Junkyard Find: 1976 Buick Electra Limited Park Avenue
There’s the Buick Electra, the Buick Park Avenue, and the Buick Limited. Only during the depths of the Malaise Era, however, could you buy a Buick with all three names.
The ’76 was the last of the huge Electras, with the four-door hardtop Limited weighing in at a mighty 4,709 pounds. This was before Buick spun off the Park Avenue as a separate model and used the designation for the Electra’s top trim level.
This was also before The General started playing funny mix-and-match games with V8 engines, putting Olds engines in Pontiacs and I don’t know what all. In ’76 you still got a genuine Buick 455 in your Electra, with 345 pound-feet of torque compensating for its 205 horsepower.
Not a lot of Buick class remains in this much-thrashed, Crusher-bound veteran.
Those rain-soaked velour seats still look ready to swallow a half-dozen of so beefy passengers. Not many will miss the luxury cars of the Malaise Era, but let’s hope a few survive for future generations to contemplate.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Rejoice, Malaise Lovers, for I am helping to keep hope alive with my '76 LeSabre Custom - hardtop, padded roof, and 455cid = massive winning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1976_Buick_LeSabre_Custom.JPG That's my $400 beauty enjoying its autumn years in the Florida climate, just like its original owner probably did, letting its very Seventies Musket Brown enjoy the sun. And given that my job involves selling fine pre-owned automobiles, I've driven lots of recent and vintage iron, but nothing has the pure ride quality of a large fullsized GM sedan from the 70s.
Please let me know what junkyard has this vehicle if possible