Any time that a carmaker goes crazy and tries something different, I’m in. We would still be riding horses right now if people didn’t try new things so I’m on board. This 1978 Buick Century Limited “Aeroback” is posted here on craigslist in McMinnville, Tennessee, one hour and twenty-four minutes southeast of my favorite auto museum on the planet: the Lane Motor Museum. The seller is asking $2,800 for this one and I can’t believe that it isn’t in our garage yet.
“A sloping back with a trunk, not a hatchback? Sure, let’s try it. Johnson, work up those drawings and get it to engineering, ASAP!” “What should we call it, boss?” “How about Aeroback?” “Is that the best that you could come up with, Peterson?” Ok, enough of that. I’m sure that there were more lunch breaks and many, many happy hours interspersed among the board meetings and design brainstorming sessions related to the sloping rear-end GMs of this era.
You already know that I love these things. Why? Because they’re different and for me, different is good, at least for my non-commuter vehicles. GM shrunk the new-for-1978 A-body by around 600 pounds and four inches and buyers could choose a very distinctive fastback style in a Century or if they were Oldsmobile fans, in a Cutlass Salon. This car is fantastic for 1978, I think, being a two-door in black over red. Well, a 4-speed manual would have been fun.
This one is equipped as expected, with a column-shifted automatic, but it also has sweet red velour seats, power windows, and power locks befitting a Buick, even an intermediate model like the Century. Buick didn’t just make the fastback, or aeroback, Century, they also made the Century that most of us think of when we think of a 1978 through 1981 fourth-generation Century. Things look tidy inside, including what are sometimes problematic headliners. This one looks pretty good with just some bubbling/separating, and it has a missing dome light cover.
The engine photo was tiny so in enlarging it to show here, it ended up overly-pixelated. It’s a Chevrolet 305 cubic-inch V8 which in 1978 would have had around 140 horsepower. The seller says that the car is in good shape overall and it would probably draw a crowd at any gas station or grocery store parking lot. Have any of you owned a fastback Buick or Olds of this era?
I don’t think these sold very well when they were new.
There was an Oldsmobile that I used to see occasionally back
in Eureka,CA that they owner bought new.
It didn’t sell well at all. 2 years later it was a regular looking sedan.
Scotty, really love the feature and the presumed design room debates (hilarious!) If only someone insisted on an exterior wood veneer package it would certainly have sold 10X more ! All joking aside, this was a new car when I was young. I believe only Olds & Buick had that variation of the common GM body. Not my style enough to own but I really enjoy seeing these at shows and go out of my way to look and chat with the owners.
Pleasantly surprised to see a V8 packed in it!
They certainly didn’t sell as well as the 4 door sedans and wagons, but were fairly common in the late 70’s and early 80’s. You just don’t see them anymore, especially in this condition. Nice find.
Freshen up the paint, put a set of Buick Road wheels on it to really make it stand out, and show up at Coffee & Chrome!! :-)
My parents ordered one of these. With the base V6. It was light green. With green vinyl, IIRC.
They hated it so much, that after owning it for only a couple of months, they ordered a Regal and dumped the Century.
It makes me think that they tried to get an ”European” look.
It’s not for everyone, it was surely a discuss subject at the dealer and around.
They were probably going for the looks of the Rover SD-1 (sold as the 3500 for a few years here); both cars looked as if someone had drawn a fastback with nothing but a ruler and it somehow came to life. Ironically, the SD-1 had a Rover adaptation of the 3.5L Buick V8 that shared much of its tooling with the original 225 cu in Buick V6, from which the 3.8 was spawned. All 3 engines were descended from Buick’s 1953 “nailhead” 300 cu in V8.
Good to see something which was out of the ordinary in its day, and rarely seen today. Dirt cheap. Park it beside the red 69 Camaro at Cars & Coffee and have some fun.
Hey Scotty – nice find! Wow that interior is Prom-Ready for sure. Add two couples in pastel dresses and matching cummerbunds and a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 and you’re all set. I almost bought one of these used back in the day, the perhaps regrettable Aeroback 442. It had a 401? or 403? but I just couldn’t stomach the body style. I hope this one finds a good home. Thanks for the write-up!
TF, that Olds 442 version is incredibly rare, you should have grabbed it. Although, spending that money on Amazon stock instead was probably a better buy…
Scotty, I wonder if you remember the 442 that was Hot Rod Magazine’s Street Machine of the Year in 1979. It was a 1978 Cutlass Coupe (slant-back) with a GMC supercharged 403 in the back seat. It was built by an Oldsmobile engineer named Bill Porterfield. He had a side company named Mid-Engineering. He did other projects like a mid mount Olds 455 and Toronado drivetrain for the Kelmark GT, a T-bucket with a rear mounted V6 Turbo Buick drivetrain. He also worked with Fred Gibbs, of the Chevrolet dealer by the same name, on restorations of a couple of the original ZL1 Camaros from 1969. He also made a kit for installation of a Toronado drivetrain in the rear of a late model Corvair. Quite an interesting man.
I find it curious that GM gave the avant-garde fastbacks to the more conservative Buick and Oldsmobile divisions rather than Chevrolet and Pontiac. Seems to me they might have found a more accepting audience in those showrooms.
No one “gave” anyone anything. These were shown early on to the Divisions. Chevrolet and Pontiac said no way, no how. Then Buick’s General Sales Manager, Jack Duffy, said “We can sell it”. Olds followed suit. The sales records show the result of that. Keep in mind, this was coming off the colonnade series of A bodies which were an amazing hit with customers. Then to go from those to this. History shows what happened.
My thoughts EXACTLY!!
These body styles should have been the Malibu and LeMans.
The Century and Cutlass should have been sedans from the beginning.
Once they came out with the notchback sedan replacements in 1980, sales took off.
I never cared for this fastback body style. Just a bit too weird for me.
We had an 81 Century Limited 4 door notchback sedan with these seats. It was such a comfortable and quiet car! We had it for many years.
So boring, it’s barely worth the time to comment.
That third blank gauge on the dash is strange. These look as though they would have been designed with a hatch back, but only a trunk?
That was for the clock. It was optional.
It was bizarre that when you didn’t get the clock, you just got this blank space there. They should have put something else there, like at least a Buick symbol so it wouldn’t look so odd.
Also strange is the optional clock on ’69 camaros. It is big & dead center(why??!!) & a distraction. If you don’t get it, you get a chunk of plastic with camaro on it. I think Chevy should have either carried over the ’68 dash for ’69, or used the ’69 firebird dash.
Those MECHANICAL clocks i would think are not very battery friendly when the car sits for a while, especially the digital 1 in the Bricklin with MECHANICAL numbers that move every minute! Combine that with the electric gullwing doors, & the battery must be screaming for mercy. lol
They were ugly then and are ugly now. A bad imitation of the slantback sevilles
That’s why none are around. I am a g.m. fan and own 6 but never liked that style.
The bustle-back Sevilles came out two years after these.
To those of us that saw them before the public, it was a real let-down.
Im only an hour away from Mcminville in lovely Chattanooga TN. This is mighty tempting. But it would mean a divorce for sure. My wife would never be able to forgive me if this were parked in the driveway.
Beautiful area! My wife just rolls her eyes since these cars are fairly cheap to buy, it’s the storage costs where the non-forgiving part comes into play for me. I have a thing for bustle-back cars, I’d love to have this Buick. Sadly, it’s gone already, bummer.
Regarding insider ACZ’s comments, I will add that this body style did not Clinic well, but for some reason Buick and Olds went ahead with them. Fortunately, this disaster only lasted two years. They could not afford another two years!
Very true.
My folks had the Cutlass version. Worst car they ever owned. Only kept it about a year and gave up once the warranty ran out. Their car had a 6 cylinder in it, was a 4 door, and was pretty loaded equipment wise, but they hated that car. They only bought it because they were offered an incredible buy on it (no one wanted them)..
You dont see many today for several reasons – they weren’t popular with the public in 2 or 4 door slant style , like all the metric chassis GMs they had cheesy frames that were very prone to rusting out in the back over the rear wheels, and many had the 231 Buick engine which was not very powerful or reliable and usually blew head gaskets which was something people weren’t willing to repair back then . At the yard I worked at in the mid 80s , these mid size GMs came in so often with either the frame rotted or a blown 231 (or both ) that we stopped buying them off people .
There was no problem with head gaskets on the 231 (3.8L) engines. Even the turbos were very solid.
There was plenty of problems with them -we had rows of these cars 78-80 and stopped selling the 231 engines as they were always coming back. . the later 1981 and up seemed to hold up a lot better better
Well, I guess they shipped “all the bad ones” to you.
ACZ is right, the V6s were total dogs and prone to overheating in the day. The 305 was the only way to go on these and the fuel mileage was surprisingly similar. Probably because in the V6 the pedal was always on the floor.
My mistake, I meant to say that bone is right.
Back in the 80’s my uncle had a two tone cutlas salon with rally wheels. At the time I thought it was so ugly . Looking back know that was a nice car
Anybody else able to instantly recall the sound that the big doors on cars like this would make as the hinges strained to hold all that weight and then additional noise when closing the door since the hinge pins would wear down and a sagging door would close hard on the striker pin in the door jamb?
Sounds like my 81 El Camino. lol. The doors might be the same dimensions. I noticed the door panels, dash except around the gauge area, and items in the engine bay look alike.
For all the negative responses, BF does well increasing clicks and unique visits. It’s like slowing down in order to see the car wreck on the side of the road. Bravo.
I like unusual and see the basis for an interesting restro mod. Keep the interior, LT whatever crate motor with manual trans, brembo discs all around, stiffen suspension, ditch the bumpers and vinyl top, meaty tires with detroit steel wheels, fresh black paint. The final touch would be a whale tail to give it a Saab 900 look.
Unfortunately I don’t have stupid money or a big enough can of turd polish.
Dream on…
Maybe better yet, drop a GNX Turbo V6 into it, just to keep things in-period and in the family.
Oh, the horror. It can’t be unseen.
Ist time i seen 1 with a viny roof – & i hope the last. lol
Any comments from 442 fans? …
http://i.pinimg.com/originals/7c/35/73/7c3573e9878880376f2029dfb6ebfc9f.jpg
My father in law bought the 260cu Cutlass version new in 1978. We were “kind” in our remarks to him about this unusual design.
In 1994 he gifted his beige beauty to my oldest daughter on her 16th birthday. She was trooper and drove it to school. But I’ll never forget her phone call a few months later telling me she was stuck at a Convenience store with the rear bumper dragging. 6’ of hardware store chain and she was back on the road and lasted another two years. Decent running cars.
Bob, you brought up a good point. As unusual looking as they were, they were nice driving vehicles. Handled well and fairly economical for the time.
I’ve read on other classic car websites that they were trying to revive the slant/fastback craze from the 4o’s. Aero was all the rage then. The century turbo slantback looked nice. Sadly olds did a 442 version of this. They are distinctive it nothing else. Those seats RULE!
There was a copper colored one for sale last year near in the same shape and price. Now that I have the money to buy one, just gonna have to be patient!
My girlfriend’s parents owned one just like this. One night it got hit from behind while sitting on the street in front of their house. It was smashed all the way to the back wheels, but they drove it for 2 years after that. By then, all the rain leaking into the car had rusted and rotted it out.
I had a GF who had one of these. I told her it reminded me of a block of cheese with a wedge cut off. Didn’t have that girlfriend much longer after that.
I’ve owned a 79 Turbo since 2007.
Hang on to it. There were very few those and they were a they were a lot of fun.
I plan on keeping it and someday passing it on to our younger of two grandsons. Even though he’s only nine, he seems interested in it.
That is one ugly car!
I have access to one with only 4600 miles, it’s been in the same place 12 years, was owned by the mother of a local buick dealership, sat in good dealership after she passed for 25 years, if I pick it up I’ll post photos.
If you do purchase it, check out my FB page devoted to the 1978-80 Buick Century and Olds Cutlass Salon. Feel free to post pictures and details about it. https://www.facebook.com/1979.80BuickCenturyTurboCoupes/