Car Disgust: 1973-77 Buick Century
I usually extol the virtues of mid-late 1970s American iron, no doubt to the dismay of many, so this post may seem--okay, it is--something of an aberration. Oh, I still love me some Broughams, Gremlins, Cordobas, and other assorted oddities, but reality occasionally intervenes and one must see some of these cars for what they were: unholy creatures arisen from the lowest circles of Gehenna and put on four wheels to torment an otherwise God-fearing automotive public. And I owned one.
Let me be blunt: I hated this car. Hated it, with the blazing
white heat of a thousand suns all going supernova at the same time. Every time--and there were many--I had to pop the distributor cap
to clean the contacts on the rotor, I half expected to see the number
"666" stamped into it somewhere. Even Christine, Stephen King's killer '58 Plymouth, would turn tail at the very
sight of it. It didn't actually try to kill me; oh
no, it was far too clever for that. Instead, it had the longer term
project of making me want to kill myself out of
sheer frustration. Thankfully, it didn't succeed (frankly, I would have taken a gun to it way before turning it on myself, although finding silver bullets blessed by a man of God might have been a bit tricky), and I have since moved on to ... well, okay nothing much bigger or better, but at least nothing since has sent me running for an old priest and a young priest every time I wanted to go for a drive.
To be fair, the automobile in question--specifically, a 1975 Buick Century four-door--was not a spawn of the devil. . .it was the devil. Incarnate in all his hideous Ranch-Green-exterior-and-paisley--paisley!--interior. No mere mortal could possibly have come up with a combination of styling (or lack thereof), complete absence of anything even remotely resembling performance, and abysmal reliability. And so, I break tradition and spew a little venom onto an example of automotive design (or lack thereof) from the 1970s.
But first, a little background. My parents acquired it new in 1975; by 1985 I was graduating from college and my parents were set to get rid of the old Buick. They gave it to me to take out to Washington and graduate school. We'd also had a 1975 Hornet that I drove around college a lot and absolutely adored; I would have rather had that one, but they thought the Hornet wouldn't make it out to Washington. So, they dumped the Buick on me gave me the venerable Buick instead. Mom, Dad, I forgive you (but just barely).
The Century nameplate actually had fairly auspicious roots. Back in 1936, so the story goes, Buick was designing its first cars that could reach speeds of 100 mph and someone came up with the phrase "doing the century." The name stuck. The 1936 Century took over from the Series 60 model, roughly in the middle of Buick's lineup. This first generation lasted until 1942, and then was resurrected in 1954 as one of Buick's more performance-oriented models. After morphing into the Invicta in 1959, the badge went away again until 1973 when the Century name took over for the Skylark. The new version was part of GMs A-body line that included the Grand Prix, Le Mans, and Cutlass Supreme--generally, some of my favorite models from that era.
In fairness, some of these cars weren't too shabby either in performance or looks. The Gran Sport (GS) performance option was available which, for the time, provided at least reasonable get-up-and-go. It had the venerable 350 V-8 in either 150- or 175-horsepower versions (detuned from their former glories, obviously), and the 455 was optional and cranked out a respectable 250 horsepower. So, at least in certain two-door configurations, it wasn't a bad car. We can quibble about the looks, but I still think that, in large part, at least the coupes were pretty attractive cars.
I'll also give a small shout-out here to some of the improvements that came into being at about this time. Our family had always had big Detroit sedans, the latest being a 1968 Buick Wildcat, and the Century was the first new car we ever bought. In a lot of ways, it was much higher quality in terms of creature comforts. It was much quieter, the seats far more comfortable (especially on those long summer road trips), and overall a more pleasant space to occupy than any other car we'd ever had. It was definitely smaller--a few years later I went for a ride in my uncle's '72 LTD and it felt like being in an aircraft hangar--but we didn't notice the decreased space all that much; everything was in reach and it felt like a better fit for actual humans than its much larger forebears.
Okay, enough of that. Let's get back to trashing it, starting with the engine: What a putrid stinking waste of a couple hundred pounds of metal, plastic, and rubber. By 1975 the 455 had been shunted to the wagon versions only, and GM decided to stick a 231 V-6 into the Century sedans. The 231 also had rather auspicious beginnings as the "Fireball" V-6, first introduced in the 1962 Buick Special. This engine itself wasn't too bad; it was derived from Buick's 215 aluminum V-8 and went through several iterations with GM before the tooling was sold to Kaiser-Jeep and eventually on to AMC. To meet mileage requirements by the mid-1970s, GM went searching for smaller engines, bought the tooling back from AMC and started producing the 231 again for use in various models. Big mistake.
First of all, it only put out a measly 110 horsepower--four more than my wife's '97 Civic!--which wouldn't be too bad except that it was sitting in nearly two tons of family car. You didn't check your watch to get a 0-60 time, you checked your calendar. Story: I was heading back west from Idaho to Seattle on the flat, straight interstate of eastern Washington and the car would not go above about 57 mph. Was there a problem with the engine? A mysterious loss of power? Bad vacuum seals? No, there was a stiff headwind. Forget about going uphill with the accelerator pedal off of the floor.
Second, it was horribly unreliable. I think from the day we bought it, it had a nasty habit of just stalling out for no good reason. It drove my mother nuts, and caused some rather severe marital strife at one point. This problem--never diagnosed--continued into my tenure with the damn thing, and it just got worse. By the late 1980s it would nearly always stall out about 20 minutes after starting up, flood itself, and then would just sit there and not start until it dried out, which sometimes took more than an hour. During that time/temperature window when it wanted to stall, I got very used to popping it quickly into neutral at every stop and revving the engine. And yes, once or twice I didn't catch it and it died at a busy intersection. Thanks, GM! I never did figure out what caused it to stall like that; I think it was the EGR valve but don't quote me on that (unless I'm right, of course).
On the plus side, however, it once died when I went to visit my roomie at his Christmas tree lot and, not having anything else to do for an hour or so, I sold some trees and made a tidy little sum.
This was also the year that catalytic converters and unleaded gas came onto the scene, so we got used to the smell of sulfur the first couple of years. And it rusted a lot, but hey, what didn't?
Oh yes, the styling. I guess the overall color wasn't too bad. It was a light green that they called Ranch Green, no real trim or anything--the photo at right is the same body style, different color/trim. The upholstery was a fairly hideous dark green paisley. It had basic cloth bench seats, standard fare for a family car, but the paisley drew its share of attention (and you know the sort of attention I mean).
Admittedly, it wasn't all bad. During our epic road trip from Wisconsin to Washington via San Jose, my friend and I each drove our respective old cars (he had a '66 Impala). It was a five-day extravaganza, and the old Buick (it was 10 years old at the time) did pretty well, not breaking down once. This was in part due to my parents' having a good mechanic and maintaining the car well. The Impala had its share of problems, which necessitated an unintended overnight stay in Des Moines, Iowa, the first day out so a transmission fluid pipe could be replaced. The old green beast didn't even come close to overheating even when crossing the Salt Flats in mid-June.
One piece of advice though: if you ever find yourself bombing down the side of a mountain coasting in neutral to save gas, make sure you pop it back into Drive rather than Reverse. *shudder*
I finally got rid of the dumb thing in 1990 when I purchased my short-lived and equally unlucky and engine-challenged Bronco II, which kinda cut short the celebration at having gotten rid of that miserable Buick. I still have fond memories of "my" 1975 Hornet, but I have little room in my heart for the Century. I did have quite a few adventures in that thing, but the car was more an uninvited hanger-on than a trusted companion, and one that I'd prefer to forget rather than savor as an integral part of largely happy memories of youth.
Credits: The Sport GS came from Wikipedia and the dark green 4-door is from DotPhoto.com.
[Edited to correct a couple dates]
--Anthony Cagle
That Car Guy on February 09, 2010 at 01:34 PM
Nice post, Anthony. Your bud's Chevy might be a 1965 model:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HvkrYIIwo
The Impala is at 3:57 in the video. How did they do those cool special effects?
Sigivald on February 09, 2010 at 02:04 PM
First of all, it only put out a measly 110 horsepower--four more than my wife's '97 Civic!--which wouldn't be too bad except that it was sitting in nearly two tons of family car.
So, uh, it whomps the ass of my 3500 pound, 77 hp Mercedes.
And yet my car's a blast to drive. Whatever's wrong with that Buick, it isn't the horsepower. Was that V6 especially low torque?
Anthony Cagle on February 09, 2010 at 02:41 PM
I have to say, I've been meaning to write that screed for a long time, but now actually having done it, I, uh, might be softening a bit on it. I actually poked around to see if there were any '75 coupes for sale. . .drop a crate engine in one and that would be bitchin'.
(I have to make a couple of changes to that post, I corresponded with the Impala owner about it; it's a '66 and we went in June, not July)
Sigivald, I'm guessing by the time I got it, it no doubt had lost even some of that 110. I dunno though. . . .it had a bit of oomph when dropping from 3rd to 2nd, but that seemed about it. Maybe they put it there for passing.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on February 09, 2010 at 05:26 PM
My compliments on a screed well done.
Yankee on February 09, 2010 at 06:00 PM
The Impala in that pic is a '66 (gotta love those Powerglide trannys).
My first car was also a hand-me-down from my parents, a '70 Dodge Dart with the trusty slant-6. When I got it in '85 it had almost 200K on it. Anyone with any experience with the slant-6 knows they couldn't get out of their own way... but you couldn't kill 'em, no matter how hard you tried (and believe me, I did).
I ended up junking the car a year later after I got it, mostly because the floorboards rusted so badly, especially the driver's side (my friends nicknamed my car the "flintstone mobile")... but the motor still ran. And believe it or not I still miss it to this day.
CJinSD on February 09, 2010 at 06:44 PM
I had a '71 Plymouth Scamp with the 225 slant-6, and it most certainly would get out of its own way. It was about as fast as my friend's 1978 Impala which had a 350, for whatever that is worth. Mine had a bit less than 100K miles though. As a matter of fact, it was about as quick as any of the beater cars my friends and I had in the mid '80s. I was toasted once by a 1971 Camaro 350/4, and didn't even try to mess with all the new 5.0 Mustangs in the parking lot, but Plymouth Gran Fury police cars with 318s were no problem.
My drivers' ed range car was a 1976 Pontiac LeMans retired patrol car. It had a 400/4 and a bunch of badges on the dash proclaiming the sort of options Elwood Blues would list for his brother. It was good for doing burnouts in reverse on the part of the range where the perpetually furious instructor couldn't see me from his tower. I'd hear him yelling over our one-way radios because of the noise and smoke, but he never figured out who was doing it. You'd think the fact that the other range cars were new Buicks from the J-Car, X-car, and A-car families would have been a clue.
Chris Mallow on February 09, 2010 at 06:45 PM
Agreed...a fine screed indeed! :-D
Anthony Cagle on February 09, 2010 at 07:46 PM
So I've had an AMC Hornet, a POS mid-'70s Buick, a Bronco II, and a Mustang II. JAYsus, no wonder I fit in here so well. . . .
Random Walker on February 09, 2010 at 08:54 PM
Wow sounds like you are writing about my 88 Shadow Turbo. A car I drove (and pushed and screamed at) for a few years as a student. That beast could consume any amount of money in repairs. It was a bottomless whole. Time and time again I replaced /insert major component here/ only to have another piece break on the way home from the garage. My mechanic, who couldn't look at her anymore, told my countless times to sell her, but I always thought "I just dumped another $X00, it would be foolish to sell her now" and like a battered wife I was coming back for more. I am convinced that if I had replaced every single piece in her, every last screw and cable, she would develop another of her conditions half an hour later.
Random stalls? Check. Turbo crapping out at half throttle? Check? A/C pumping heat and not stopping no matter what I do to the dials until the engine stalls? Check. Driver side wiper (the whole arm) flying off in the middle of a snowstorm? Check. Electrical problems? You name it. The dashboard would die at around 60km/h and only light back up with a dead speedometer at what I am guessing was about a 100. Power windows not coming down (while the A/C is pumping heat)? Check. And to add insult to injury (or injury to insult as the case may be) the hatchback loved to land on the back of my head when I was reaching for the jack to lift her up to pull out the part of exhaust she was dragging on the road this time. Well, on the positive side when the hatchback was up, the middle stop light would light up, too bad that it was the position in which it would light up.
When a merciful geriatric, finally parked her Crown Victoria on top of my Shadow, and they pulled my body from the Shadow's mangled corpse I took one last look at her and thought "Bitch you got what you deserved, I hope they melt every atom in your body into a septic tank in a venereal disease clinic. " The paramedics thought I injured my head, why else would I smile – I felt free, that is why. This was the only US car I ever had. A week later with the money the insurance gave me I bought an 87 Mazda 323 that had about 100 000 km on the odometer – she served me well with only basic maintenance until I sold her (still running) 150 000 km later.
Sonicfrog on February 09, 2010 at 10:26 PM
Kind of reminds me of the 79 Pinto I "inherited" from my dad. I think it was some sort of long-term punixhment for something I did wrong. The plus side, you started it with a toggle switch. I would be driving my friends, who were usually drunk or stoned, and I'd flip the switch off at random... usually going up hill, and say the car ran out of gas. Of course they believed me because the gas gauge never worked quite right... and they were usually zonked out of their minds. Except for that bright spot, the car was a piece of crap! I was finally able to get rid of it when my little bro managed to total it by wrapping it around a traffic light pole. Miraculously, the Pinto didn't explode, and neither my little bro or his girl-friends were injured at all. My Dad's response? "I was wondering how we would get rid of that thing".
Steaming Pile on February 10, 2010 at 08:51 AM
'88 Mercury Topaz. With on-demand four wheel drive, no less. What a steaming pile of fail that thing was. Of course, the Merc failed at failing in the end, when the oil pump failed and trashed the engine at about 59,800 miles - just short of the 60,000 mile warranty. So what did the Lincoln-Mercury dealer do? Did they pull and replace the engine? Hell no. They pulled the engine, all right, had it sitting on a bench for two weeks while waiting for parts from Detroit, and did a full engine rebuild. Every internal part, going into newly resurfaced cylinders. You could have bought a new car with it cost to rebuild it - Ford let dealers get away with this, so that's what dealers did.
I got a bill for the sales tax, which maxed my MasterCard (again). Then I went to Korea, but not before signing a power of attorney so my wife could get rid of the accursed beast. We didn't care if it had a new engine, a new A/C, all new suspension parts (did I mention the previous owner was from Upstate New York?), and was pretty much the equivalent of a new car, what with all the work that was done. We wanted that car gone. We did get a decent price for it, which paid off my MasterCard and the car note, but we were glad to be rid of it.
Paul Dybro on February 10, 2010 at 08:53 AM
The only memory I have of the '73-'77 Buick Century is a fond one: collecting a $100 commission from the neighbor across the street after my brother and I sold it for him. We washed and vacuumed his '75 Century and put it in our parent's backyard and it sold in about a week!
tigerstrypes on February 10, 2010 at 03:09 PM
SEQUEL! SEQUEL!! There's got to be more stories and ranting (especially ranting) about the Cenury!
Just an idea. ^^
shboom on February 11, 2010 at 06:55 AM
My dad bought a used Jeep Commando in the late-70s, which seemed like a good idea in Minnesota. But it had the same Buick V6 and ran like crap the whole time. It had been smogged which made the heavy Jeep even more gutless. Out of frustration, my dad ripped off all the pumps and hoses that had been Frankensteined onto the engine, but it still ran like crap, just with a little more power. Perfectly good vehicle ruined by bad engineering.
TimGR on February 11, 2010 at 07:17 AM
You may be surprised that the 225 cid and the 231 cid V6s have a devoted following today with owners of these vintage Jeeps. Kaiser's interest in these engines was prompted by their very compact dimensions and light weight for their displacement. The 225 V6 fit beautifully in the short engine compartment of the '60s CJ-5, and provided Kaiser a modern powerplant that the line had previously lacked.
When AMC bought the Jeep line, they quickly worked to eliminate the GM engines from the line (both the Buick 350 V8 and the 225) and replace them with their engines. The front clip of the CJ and Commando was lengthened by 5" and the wheelbase lengthened by 3", and the 232/258 inline 6 and 304 V8 were offered.
Discontinuation of the GM engines in the AMC Jeep vehicles provided GM with the opportunity to buy back the 225. The bore was increased by 50 thousandths to unify the bore diameter with the Buick 350, and the displacement increased to 231 cid.
These engines are still very popular as engine transplant material, particularly in the early CJ Jeeps. They are quite nice little engines, making good power for their small displacement, though unusual since they are "odd fire" V6s, with an uneven interval between cylinder ignitions.
Br549 on February 11, 2010 at 07:24 AM
I drove a '76 Buick Century with a V6 in college. I still kind of like that car; I don't recall it not having enough power though, but for long trips back home, I'd adjust the timing (all you had to do was turn the distributor cap!) so that it would run like a scalded dog at highway speed, but it would barely idle. It got 20 m.p.g., but this is back in the late 80's when gas was cheap
My dad got the car back when I bought another car. It started making a rattling noise, which turned out to be the timing chain. Dad replaced it, in order to sell it. He said it was down to its last link before breaking and failing.
kevIN on February 11, 2010 at 07:39 AM
Kojak drove a brown 4-door '73 Century! I always assumed that car (ideally) had the 455.
Mark on February 11, 2010 at 11:40 AM
My folks bought a brand new, Bamboo yellow, '73 Century four door with the black vinyl bench seats and 350 V8. The newly-mandated 5mph bumpers were so massive and stuck out so far from the side of the car that when it was just a couple of months old a woman driving past our house clipped it without even touching the fender. The bumper was torn away from the driver's side mount and pivoted all the way around on the other one and creased the curbside fender and front door of the Buick. Bizarre.
Indeed, the ignition system was among the biggest weak points of the car and when I began driving a few years later, I became quite adept at re-gapping the points along the side of the road when they'd loosen and stall the car.
But by far the worst feature of our particular car was the mercifully rare three-on-the-tree manual transmission. You needed a very strong left leg to push that thing in and up - WAY UP - the pivot point must have been right above the drivers kneecap. The notchiness and impossibly long throw of the column-mounted shift lever made the action of a Yugo's oar feel like a 3-series. While the clutch pedal was high effort, the plates were as delicate as lace. My folks put five new clutches into it in the 66k miles they owned it and only the first was covered by the meager 12k warranty.
Still, it would beat my buddy Rich's Rabbit at the High School stoplight drags and when it finally topped out, our Buick would "do the Century."
arctic_front on February 11, 2010 at 01:34 PM
These '70's land yachts are proof-positive WHY Chrysler and GM should have been left to wither and die a very long time ago. If you build junk, and people don't want to buy it anymore, then they should have had to learn the lesson of failure. Instead, Chrysler was bailed out(and we got the K-car) and GM has been sucking the taxpayer's teat ever since, as has Chrysler right up until today.
Crap like the Mustang II, Citation, Chevette, K-car and their ilk are an enduring embarrassment to the 'Yankee Know-how' and might of American industry. Now that the Government owns them, it can only ge worse.. And I believe it will.
Jumbo on February 11, 2010 at 06:33 PM
Ah, but don't confuse the Buick Century with the sexier and much more muscular-looking and -performing LeSabre. Still it was designed and marketed as a family vehicle. My parent's LeSabre was a '72, so it was before the "improvements" of your Age of Ugly. But just barely.
It amazes me to this day what power an everyday, unmodified mainstream vehicle by Detroit could generate back then, before the government insisted on being on the design team. That particular car had the healthy, but not hot, 350 V-8 engine. Built to take the kids to school, it would run like scalded hell. As a 16-year-old I got clocked at 135mph by the State Trooper I didn't see in the long line of cars I passed on the interstate one summer night almost 40 years ago. And I could feel that engine still gaining speed when the blue light came on. Had the trooper not been a cousin I would have gotten tagged with a Reckless Driving: the mere fact of that speed was enough to convict.
Oh, what engines GM could build in those days. Big, heavy, smokey, loud and thirsty, it had not one atom of plastic, silicon or recycled anything in it. But it would run on and on and on, just like the Energizer bunny. If it ever did get the hiccups, you and your dad could fix it in an afternoon in the backyard. For less than $30. And that would get you new GM replacement parts.
Never again, huh?
Jeff on February 11, 2010 at 06:40 PM
Learned to drive in a brown 1973 2-door Century. Loved that car. Light weight, big engine. Took a lot of punishment. My brother ran it into a street light and inverted the pointy little nose. It finally died in an accident in 1981.
Anthony Cagle on February 11, 2010 at 06:42 PM
>> SEQUEL! SEQUEL!!
We did actually have one car that was by nearly any measure worse the the Century: a little blue Fiat. We bought it from my uncle (I think, it was well before I could drive) and it was the archetypal Fix-It-Again-Tony Fiat. We eventually sold it to a priest who, after my parents were quite honest about its reliability, said not to worry, he wasn't one to complain after a sale, but don't be surprised if we see it floating in the local river.
Couple months later the thing caught fire.
I never drove it, so I can't really do a useful screed on it. Sadly, I don't remember the model/year, but I've still poked around the Interwebs for years trying to find out what it was.
Anthony Cagle on February 11, 2010 at 07:44 PM
Well, a fruitful search: I believe it was a 1969+ 850 Sport Coupe.
Big Dave on February 13, 2010 at 09:35 PM
I love the original pictures, especially the old yellow and black Wisconsin license plates. One of my earliest memories are of those plates on my mom's rust brown 1977 Monte Carlo with the front passenger side hubcap missing. Awesome! That car took up the whole length of our garage.
CowboyZZ on February 14, 2010 at 11:14 AM
I am originally from Spain, now living in the USA and I am a sucker for 60/70 American cars... not sure why. I love them.