Welcome to the wonderful world of American land yachts. The Roadmaster was the end of an era, a full-sized sedan (saloon) and wagon (estate) available with a mildly modified Corvette V8. These pictures are from Wikipedia; Al can provide more details on his own particular car.

 

Our 1995 Buick Roadmaster looks exactly like the sedan above, except a medium blue exterior and matching blue leather interior.

This line included:

Chevrolet Caprice Sedan & Wagon
Chevrolet Impala SS

Buick Roadmaster Sedan & Wagon

Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser (Wagon)

Cadillac Fleetwood Sedan


All were the last of the old tech full size GM cars in North America.

While they aren't known for their handling, they are great highway cars with lots of power and get reasonably good fuel mileage. With the LT1 5.7L V8, they also aren't bad performers as stock, and with the LT1 being such a common engine there are a lot of bolt-on performance options to get several 100hp out of the engine, and the 4L80E transmissions can handle it stock.

I picked up our Roadmaster with very low mileage from a family who's elderly father had passed away, and they weren't interested in an "old man" car I bought it at the height of the last "gas crisis" and consequently bought the car for near nothing. In fact, most of the people that had apparently called about the car wanted it only for the engine, for their boat or hot-rod. And today that is still often true.

But now that the car is 20ish years old, and you can't get cars like this anymore, they are starting to be collectible. You can now see low mileage examples approaching $15-20k sometimes. Who would have thought


Now with almost 200k miles, and since I've passed it on to my daughter, ours is definitely not a "low mileage $15-20k" car anymore It is looking rough in a lot of the standard ways any 200k mile car would. But from 20ft it actually looks pretty good, the leather looks really good too, as does much of the interior when cleaned up. Even the paint is holding up and it is original.

Mechanically we've done nothing except regular maintenance, one belt idler, and replaced the radiator. That's it.

I don't think I've ever had a car as reliable to be honest.... except maybe our Honda Pilot, but even that has required timing belt changes every 50ish thousand miles as I recall. Not the Buick.


Now when I bought it I did install HD springs, Caprice 9C1 police (or maybe Impala SS, I forget) anti roll/sway bars, Monroe Severe Duty shocks, and new suspension bushings. So it handles a bit firmer than a standard Roadmaster

It's not the same type of car as a Jaguar, but it has been a great car and I'd recommend one to anyone looking for a enormously big and comfortable "power cruiser".


Here is a photo that shows the Impala SS, Chevy wagon and Cadillac. I think the Oldsmobile is the rarest since they only made the wagon.





Below is a photo of the same make, model and color as ours.



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