{"id":29164,"date":"2022-08-14T12:04:05","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T16:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=29164"},"modified":"2022-08-14T12:04:05","modified_gmt":"2022-08-14T16:04:05","slug":"junkyard-gem-1988-buick-lesabre-sedan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=29164","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1988 Buick LeSabre Custom Sedan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The General’s Buick<\/a> Division began selling LeSabres for the 1959 model year, when it greeted the world with a cat-eyed face and razor-sharp tailfins<\/a>, and the LeSabre<\/a> rolled on the full-sized, rear-wheel-drive B Platform<\/a> (best-known for underpinning the Chevrolet Impala<\/a> and Caprice<\/a>) all the way through 1985<\/a>. For 1986, the LeSabre went to the front-wheel-drive H Platform<\/a>, shedding a few hundred pounds and a half-foot of wheelbase, yet gaining interior room in the process. After that, every LeSabre ever made had a V6 engine driving the front wheels, all the way to the end<\/a> in 2005. Here’s one of those early H-Body LeSabres, found in a Denver-area self-service yard<\/a> in incredibly clean condition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Some Buicks and Oldsmobiles of the mid-to-late 1980s (the ones on brand-new platforms) had six-digit odometers, which is the reason I was able to see that a discarded ’86 Olds Calais with crazy customizing touches<\/a> had better than 360,000 miles on the clock. This car just\u00a0barely<\/em> squeezed past 100,000 miles \u2026 and that’s a higher number than I expected to see after glancing at the body and interior.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Just\u00a0look<\/em> at that upholstery! There are no rips, and the only stains appear to have occurred after arrival in the junkyard ecosystem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I think we’re looking at a one-owner car that was given meticulous care and was driven only to (a nearby) church on Sundays.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Though the HRC<\/a> sticker and Autobot badge<\/a> seem out of place on an original-owner Buick that rolled out of the showroom 34 years ago. Perhaps the car was handed down from Owner #1 to a grandchild.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is the most high-zoot radio Buick would sell you in a 1988 LeSabre, complete with Dolby, auto-reverse cassette player, and scan\/seek modes on the radio. The price tag on this? 282 bucks, or about 720 inflation-shrunk frogskins today; not cheap, but necessary to do justice to the hit songs of the day<\/a>. If you wanted a factory CD player in a new LeSabre, you had to wait another year or two.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pollard Brothers Motors<\/a> is still around, on the other side of the Continental<\/a> Divide from the Denver region.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Power came from an EFI-equipped Buick 3.8-liter V6, rated at 150 horsepower. The only transmission available was a four-speed automatic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Except for some dents that almost certainly happened at the junkyard, the paint and body look gorgeous. Problem is, H-Body LeSabres don’t have an enthusiast following, and car shoppers looking for daily drivers tend to shy away from sedans this old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The MSRP on this car started at $14,405, or about $36,890 in 2022 dollars. That was far from the most expensive 1988 Buick; the Reatta<\/a> cost a cool 25 grand ($64,025 now), while the Electra T-Type cost $20,229 ($51,805 today).<\/p>\n

\"\"The build tag says it was born at Flint Assembly<\/a>. Soon it will be crushed in Englewood, Colorado.<\/p>\n\n

High quality, traditional styling, smooth ride.<\/p>\n\n

If you are what you drive, there are \u2014 admittedly \u2014 a lot of people who aren’t Buick LeSabres. So says Lieutenant Briggs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The General’s Buick Division began selling LeSabres for the 1959 model year, when it greeted the world with a cat-eyed face and razor-sharp tailfins, and the LeSabre rolled on the full-sized, rear-wheel-drive B Platform (best-known for underpinning the Chevrolet Impala and Caprice) all the way through 1985. For 1986, the LeSabre went to the front-wheel-drive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29165,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}