Junkyard Find: 1996 Buick Regal Olympic Edition
Buick sold some special-edition Centuries as part of their sponsorship deal with the 1984 US Olympic athletes, and we saw one of these cars in this series last year. The later Olympic Edition Buicks are harder to find; there are still some ’88s around, but this is the first ’96 I can recall seeing anywhere. Let us admire its athletic grace.
A perfectly competent front-drive Detroit sedan, but it didn’t sell to many buyers born after 1920.
The advertising for this generation of Regal talked big about “European styling” and “Camry beating.”
The subsequent generation of Olympic Regals got a bit of star power in its ads.
The textured-velour Olympic-logo headrests didn’t change much between 1984 and 1996.
The good old Buick V6, which soldiered on (in the Lucerne) until the 2009 model year. By 1996, this engine was much smoother than its ancestors.
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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GM did this with the Vectra and Astra here in OZ for the 2000 Olymipics. Not as snobbish as the American's, just a couple of badges; one on the boot and a couple on the front wings. They're still relatively common
The shifter and surround are terrible, and from a Cavalier.