Curbside Capsule: Buick Roadmaster

[kevm14]

http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside ... and-yacht/

Fair warning, the article is disappointingly short. Though it is not without its choice quotes:

Not only could you find the same car dressed in more aero, but much less tasteful (to my eyes) clothing as the Caprice on the same lot or a super-sized Cadillac version, but you also couldn’t option up what was advertised as Buick’s biggest car as much as some buyers wanted, lest it top its smaller but more prestigious sibling, the front-drive Park Avenue. The LeSabre also crowded it from below, giving the Roadmaster a very narrow slice of the pie. It was pretty much meant as Grandpa’s last car, since he wouldn’t get in no gosh-darned front wheel drive contraption unless it were a hearse, and even then, he might contrive to fall out the back.

[kevm14]

While I like this platform, resurrecting the Roadmaster was kind of an odd move at the time. Buick’s line-up was hyper-saturated in the 1991-1996 era: TWO different midsize platforms (Century & Regal), THREE full-size cars on two completely different platforms (LeSabre/Park Avenue & Roadmaster), and of course the weird little N-body Skylark to round things out on the bottom end.

How many different flavors of grandpa-mobile are really necessary? From a non-car person perspective, I would be overwhelmed walking into a Buick dealer circa 1994 with all the random, overlapping, redundant options available… not to mention the additional overlapping options from the other GM divisions across the lot. When they simplified things in 1997 with one mid-size platform and one full-size platform – along with much improved, cleaner styling (and finally putting the Skylark out of its misery), the lineup was much better.

As for the styling, the Caprice did the “aero” thing better, and the Fleetwood did the “formal” thing better, with the Roadmaster striking a really awkward, ungainly middle ground between the two. Not really something I’d ever fantasize about owning.

He makes a good point about the redundancy of the mid 90s Buicks.

[kevm14]

Let’s not forget the oddest Roadmaster of them all, the infamous Eureka “Buillac” hearses built for Service Corporation International, the world’s largest funeral home chain. (If the sign says “Dignity Memorial”, it’s SCI) The wheels, trim, and everything behind the B-pillar were Fleetwood, (some of them even had the full Cadillac wreath and crest on the back door) while the front clip and driver’s compartment were Buick.

They were built to keep costs down (SCI does everything on the cheap, except of course for its fleet of Gulfstream jets and what it charges families at their time of need), but mainly to fool people in the procession into thinking they were following a Cadillac…..

That's pretty messed up actually. RMS grafted onto a Fleetwood from the B pillar back, in the shape of a wagon.

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[kevm14]

The wagon rear doesn't work well on a hearse, whereas the Fleetwood does.

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[kevm14]

The comments are more interesting than the article itself. Maybe that was the point...

This guy is pontificating what a whale body Olds sedan would be named.

I spent a lot of time in a ’91 Custom Cruiser wagon in high school as a good friend of mine had one. Vast blue interior that could hold quite a lot of people if you put your mind to it…that car had almost 250K miles on it by the time it was totaled in an accident.

What with the 88 and 98 nomenclature being taken, and seeing as how they had extended the Cutlass nameplate to no less than three lines by the end of the 80’s, they could have called it the Cutlass Colossal? Perhaps the 108?
Seriously, calling it the Regency probably would have made the most sense. Kind of like how the Fleetwood Brougham became simply the Brougham, you could kill or rename the Regency trim level on the 98 series and apply it as the model name to the B-body.

I lol'd at both Colossal and 108.

[kevm14]

Speaking of the only other division not to receive a B-body sedan on the 91+ platform (or a B-body of any kind in fact:

Well, remember, all the divisions still carried at least ONE version of the B-body after 1985, in wagon form. Pontiac had the Safari, Oldsmobile the Custom Cruiser and Buick had the LeSabre and Electra versions of the Estate, later just trimmed down to one Estate, all the way until 1990.

The only division that was left out when these were re-styled was Pontiac which didn’t get anything to replace the (Parisienne) Safari. Oldsmobile got a new Custom Cruiser, but only for a brief time, and Buick got a replacement for the Estate and a sedan counterpart with the Roadmaster. Yes, sales were decreasing for the Brougham, but how much of that could be attributed to no significant design changes since 1980. Remember also that Buick was the only division left out of the mini-van party when it didn’t receive a plastic bullet train van.

I imagine that these were probably scheduled to come out a bit earlier than they did, I think that GM started to seriously consider keeping the BOF RWD cars around for another round after 1985-1986, when the gas price apocalypse didn’t happen. Chevrolet started showing the new 1991 Caprice in late 1989 from what I recall.

Supposedly Oldsmobile and Pontiac also lobbied for a sedan version of the B-body for 1991 too, Pontiac wanted to call theirs the Star Chief believe it or not.

Star Chief. Interesting.