1990 Buick Estate Wagon: Regular Car Reviews 

LOL an accurate description. so true

Mercy main btw

God bless America

My mom owns a 93 Buick wagon and will agree it feels like I'm riding on a couch with wheels

A driftable living room.

Payam yazdi ironic considering wagons have no character to begin with

wagons > minivans > crossovers

Payam yazdi and minivans have more character than crossovers

Minivans for soccer moms station wagons for football dads

The astrovan wants to have a word with you

I thought teenagers wanted these because of all the room to make out.

@@jessicah3450 I want it ... Then again I like huge boat station wagons with small v8s because I don't care about gas milage

If this was 1982, it would be a different story.

I cant believe someone else feels the same way I do

Nobody with a sliver of self respect would want to be caught dead in a minivan.

*feels

Aww sorry to hear that man!

I hear you roywhite5

Damn I’m crying now

My condolences 🌹

The basic platform was introduced in 1977 and mildly updated in 1980...and pretty much stayed the same until they introduced the 1991 Roadmaster....so not much change and you're right....it does scream 1970s.

The dash reminds me of my '73 Riviera...

GM built this car with little if any changes from 1977-1991. It was probably very profitable for them by the late 80s as all the R&D and tool and die had been paid off by then, so the last 3 or 4 years of building them every penny GM got from every sale was pure profit minus the labor time for the assembly workers.

It is a 70's design.

why change it, i think the design is beautiful

Actually, there were slight changes to them in 1980... at least for the coupes and sedans.

@@DTD110865 You're right, G.M. put the design out for 1977 and it ended in 1990. 1977 - 79 G.M. B Body Wagons are more distinct from each other than the 1980 - 1990 models.

Really?!? If you think that's "bad".....Ford went to sleep in 1978 and woke up in 2011---- TWENTY Fuckin' ELEVEN!!!! (Look up "Panther Platform")...

@@101Volts The 1977 era General Motors "B" platform ended in 1996 not 1990.

@@jamesslick4790 To give the Panther platform *some* credit, its final years of production were for fleet sales, not domestic purchases.

Assuming it doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who doesn’t care about the thing. And it’s not much cheaper to have a trans put into one of these if you can’t do it yourself.

@@DrewLSsix it's pretty cheap to replace those old GM 4 speeds. They're like 700 dollars to have rebuilt and they're not hard to pull

Brennnan Bauer now your in the realm of DIY. Paying a shop to remove rebuild and reinstall a 700R4 still runs several grand depending on your location and what standards you want to stick to. On the other end of the spectrum I rebuilt a 700 for my trans am out of a contractors bucket using a kit I bought for $75 form a parts store.

@@DrewLSsix people over exaggerate how difficult it really is. Tedious, yes. But if you have the patience it's not like you need a 10 year doctorates to do

@@DrewLSsix It's actually within the realm of "shade tree" mechanics to swap trannies in these, I did it to a 1977 Electra Limited (essentially, the same car, but a sedan.) in the parking lot of an apartment complex. It CAN be done,LOL!

Tossing frenchfries out of the back window at drivers behind, especially convertibles....

Sonder!

I got to experience that rear seat in a car my parents borrowed, I always though it was such a novelty... Until I got motion sick.

As a kid sitting in that rear facing seat man that was fun, I use to love taking drives to the lake.

shafta99 yeah but at least you were too far away to get a quick slap for goofing around...which was good in the short term, but long term, dads blood pressure would simply increase till he yelled THATS IT and the car would jerk to the side of the road and brakes slammed on and you suddenly knew 'oh crap...'

Thank you sir

I'd drive it.

being a kid with a sibling in the rear-facing seats was a blast on road trips... tossing gummy bears or whatever out the rear panel windows that tilted open like those in the back of a pickup truck in the 90's. I think i grew up in the more rounded version of this that was maybe like, a 1996 model, but was effectively the same interior for passengers.

👍 yep, way more handsome than overstyled plastics that pass as a car these days.

It is THE most hideous heap of crap on four wheels. The designer only had a ruler for a start. No curves.

That engineering is brilliant

All the full size GM wagons of that era were the same body, they just had different grills and slightly different body trim.

My dad had the same car with a diesel in it

On a CRT TV.

A Sony Trinitron. The one with the wooden trim. The really old one.

@@spirosmousouris3908 Trinitron had some crisp image quality

Chevy Chase!

Chevy Chase without any given context sounds like a forgotten Chevrolet pony car cleverly named Chase. "Wooow dude, check this car. Its a 1978 Chevy Chase? Oh man, it has the stripes on the hood, the alloy rims and everything"

I think what your experiencing is called diarrhea.

The American diarreah dream.

O'DOYLE RULEZ!!

You should buy one

Yep, my mom's momobile was a 1977 Dodge Aspen with the straight 6. All my dad did was change the fluids in it until 2008 when it finally died with an insane amount of miles on it, I hated that car as a kid, but long for the simplicity of it now!

might wanna look into why crumple zones exist

@@pikaporeon I know why they exist . They could make them so when the car is hit you could cut the bad off & weld on new instead of junking the whole car .

Let's be honest, if you're driving one of these, you're probably not getting laid.

@@DoubleADwarf or getting laid a ton because you have the confidence of a god.

@@DoubleADwarf I dunno. I managed to get laid in the back of my 96 Taurus Wagon. Now she's my wife and the wagon is long gone.

Double A - You sound like a Novice... no offense. But any Ladykiller knows that confidence is the key... I promise you if I drove this vehicle it wouldn't stop me any. If you love the vehicle and it makes you happy, your feelings are infectious and the lady will dig it. Your statement could only ever hope to be true if you were speaking to someone who openly only went for extremely stuck up 10's - which I can tell you now are 100 percent not worth your time anyways.

Same man...

Mine's an 80-87 country squire. Deep clean the whole car and swap the parts for better ones. Install a sound system and led lights on the interior roof and you've got yourself the ultimate chill-mobile

I personally think of the 60s ford country squire. They are awesome cars

I think of a 96 roadmaster woody

My favorite wagon is the 71 Ford LTD Country Squire. The 4 door sedan is also good (particularly the Galaxie 500) but the LTD Country Squire has to be my favorite body style of them. 77-90 Estate Wagon is still a pretty neat car, and would probably be my first choice for an 80s car.

She talks Buick talk Buick I can see she talks Buick walk Buick Walk

They're better than minivans, even the frameless, I've slapped 1/4 ton overload springs on more than one

My buddy has the only minivan that I want a Toyota previa with a supercharger (no it doesn't run) but if I had the choice between the two I'd take the station wagon in a heartbeat

Mod one with a GM 6.5 TD from 1996 - 1999, and you got yourself a fuel efficient thrift boat. You'll be getting anywhere from 24 to 40 MPG in it, and that's not an exaggeration; the 6.5 is stupidly fuel efficient. I was getting 20 MPG with one in my 3 ton 99 Suburban.

As Jeremy Clarkson would say, "a minivan is the kind of car you get when you've done your biological duty and now you are waiting to die".

The Country Squire's (and all its panther brethren) had the 302 which made 155 HP till 86 and then 170 HP from 86. They were torque monsters, unlike the Chevy and Oldsmobile 5 liters.

Same

Mine convinced me to buy a dodge magnum, still not sure about that one

Here,Here!

@@Superbouncybubble I always wanted a magnum but they didn't make those with a stick so I decided against it

I really want an Edsel station wagon

I remember Yardbirds!

@@smilinscandinavian Make Yardbirds Great Again!

^

If only Lexus made an LS wagon. The American lux wagon concept with Japanese execution would be perfect. Too bad they’re all about small SUVs now.

Subaru do four wheel drive station wagons that are fast enough to win rallys. Farmers in Europe buy them so the wife can deliver lunch up to the top field, and you can still cruise to the city at autobahn speeds.

@@TheJacobshapiro And all of them have that hideous hourglass-shaped front end.

How is this more practical than a minivan? Besides being able to fit half-sheets of plywood?

Esa826 I would rather have neither.

I dunno man, it was either the B-body Caprice with that tasty LT1 towing package, or a turbo Caravan. Both are very appealing choices.

and now minivans have been replaced with cross-over SUVs

I think I'd rather have a big, hulking beast of a station wagon than some micro mommy-mobile from Japan

The sad thing is that crossovers are worse than minivans.

Nothing quite like a toilet bond.

I'm pooping right... NOW....NOW..........N..N...NO......NOWWW and .....NOW.

I like that years on, talk of the irrevocable Poop Bond is still occurring. You are all my brothers. You... are my Fecal Family

"Dad, this is not the car you ordered." "Take it easy, Rusty. [to salesman] Ed, this is not the car I ordered."

It’s a damn fine automobile, beats the hell out of the sports wagon in my opinion.

" *Davenport!* Get Mr. Griswold's car back out here!" [wheels out flattened Vista Cruiser]

I thought you were going to get the little sports thing?

My 87 Mercury Colony Park has a splitter on the antenna wiring so that I can connect a CB radio to it so that I don’t have to drive with the ridiculously long wobbly one on the center of the roof.

Yet the only companies making wagons these days are German. Thank goodness for Audi and BMW, or wagons would be gone. And they are really nice, too. I suppose there are really rare Cadillacs, too.

Not in Europe. Everyone makes wagons still. Ford, Vauxhall, Volvo, the list goes on and on

@@mattcrooke8321 Even Kia have an estate version of the Optima. The new 2019 GT Estate is apparently a really nice "hot wagon" to throw around.

@@rrpostalagain There were also 204 1975 and 1976 Cadillac Coupe DeVilles that were turned into utes by Traditional Coachworks, they were called the Cadillac Mirage.

ROAD WARRIOR in the past there were many great American wagons.

Amen. Especially since Mr. Regular doesn't know that much about cars and more often than not gets things very wrong. And he cannot drive very well. Plus, he's too lazy to do proper research. He is a literature major, after all.

@@HanSolo__ he might know a bunch about the car industry, but not about cars. Especially european cars.

ya this one is one high quality regular car review

He definitely described my pops with the "heavy beer drinking but thinks weed is a gateway drug"😂😂😂 he had a Buick electra 88 back in the day when I was a kid

That's because there is no Tech in that era

I drive a 2014 Corolla and I will say that it’s faster than you might expect.

84impalaguy Getting the computer to mesh is a nightmare, no?

Nah, you would just use the computer from the new engine. Only trouble would be mounting it and running the harnesses.

So a 5.3L motor in a 5000lb shipping container nets 28mpg? Doubt it. Either way, 28 mpg is not fuel efficient, no matter what Scott Pruitt says.

Yeah but WHY?

My bronco gets 18 if your lucky, 28 is godlike

My minivan has been up mountains, into wilderness, and north of the 60th parallel. Whatever you say about “giving up on life and fun”... lol.

Either that or you love being a kid, like me with my 1990 Mercury which looks a lot like this Buick. Big difference is mine doesn't have the seatbelts on the _doors_ that could eject you if the door opens in a wreck.

Austin Lucas I've honestly always wanted one of the old Ford wagons because my grandfather had one and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

The German euroboxes have always kept the fire alight even with family duties. Once the kids are dropped off and the before the groceries need purchasing, that's when you can have your special time. Even the Fords and GM offerings of Australia have kept the wagon interesting for the family man. Even the JDM offerings have allowed the working family man to keep the blood pumping with the Stagea or Galant VR4. Only the poor neutered chastised US consumer has been missing out on the joys of the Swiss army knife tool of a hot wagon.

I own a sedan WRX (2004) but I would have loved to get the wagon version

You sure it wasn't "KNEE BRACE POOP PARTAAAAAAY"?! Or "knee brace poop I'm sorry"...

If you squint every Subaru outback wagon is a wagon

GM just put out a Regal wagon tho.

Don't worry, there are plenty of station wagons in the road. Rust makes sure of that!

Come to Europe

Regal TourX, Jetta allroad wagon, and Subaru Outback ;) people need to buy these three wagons. to entice car companies to make them again...

what's a double hinged tailgate good for when it's in the way no matter which way you open it? .. I mean it looks cool..

Or power tailgate window

My grandfather had one that was modified to come clear off, so he could haul fridges and large kitchen appliances. For whatever reason...

I thought Ford had the patent on that

or 4' of uninterrupted width

I had a 740 turbo and man that thing would fly with its 2.3L 164 HP engine. Id still have it if it wasnt for the fact the wiring to the fuel pump decided to die

Station Wagon Enthusiasts who *aren't* Ironic exist, although their numbers are few. I'm one of them.

@@mannequinfukr The wiring in Volvos is a goddamn nightmare. It's why I got rid of my 240.

@@TheRealColBosch i remember once looking at the wiring under the dash (speedometer went out and would sometimes work) and decided to not touch the panel again after putting it back on

I don't know... Maybe this will be 100% cool in a couple years.

Yolo Submarine Depends on the stationcar (wagon). If it’s an Audi RS6 Avant, or Merc E63 AMG Touring, it’s cool by default. But this?! It’s a 1970s car built in the 1990s.

I think the irony factor comes into play when considering that no person under 30 would have wanted to be caught dead in one, until maybe five years ago.

Of course it's ironic. Check the leagues of hipster douchebags buying them up and slapping stickers all over the ass of 'em.

I've always wanted a good wagon, just not a malaise era example. Picked up a 67 Galaxie wagon a couple years ago, am 30 now. I'm genuinely happy with it, it's cool to me, and to hell with what the internet voices are trying to tell me to think : P

Where did he get Chevy??? The air filter says" OLDS"...It came with a 307 OLDS,NOT A CHEVY 305!!!

Yep. The old rocket 350.

"dropped in" implies it's been replaced. The owner very well could have put an SBC in it.

Aperson156 Thats an Olds engine. See the oil fill right in the valley? Plus it makes sense as they share a common bell housing (B-O-P, Buick Olds Pontiac). You need an adapter to mate a Chevy to a BOP transmission.

Its an olds 350. The owner is one of my best buddies. Its stock otherwise from a cam and aftermarket exhaust manifolds.

TechPassion It's always the unsuspecting person who owns station wagons.

Tru

At the same time we never lacked space to such an extent that we were forced to really microsize the cars we drive, like Japan for example. So we never really got the tiny sports car market. The only affordable sports cars in europe were hatchbacks, which lets be honest, IF YOU DONT HAVE REAR WHEEL DRIVE I DONT WANT TO KNOW YOU, and anything else was expensive sedans like audi or mercedes. The rare cases like the AE86 and some nissans, toyotas and mitsubishis were all we could really go for. I really wish the world had more small 2 seater sports cars that did not have 700 bhp and didnt cost over a 100k. Europe fucking gave up on itself and the fiat panda layout is essentially what ruled the entire region for like half a century. America always used its most abundant resource which was SPACE to build some ridiculous, huge and blocky garbage. Japan was the only country that kept mixing things up year after year, coming out with cars that were meant to be affordable to the average consumer. The word sport in europe was almost synonymous with luxury. and In america it was synonymous with only power. Japan was the only region where the word sport was about fun. Today the trend is finally changing back and we got some small, quick and affordable cars, but they are still not as affordable as they should be. The word sport still carries a made up 20% mark up price tag for no reason other than "its a sports car so we gotta charge more". If you really think about it, sports cars should be cheaper than usual cars because youre stripping out a bunch of features and making the car smaller and lighter, less practical, and in general just worse. So why do you have to pay more for less?

And you guys got the best wagon maker in your backyard. Volvo

you have to be a family of 6 to justify a van. we did. it was a vito 109D and in hindsight, an asthmatic piece of shit. Drove it once, i understand why they got rid of it when i moved out. it really had a hard time keeping up with traffic, the gearbox was mushy at best. i had to hammer the brakes to make it slow down. probs the most ankward handbrake i've even operated too. always wanted to come loose.

Smaller wagons have lived on and continue to have a decent sized niche following the US (my daily is what you would know as the Golf Variant, but it's called the Golf SportWagen here because CamelCase is AlwaysBetterApparently). But the "full size" wagons from GM and Ford outlived their welcome for most buyers by the early '80s and yet stayed around into the '90s, and the reaction to those (Minivans) and the reaction to the reaction (truck-derived SUVs) and the reaction to the reaction to the reaction (crossovers, which are just awkwardly tall wagons) are still ongoing. The suppression of wagons in the US continues in part because the regulatory climate lets manufacturers get away with more if they call something a "truck" than a "car," hence Subaru taking the Outback from being a trim level of the Legacy wagon to being a crossover that basically fills the same niche as the Forester.

Americans love their wagons, too. They're just lifted and have more vertical height rather than length. And they're called SUVs.

I would totally get one, if u can build it it’d be like an awesome couch muscle car lol

18-20 MPG's still not so unreasonable compared to some new trucks available _now._ Granted they're not the same animal.

daredevil7442 And wages were so much lower. Minimum at the time was 3.25 I think, right around there

And they were all pretty much the same. I grew up in a 87 and 89 Caprice wagons.

Pontiac B Bodies weren't manufactured for 1982 or 1990. 1990 B Bodies have seat belts on the doors _again,_ I'm surprised RCR hasn't touched on them much when they did pop up (they also showed up in the Corsica video.) Ford and Mercury also had their versions that were mostly the same but 90-91 had air bags. Carbed Fords and Meruries were 1979-1982, TBI 1983-1985 and Port Fuel Injection 1986-1991. GM had carbureted wagons for the entire run, 1977-1990.

Austin Lucas that's an interesting bit of trivia on the Pontiac B-body

You're welcome. 1983-89 Pontiac B Bodies are thought of as just a Caprice clone. 1977-81 models look much more like Pontiac. Actually, 1977-79 models of all the G.M. B Bodies look much more distinct from each other. I fixed an error in my post. 1979-89 Fords and Mercuries had no air bags, those are 1990-91 specific.

If you think these are big, you should have seen the 71-76 Buick Estate and Olds Custom Cruiser wagons!

That's the Right reaction hahaha!!!

@@71plymouth. glad you made it bud.

hmm, crossovers are minivans with hinged back doors

Note that they're often far shorter and have less trunk space than a medium sized wagon.

Kyle Soler Crossovers aren't jacked up wagons with higher rooflines. Crossovers are jacked up wagons with higher rooflines, unnescessarily big wheels, less practicality, shorter wheelbase, and uglier, more bloated styling.

Look up the AMC Eagle. You will understand how true that statement is.

@@michaellorah9051 Yes the Eagle is technically a crossover, but it is way more wagon. Also, one thing being an exception is different than it being the status quo.

and Rusty Jones or Ziebart 😅

Fisher Body is now a hole in the ground.

Grand Master Bobby Fischer

@jdslyman Fisher Body wasn't in Detroit. It was in Lansing and I pass it's grave most weeks. It was the kind of put to death with the ending of Oldsmobile which was founded in Lansing. When Fisher Body closed it essentially killed the side of town it was on. They closed a high school because if the economic decline.

My 1986 Buick Skyhawk had “Body by Fisher”

Crown vic

been dead since 2011 so i think the parents comment is still on point. no design lasts a fully 13+ years. there is always at least a 5 year mid refresh. sometimes for the worse (im looking at you camaro)

Chevy Express van hasn't changed a bit except for engine options since 2004. Toyota Land Cruiser 200 series(the model we get in the US) has been the same since 2007, not sure when a new one is coming out Toyota Land Cruiser 70 series(never sold in the US) has been the same truck since since 1984, old school workhorse beast that replaced the 40 series Land Cruiser(the 1960's/70's convertible model) Mercedes had a real good run with the gelandewagen, that came out in the late 70's, but I think there is an all new one for sale as a 2019 or 2020 model.

Nissan Frontier? The current USDM model has been in production since 2004 with the same engines/transmissions and only a minor body update for MY2009. Honorable mention to some FCA products like the Challenger/Charger/300 and Jeep Grand Cherokee which have been going since 2011 and use underpinnings developed by Mercedes in the 1990s.

Gtr

russetwolf13 who the hell had that kind of mom?

"First legal car" That sounds like you had a very eventful youth right there.

Hamilton Dashcammer the dont sell c class wagons in America though.

IT'S A FUCKING MAZDA!!!

The new Blazer is built in GM's C1XX platform. It is not shared in any way, shape or form with anything from Mazda

It looks exactly like a CX-5 or CX-7 so, yeah, it's a Mazda. The American people wanted a compact offroader. 5 seats, good suspension and good power. We got a fucking SUV-looking MPV.

Leave the GN alone.....please.

@@thelonelywolf88 Ok we will leave GN alone, but we aren't going to forgive GM that easily.

Damn Right! Cooder! We only want to see Rick Flair and Hulk Hogan.. Not that fast pace flippy shit.. O_o lol

I myself don't drive a station wagon, but I drive a 21 year old sedan, and once I was stopped at a stop light and the car next to was playing some kind of really popular rap song, so before the light turned green I turned on southern girls on max volume and hit the accelerator when the light turned green! It took me about 10 seconds to actually move but I made the guy next to me jump and that's what counts. :)

And you wouldn't have to spend a lot to make it go like stink. Just spend a lot of time removing all the heavyweight non functional trim and crap. Holesaw all hidden inner panels. Remake bumpers, fenders and hood out of glassfiber. Hell you could double the top speed and halve the consumption.

how about if it was electric