1974 Buick Electra Limited Sedan Is Down On the Denver Street

Just a small notch below the Cadillac Calais in the 1974 General Motors prestige pyramid.

1974 buick electra limited down on the denver street
Murilee Martin

The Buick Division built Electras from the 1959 model year (when the Electra name shoved the old Super name aside) through 1990, and now it looks as if we'll be seeing voltage-fueled Electras in showrooms a few years from now. Until that happens, most of us will think of the very successful 1971-1976 version as the true Electra; I found one of those cars still thriving as a driver in Denver, Colorado.

1974 buick electra limited down on the denver street
Murilee Martin

I spoke to the owner, who says he paid a grand for it about 10 years back, and that it just keeps running and running.

1974 buick electra limited down on the denver street
Murilee Martin

The biggest Buicks of 1974 used the same platform as the Cadillac Calais and DeVille. The Electra came in three trim levels: Electra 225, Electra 225 Custom and Electra Limited. The wide rocker moldings indicate that we're looking at the top-of-the-line Electra Limited hardtop sedan.

1974 buick electra limited down on the denver street
Murilee Martin

This car came with a 455-cubic-inch (7.5-liter) Buick V8 as standard equipment, and it was rated at a Malaise Era-typical 210 horsepower. Torque was decent, at 335 lb-ft. I shudder to think of how much it must have cost to keep gasoline in this single-digit-mpg monster, which would have been purchased new just around the time of the OPEC embargo of late 1973.

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Note that the camera never gets a full side view of those massive 5-mph crash bumpers in this TV commercial.

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