Here is a car that is fairly rare to see today: a 1974 Buick Regal Coupe. A lot of them didn’t make it too many decades before rust got to them or just plain use and abuse. This example is listed on eBay in Dayton, Ohio with a single bid of $3,200 and there is no reserve on this cool colonnade.
I grew up in this era and I’m not afraid to say that I like these cars and cars from this era. A lot of people write off just about every vehicle from this era as being flawed, the dreaded Malaise era. This car looks great so far, though. It actually looks flawless!
Ok, here’s what the ol’ train falls off the tracks. I’m not quite sure how it went from being a perfect-looking example to a car needing parts-a-plenty. The rear bumper shouldn’t be impossible to track down and that LR quarter plastic panel filler piece may be able to be located in a junk yard. There is some rust beginning to rear its ugly head on the bottoms of the doors and around the fender wells. Hopefully it isn’t fatal, the car sure looks good other than these few flaws.
Now that’s a red interior! The interior looks great front and rear. I don’t see any flaws at all but they mention that the passenger side window is hard to roll down but it works. Buick made 57,512 two-door Regals in 1974, down over 30,000 units from the 1973 model year. NADA is at $2,925 for an average value and $5,050 for a high retail value.
Here’s one reason for the drop in sales, this is a 350 cubic-inch V8 with a 4-barrel and around 175 hp. The fuel crisis was in full swing and a combined 12.7 mpg wasn’t anything to write home about. Today half of the population drives humongous SUVs and pickups as commuter vehicles that get around that mileage, or maybe a mile or two better, and we don’t seem to think anything about it. How times have changed. Have any of you owned a colonnade Regal?
1974 was probably the best of the mid-seventies for a few reasons. They were more refined body wise than 1973, still could have been ordered with a true dual exhaust and they didn’t have those early awkwardly placed fifth brake light.
I’ll take mine with a 455. :–)
Nice car!
I think there is more rust than the seller is letting on, $1,500, at best. It’s not quite a beater but not worth restoring, it could make a decent driver for someone that wants a budget “classic”.
Steve R
I agree with Steve, there’s a lot more rust than meets they eye, although I don’t think the seller realises it. IMHO, it’s worth a lot less than the selling price.
I have to disagree. Nearly imposssbile to find any decent car in SW Ohio for $1500, let alone a mostly rust free pre-75. Take a look at C’list for that area and see what $1500 buys.
In addition to regular road salt, whenever there is any remote chance of roads getting any precipitation which may freeze, they pre-treat the roads while they are still dry with an 80/20 salt brine/beet juice solution. You can hear it sticking up in the wheelwells. Then if the weatherman is right, you get the road salt on top of it all.
I guess I’m just jaded, you can still occasionally find cars from this era in much nicer condition at the local self service wrecking yards.
Steve R
I had one of these with a 455 and a floor shift automatic.
I didn’t know what I had at the time.
I am sure it would be a very valuable car now.
I remember Kojack drove a dark colored sedan with a 455 throughout most of the series. The other colonnade cousins seemed to get more respect.
I wonder if Telly’s was a 455? His interior would not have looked so nice. Proabably a lot of candy wrappers
All you detractors…
Buy it, park it for twenty years and see what it’s worth. Three letters… ROI.
Now there’s another bunch of useless trivia that I have to file away in my head taking up space from important stuff.
I think Mom had a ’73 4-door “Luxus,” whatever that was.
Can’t say I was ever blown away by that car, but recall it feeling slightly airborne at times. Like it was too light.
You can see the 455 script on the car in Kojak quite a bit.
Hey there Nick and Bob C. … Thank you, I just went and look up images of the Kojak car; 455 right there on the fender. Another lifelong mystery solved, and out of my head.
Here’s our 74 Buick colanade 2nd owner 49,000 original miles and paint car was found in a collectors estate sale under cover. All original even have the holy bible for it owners manual . Only thing we done was add a aftermarket stereo to it in glove box . Auto495.iomatic with 350+1 motor our 27aa Chevy in back ground
Back in 1974 I looked at one of them. Ultimately ended up buying a Malibu passing on the Regal. I don’t remember for sure, but the tail lights look wrong to me, I just don’t remember them looking like that. IIRC the seller is actually asking less than the car sold for new, something different.
was about to say the same thing, something doesn’t look right about the rear end, the seller seems to know nothing about the car … and if you remember 74 and up till about mid 80s the engines were wheezing underpowered , that sometimes stank under heavy acceleration .. I’d pass also
Rear taillights are correct for a 1974 Regal. They were unique from other Centurys.
Owned a 1974 Century Luxus colonnade coupe. Dark brown with brown vinyl top and white interior. Dad bought it in 1975 from an estate. The car rusted fast and the dark brown paint quality was bad. It was a complete rust bucket by the time I inherited her in 1984.
Also couldn’t break 100 mph with its 350 2-bbl. Nowadays CUVs drive on the highway faster than that. Stalled a lot before fully warm too. Awful fuel economy. 12 mpg sticks out.
Not a good era for cars overall I suppose.
Funny you should mention those, similar to the Chevelle. Once the warranty was off, I made a few changes. Unhooked the seatbelt connector so you could start the car without buckling the seatbelts. Recurved the distributor and got it on live vacuum. Plugged off the line for the egr but left it hooked up for yearly inspections. As noted, 74 Malibu Classic with a 350 2bbl, 3 on the tree and IIRC a 3.08 rear end. It got about 10-12mpg when I got it new. After that it got around 17-19 mpg which wasn’t too bad except my 67 Malibu got around 22 mpg. The 74 also sucked when it was cold out till it warmed up originally. Once the changes were done it definitely ran a lot better. Not enough to throw you back in the seat but a whole lot better than it had before.
Younger people today might have a hard time understanding how truly awful those early U.S. emissions control systems were, defining that era as cars built between 1972-1974. They had low horsepower, sputtered, hitched, and stalled until fully warmed up (and even then you weren’t 100% out of the woods), and got pee-poor gas mileage. Not surprised you got huge improvements removing that junk.
Things got a little better with the catalytic converters in 1975 and then way better when computers were added to the mix in the early/mid 1980s. Nowadays, we take cars for granted that fire right up in the morning and don’t stall on us when trying to merge onto a highway. That wasn’t always the case!
Add that on top of the lousy build quality and propensity of the cheap steel the Big Three sourced back then to quickly rust and you can fully understand why Japanese automakers were able to get such a foothold in our market.
I had a 73 Century regal back in the day, blue body/top/interior, was a nice comfortable car, fully loaded. Ran good, sold it for more than I paid for it years later in good shape. I still miss it!
Amazing with a rear bumper that looks like that (my 68 Skylark rusted through the same way) that this car hasn’t started rusting around the vinyl top, rear window and the lip of the trunk lid. While I see evidence of it beginning to happen I believe this is a honest buy. I would immediately change out the wheelcovers for a set of Buick Rallye wheels and drive this baby after mitigating the rust. Seller, showing his intelligence, wants everyone to please be Gentile. That could be taken the wrong way.
ohio means rust bucket
I’ve always loved the Regals, especially the ones that had that angled prow-like grille.
My last Buick was a ’77 LeSabre…and that thing was huge, but decent on gas. My dad bought a then-new ’74 LeSabre in 1974 just a couple of months after my mom died. He just couldn’t drive her car with her being gone, so he bought the Buick. I really liked it and went on a couple of trips in it with him. It got traded when he remarried, so I never knew where it went.
My wife had a 73 like this but in green with a white vinyl top, when we got married. We had so many issues with that car that it was dubbed a “limon”. The motor had caught on fire before we met and Buick put another motor in it. It also would randomly die going down the road. It would usually start back up, finally dropped the tank and changed the nylon sock on the end of the fuel pick up tube in the tank and that solved the dying issues.
ive been looking for a rear bumper for my granpas car for 25yrs. theose one piece rear fillers are one year only, finally found one after years of searching. its work fixing tho. the bumpers were a bad design, held dirt and road salt,the rest of the cars probally not that bad
That missing rear panel looks like it could fit a ’69 Chevelle tail light.