STREET-SPOTTED: BUICK ROADMASTER

The last-gen Buick Roadmaster may have debuted in the 1990s, but it was still very much a product of the 1980s.

And after all, how many domestic station wagons that arrived at the start of the decade were still around by the time the decade ended?

It's not a controversial thing to say that the Roadblaster debuted at a time when suburban galleons were on their way out, elbowed out by SUVs. The segment was already down from its highs even when the Bush/Quayle stickers arrived, and when the Ford Crown Victoria landed for the 1992 model year Ford didn't even bother fielding a station wagon variant, content with the Taurus/Sable.

And Chrysler... had something far smaller and far more French on its American menu at the time.

GM had more faith in big domestic cars, and ended up offering not one but three closely related wagons based on its swoopy new Caprice. The Roadmaster ended up being the most memorable and easily the most popular, but you could also get this bodystyle with Chevy or even Olds badging.

In the case of the Olds Custom Cruiser, good luck spotting one today as only about 11,000 were made.

It's easy to forget, but this whole design was also a bit controversial back in the day. The Caprice sedan ended up doing the heavy lifting almost entirely thanks to fleet sales. But the Buick Roadmaster sedan and station wagon, along with the Cadillac Fleetwood, were the clear winners for The General when it came to actually making some money.

The aerodynamic design made the (largely police or taxi) Caprice sedans seem a bit bulbous, but the woodgrain siding did a nice job of breaking up the heavy visual profile of the Buickmaster. And with the rear-facing third row of seats, it was also roomy enough to make a case for itself against some—if certainly not all—minivans, which were a couple of sizes smaller back in the day.

Another item that highlights just how long ago these debuted is how much power these engines did not make: The 5.0-liter V8 produced 170 hp and 255 lb-ft of torque.

The "beefier" 5.7-liter unit turned that power up all the way to 180 hp, so those 0.7 liters bought you an extra 10 ponies for some extra wheelspin on mildly moist pavement. There were certainly some, uhh, diminishing returns happening here.

This is also one of those cars that demanded careful attention to its cosmetic needs. Finding a used example is easy enough these days, but finding one in very tidy condition is an order of magnitude more challenging, as the woodgrain siding and miles of other small and (incredibly bendy) trim pieces did not suffer fools easily.

A lot of the examples we see on the roads today are 10-footers, and only a tiny fraction are obsessively well maintained.

The era of these Roadblasters might be over, but nostalgia for them is only gathering momentum, as the few millennials with any money (not being spent on student loans) look around for the freeway frigates of their Nintendo-powered childhoods.

Are there still any of these Roadmaster wagons in your zip code, or have they all been picked at estate sales and put on eBay with a $15,000 starting price, regardless of condition? Let us know in the comments below.

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2024-09-17T16:14:51Z dg43tfdfdgfd