And if so when?
I’m pretty sure Buick (and maybe Olds) used to make sone muscle cars, so youts probably bought them in the 70’s.
BTW I drove my Grandfathers Buick LaSabre (it was a late 90’s model I believe) it had to be one of the most comfortable cars I ever drove. The front seat was like a big comfy couch.
My first car was a 70’s era olds delta 88. My sister called it a pimp car. Most of my friends made fun of it, but whenever we all needed to pile into a car and go somewhere, I had the only car big enough to hold us all.
So yeah, there were some oddballs like me who bought them.
To date, the wife and I have had 5 Buicks - and I’ll be 35 this month. We got our first Buick (83 LeSabre) when I was about 23. Best car I’ve ever owned. The ‘coolest’ car I’ve ever had was an 86 Buick Regal. I always wanted a Grand National, but never got around to it.
My first car when I was 24 was a Buick LeSabre.
Have a beach party with the 1967 Buick Opel Kadett, General Motors’ lowest-priced car.
55 Olds Super 88 4dr HDTP http://www.leoemm.com/images13/olds55.jpg
72 Buick Riviera 2dr HDTP http://spc.gta.com.ua/screens_f/Buick_Riviera_Boattail.JPG
56 Buick Century Conv. http://www.musclecars-and-classics.com/images/56_Buick_8.jpg
69 Olds 442 2dr HDTP http://greatlakeshobby.com/images/31746_C__69_Olds_442.jpg
Papa Doug recalls that during his days as a car nut in the early-to-mid-1950s in a small Iowa town, no one but a banker or a doctor drove anything but a Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth – new or used. Even kids’ ancient jalopies were all from the low-priced three, dating as they were from the 30s, when almost nobody had the dough for a higher priced car.
My dad owned Oldsmobiles while he was a young adult, but that was in the 1940s nd 1950s. Oldsmobiles were starting to broaden their appeal just before the division disappeared, but it was too late. I had a friend in his late 20s who owned an Aurora, and I really didn’t see many old people behind the steering wheels of an Alero. In the 1980s and early 1990s, though, Oldsmobile did seem like a car for the fiftysomething set.
Buicks were known as being just a step below Cadillacs on the GM brand prestige scale. I’ve heard Buicks described as “orthodontist cars,” for some reason. Most seniors I know love Buicks, probably because it was considered a car that was just beyond the reach by the middle class of the day, much like BMW or Mercedes today.
They did have muscle cars in the 1960s, but how popular were they compared to other brands? When the Grand National was around in the 1980s, who was buying the Regals and Park Avenues that were also rolling off the assembly lines? There might have been younger people buying Buicks in the 1960s and 1970s, but now almost everybody I see behind driving one is not just old, but elderly.
I bought my first Oldsmobile when I was 31 years old. I have only owned Oldsmobiles, while my husband has held the title to other ‘cooler’ cars we’ve owned.
My current car - a 1995 Oldsmobile Delta 88 which I bought new, which now has 152,000 miles on it, which is the best car in the whole wide world. Oops - that’s an opinion, sorry.
Oldsmobile had a decent market of young people in the late '60’s, '70’s and into the 80’s with the Cutlass and Cutlass Supreme. The 442, which was the Cutlass muscle car designed to compete with the Pontiac GTO, had a good young following.
A lot of the old people buying Buicks may be doing so because they’ve bought Buicks for the last few decades. Meaning that they were once younger, or at least middle-aged, people owning Buicks. Brand loyalty. My parents are a good example. My father “stepped up” to Buick from Chevy when I was in college, and is now a senior citizen who wouldn’t dream of buying anything else. I think you’ll find that during the 60’s and 70’s, Buick was the GM “family sedan” for the family that could afford a more than a Chevy (skipping over Pontiac and Olds in the old GM “ladder”). “orthodontist car” might be a good description. If they were intent on buying a sedan rather than a minivan or an SUV today, such a person would probably be mulling over whether they could spring for a Volvo.
The orthodontist joke probably came from the “toothy” grilles Buicks had in the early '50s.
In the 1930s and 40s, Buicks were known as “doctors’ cars”, supposedly because they were reliable for the house calls doctors made in those days. They were more expensive than the cheap 3, so maybe doctors could afford them.
Despite the Cutlasses, 4-4-2s, Grand Nationals and the “Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile” campaign, the average age of Olds and Buick buyers was well over 50. Buick is now aiming at soccer moms and Tiger Woods fans, and unless they can lower their average buyer age, Buick will follow the Oldsmobile marque into the dustbin.
My dad bought a '54 Buick new, that would have made him 29 (if he bought it in '54, not sure if the '54s came out in '53, or it might have been dealer stock into '55 for all I know). His last 2 new cars have also been Buicks, FWIW.
I drove a '66 Buick Special SW for a few years in my 30s, dang good car.
Bought my wife a 92 Buick Century a couple years ago. She loves it. I’m not as enamored, but it’s a stout car, even at 135K miles. Nothing fancy, greyish blue, 4-door. Just plain “car”. I’d buy her one again in a minute.
And I agree, it is like sitting on a couch when your in the drivers seat.
I bought an Oldsmobile Intrigue at the ripe old age of 28. Maybe even 27. I love that car.
–Cliffy
The driver’s seat in my Olds 88 is more comfortable than any chair I own. My problem lower back says “thank you” every time we go for a ride.
My first car was a 1985 Buick Skylark, purchased off a used car lot in 1991. Not sure if I qualify as a valid answer to the OP as my parents actually bought it…can’t remember what my other choices were, but since it was the leading option, they must have been real crap cars.
It was a hunk of blandness. It wasn’t cool, but I was 16 and I had a car so I didn’t complain too much. I didn’t have money to do anything “cool” with it, but back in the early ‘90s no one thought it was “cool” to put a racing spoiler on a Honda Civic sedan yet. So it got me from place to place pretty well until the fabled winter o’ '96 started to kill it slowly. It was sold to a junkyard that spring. I’m pretty sure that by now 99% of all Skylarks of that era have met that fate.
It is still pretty funny to for me to see Johnny Carson lift a Skylark (an 87, but pretty much the exact shade of light blue I had) over his head in the Krusty Gets Kancelled Simpsons episode.
I’m sure enough young people bought Buick T-Types, Grand Nationals, and GNXs.
Certainly some ‘young’ people have purchased Buicks and Olds’ but I do not believe they have ever been among the most popular choices for young people.
Personally, I’ve always had an affinity for comfortable cars.
When I was 18, I bought a 1987 Buick Riviera. A year later, I was driving on the interstate driving back to my college after a weekend trip home when my mother called and said there was a puddle of transmission fluid in her driveway. After exiting the interstate, the car would barely drive since the gears were stripped. Too bad. I liked that car.
I saved my $$ for a couple months and bought a 1988 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and it still runs fine 4+ years later. The gas mileage isn’t so wonderful but, fortunately, I do not drive often these days…sometimes only once a week.
My best friend in high school drove a 1987 Olds Cutlass Supreme Brougham. He didn’t buy it though since it was handed down from his grandmother. For me, his Cutlass was the most comfortable of any car I have had the pleasure to ride.
<Sigh> I wish I could find an economy car with such comfy seats…