I saw an extremely odd sight on the expressway earlier today. It was an older model Buick Park Avenue (early-to-mid '90s) that was longer than normal and had six doors instead of the traditional four.
It looked exactly like the regular four-door models, except for the extra length and two extra doors. It didn’t appear to be some after-factory modification, as nothing about it looked out of place or appended-to at all (of course I could be wrong here). It was a very strange sight, to say the least.
Has anyone ever seen these cars? Were they a special edition of a certain year? If I had to guess, I’d say this was a '94. It wasn’t any flashy color, just a boring grey. I know any car can be stretched out into a limo, but these have always looked quite different from what I saw today. This looked like an actual factory made car.
Are you sure it was a Park Avenue and not a Roadmaster? They were pretty similar styling-wise but the Caprice-based Roadmaster was a much bigger car. There was a period in which some builders of limos and hearses preferred the big Buicks to the somewhat lackluster frame-on RWD offerings by Cadillac at the time. I’ve seen more Roadmaster Hearses, but limos apparently do exist.
The cars like this that I’ve seen were originally owned by a funeral home; transported the immediate family members behind the hearse & in front of ‘regular’
mourners. The idea being the immediate family is too distraught to safely drive.
Back in the days before vans and mini vans, many cities had “airport limos” that were usually a station wagon and had 4 doors On each side like this one.
No, it was definitely a Park Avenue, I saw the name on the back. And it was identical to other Park Avenues, it just had six doors (and two more seats). In this link, the “stretched” section of the car in the middle is somewhat longer than the front and rear sides; this is unlike the car I saw today. All sections were equal.
No, it was not a hearse or station wagon of any sort.
Same theory, just a shorter body plug put in the middle.
They built these by cutting the entire car in half with a giant band saw. (same way you make a stretch limo) and welding in a body plug.
In your case they welded in a plug with one extra door. In the airport limo they welded in a plug with 2 doors. In the case of a stretch limo, they weld in a long plug with no doors.
I’m quite confident that it was just a stretch limo that they just added extra doors unlike typical limos. I recently saw a Checker Aerobus with 8 doors, and since I saw one in 1990 or so, I’ve always wanted to buy one.
