when it got replaced with a Chevy C10 pickup. By the time that 225 went away, it had rusted to a shocking level, and he began to save up to buy the truck. After that, he had a bunch of different vehicles, including a 2000 Trans Am, several Chevy trucks, a 69 Z-28 clone that he drove with a cane! His last vehicle was a 2010 Chevy Silverado. He really began to just wear out at that point, and a couple of non-vehicle accidents he had just made it worse. He would die the same day I put my dog Molly down. About an hour after she went, his brother told me he was gone. It was a really bad week.