"Buick History
&
Information"

"Written by and special thanks to "MARK POTTER"

and those Buick owners whose cars on on this site"

"Brought to you from sunny central California, USA"

"Follow the wind!"

1970's

In 1970, Buick was "Introducing Automobiles To Light Your Fire" with vehicles such as the GS 350, GS 455 and the mid-year GSX. In the October, 1969 issue of Motor Trend that introduced the 1970 models, the article entitled "Buick: Another Bag of Better Cars" started off with the paragraph: "Forget everything you thought you knew about Buicks. Put away those images of Electra 225s languidly cruising down the road at 30 mph on Sunday afternoon. There's a new wind blowing from Flint, Michigan, a breeze fresh with Grand Sport Stage Is and Opel GTs and the general realization that their customers in the next ten years will not be the same in age or outlook as the ones who went before. The next paragraph definitely spoke of that change of wind: "The new GS 455 Stage I is the single most interesting machine in the '70 Buick lineup, a car that has the cold-air induction, the wide tires, the wheels and the scoops that you need to survive in shimmering wastes of superland. But Buick being Buick, the GS floss treatment is conservative, perhaps too conservative. An unfortunate predicament because its engineering is very well done with things like the best bore/stroke ratio of all the new 450-plus big cube monsters loosed this year." The year 1970 was best known at Buick for the introduction of the new 455 cid V8 that replaced the previous 430 cid unit in the full-sized Wildcat and Electra 225, as well as the personal-luxury Riviera. Additionally, the 455 was also offered in Buick's lower priced fullsized car, the LeSabre, the first time since 1963 that an engine larger than 400 cid was offered in Flint's least-expensive big car. However, the 455 came only in a new LeSabre 455 subseries as the regular 'Sabre line only came with the 350 cid V8. This year, the only one in which Buick offered the 455 in high-compression (10.25 to 1) form, the 455 was rated at 370 horsepower. As the GM 14th floor finally tossed out the 400 cid limit for intermediates and smaller cars for the 1970 model year, the 455 naturally went into Buick's musclecar, the GS 455. As the previous 400 cid unit was exclusively used in the GS 400 as standard and optional in the glass-roofed Sportwagon, it was easy for Buick to discontinue the 400 in favor of the new 455 already used in bigger cars. In standard form, the GS was powered by a 350 horsepower version of the 455 that utilized a Rochester Quadra Jet four-barrel carb, dual exhausts and other hardware - a 10 horsepower increase over the 400 cid unit used in 1969. If that wasn't enough, Buick offered the Stage 1 455 which was rated at 360 horsepower. Though the (advertised) 360 horsepower paled in comparison to other heavy hitters coming out of Detroit in that era, the Stage I 455 could easily compete (and surpass) with the best of them - even a few cars with much higher horsepower ratings. In fact, an auto magazine road tested a GS 455 with the Stage I and Turbo 400 combo with street gear and declared it as "the fastest car of 1970" even in comparison to other musclecars it tested such as Chevy's Chevelle SS 454 with the LS-6 450 horsepower option, a few 440 Six-Pack and even Hemi-powered Dodges and Plymouths, some of which had at least 4.11 gearing and four-speeds. At mid-year, Buick capitalized on its new-found performance image by introducing the GSX option on the GS 455 that could be optioned with either the standard or Stage I 455 engines, and standard features included white-lettered Goodyear Polyglas GTs or Firestone Wide Ovals turning Buicks 15-inch chrome wheels, ride and handling package, spoilers, black bucket seats and a standard four-speed with Hurst shifter or optional Turbo 400 tranny. Although 1970 was a down year for the auto industry and the musclecar market in particular, due to insurance companies jacking up rates for high-powered cars through surcharges or outright refusing to insure them, Buick actually beat the odds as total production of GS 455s (including Stage Is and GSXs) ended up at 10,148 versus over 9,000 GS 350s and nearly 1,000 more than the 9,378 GS 400s built in 1969. Most other musclecars saw big sales plunges including the Pontiac GTO (40,000 in 1970 compared to 72,000 in 1969), Chevelle SS (53,000 SS 396s and SS 454s in 1970 compared to 87,000 SS 396s in 1969), and Plymouth Road Runner (88,000 in 1969 compared to 41,000 in 1970). But 455 cid V8s weren't the only big news at Buick for 1970 as the A-body received a major styling facelift that greatly smoothed out the bodylines, squared off the roofline on two-door models and eliminated the sweepspear effect of the 1968-69 models. The low-line Special Deluxe was dropped, meaning that all A-body Buicks with the exception of GSs and Sportwagons were Skylarks. Other major developments at Buick for 1970 include: --The smaller 350 cid V8s got horsepower increases from 230 to 360 for the base two-barrel version, while the four-barrel, high compression version that came standard in the GS 350 went from 280 to 315 horsepower. New for this year was a low-compression four-barrel version of the 350 rated at 285 horsepower that provided the extra performance of a four-barrel engine, but with the economy of using regular fuel. --Though the full-sized Buicks only received mild facelifts for 1970 as they had been completely restyled in 1969, their wheelbases were stretched an extra inch. B-body LeSabres and Wildcats increased from 123 to 124 inches, while C-body Electra 225s went from 126 to 127 inches. --A true full-sized station wagon was reintroduced after being absent since 1964. The new Estate Wagon used the B-body but rode on the C-body Electra 225s 127 inch wheelbase. It was powered by the same 370 horsepower 455 used in the Electra, Wildcat and Riviera. --With the reintroduction of the full-sized wagon, the stretched-wheelbase (121 inch) intermediate Sportwagon with the glass roof was discontinued. The shorter (116 inch) wheelbase Skylark wagon was continued. --All Buicks with automatic transmissions used a three-speed unit regardless of engine and series as the old two-speed Super Turbine 300 was retired at long last. The Turbo 350 was used on Skylarks and GS 350s with Chevy 250 cid sixes or 350 cid V8s, while the Turbo 400 was used in LeSabres with 350 cid V8s and all 455 cid applications. --The year 1970 was the last for the Riviera to use its second-gen bodyshell first introduced in 1966. It was also the last 'Riv to be built on an X-frame chassis. --Buick's famous finned aluminum drum brakes were used for the last time in 1970 on full-sized cars and Rivieras. For 1971, they would be replaced by standard disc brakes in those lines. Even as late as 1970, Buick's aluminum drums were still getting rave reviews as being among the best brakes to be found in an American car despite the wide availabilty of disc brakes by that time. --Also appearing for the last time in 1970 were the Wildcat series and the Electra 225 convertible. --Thin dual striped whitewall tires were factory equipped on many 1970 Buicks. This unique whitewall design also appeared on 1971 models but disappeared after that year. Speaking of tires, all 1970 Buicks rolled out of Flint on fiberglass belted tires, then-recently introduced as sort of a compromise between the older bias-ply rubbers and the more expensive radials long popular in Europe but had not yet caught on Akron. --All Buicks featured a hidden radio antenna, which was basically two wires enbedded into the windshield. This feature, introduced the previous year by the Pontiac division, eliminated the previous whip antenna mounted on the front or rear fender, but provided only so-so reception. Year 2000 LeSabre


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