Junkyard Find: Donked-Out 1969 Buick LeSabre

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

One thing about the East Bay is that you see a lot of donks there. Last time I visited the area in which I had all my earliest formative automotive experiences, I spotted this ’69 Buick sedan sporting 22″ wire wheels in a local yard.

This car has been picked over pretty well, but nobody seemed interested in a full set of 22s. Perhaps they were just too beat-up.

Some vestiges of this car’s former luxurious glory were still visible. The vinyl-with-molded-in-stitching upholstery still had that Leather of the Future™ look, for example.

This “Sonomatic” AM radio probably cost the original purchaser the equivalent of 500 bucks in 2012 money. It was all worth it when this song came on.

The LeSabre’s standard 350-cubic-inch Buick V8 made 230 horsepower and oil-tanker-grade torque.

By 1968, the freedom-crushing nanny-staters had finally mandated shoulder belts for automobile front seats in US-market vehicles. Buick softened the blow by adding this tasteful request above the steering column.

There’s still a fair amount of useful stuff left on this car. Bumpers, taillights, instrument cluster, and so on. Let’s hope some of these parts get rescued before The Crusher eats this car.






Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

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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  • BklynPete BklynPete on Oct 25, 2012

    @Mr.Nosy: Gee, here's something new at TTAC -- homophobic and racist rants. Very charming. What's the matter, did you get kicked off the Fox News comments section?

    • Mr Nosy Mr Nosy on Oct 26, 2012

      Oh bomberpete,how sensitive thou art! Have you never seen "What's Up Doc",or "Oscar Bait Sean Penn Movie",or even "Taxi Zum Klo"? Ever hear tell of that queer demographic of a certain age that find the current hetero-normative,gay bourgeoisie being just a bit too conformist? The mid-century, Mamie Eisenhower generation? What about VH1's "Behind The Music,MC Hammer"?(If I was in his posse,he probably wouldn't have gone broke,well,at least not as quickly.).BTW, I was riffing,not ranting,Blanche. Vaginal Davis warned me about your type,before she moved to Berlin.

  • BklynPete BklynPete on Oct 26, 2012

    Yes, I saw "What's Up Doc?," "Milk" and the MC Hammer story on "VHI Behind the Music." "Bullit" too, of course. Liked them all. Oh so sorry that I didn't get it...you're just a poor misunderstood wannabee who needs attention by using the slang of people you don't know that well who probably want little to do with you. Again, My bad. Tell me how to get in touch with mommy and daddy. I'll make sure to them to up your November allowance this month because your widdle feelings wuz hurt.

  • Redapple2 Love the wheels
  • Redapple2 Good luck to them. They used to make great cars. 510. 240Z, Sentra SE-R. Maxima. Frontier.
  • Joe65688619 Under Ghosn they went through the same short-term bottom-line thinking that GM did in the 80s/90s, and they have not recovered say, to their heyday in the 50s and 60s in terms of market share and innovation. Poor design decisions (a CVT in their front-wheel drive "4-Door Sports Car", model overlap in a poorly performing segment (they never needed the Altima AND the Maxima...what they needed was one vehicle with different drivetrain, including hybrid, to compete with the Accord/Camry, and decontenting their vehicles: My 2012 QX56 (I know, not a Nissan, but the same holds for the Armada) had power rear windows in the cargo area that could vent, a glass hatch on the back door that could be opened separate from the whole liftgate (in such a tall vehicle, kinda essential if you have it in a garage and want to load the trunk without having to open the garage door to make room for the lift gate), a nice driver's side folding armrest, and a few other quality-of-life details absent from my 2018 QX80. In a competitive market this attention to detai is can be the differentiator that sell cars. Now they are caught in the middle of the market, competing more with Hyundai and Kia and selling discounted vehicles near the same price points, but losing money on them. They invested also invested a lot in niche platforms. The Leaf was one of the first full EVs, but never really evolved. They misjudged the market - luxury EVs are selling, small budget models not so much. Variable compression engines offering little in terms of real-world power or tech, let a lot of complexity that is leading to higher failure rates. Aside from the Z and GT-R (low volume models), not much forced induction (whether your a fan or not, look at what Honda did with the CR-V and Acura RDX - same chassis, slap a turbo on it, make it nicer inside, and now you can sell it as a semi-premium brand with higher markup). That said, I do believe they retain the technical and engineering capability to do far better. About time management realized they need to make smarter investments and understand their markets better.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Off-road fluff on vehicles that should not be off road needs to die.
  • Kwik_Shift_Pro4X Saw this posted on social media; “Just bought a 2023 Tundra with the 14" screen. Let my son borrow it for the afternoon, he connected his phone to listen to his iTunes.The next day my insurance company raised my rates and added my son to my policy. The email said that a private company showed that my son drove the vehicle. He already had his own vehicle that he was insuring.My insurance company demanded he give all his insurance info and some private info for proof. He declined for privacy reasons and my insurance cancelled my policy.These new vehicles with their tech are on condition that we give up our privacy to enter their world. It's not worth it people.”
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