Car Spotting: A wagon as big as a whale

It was the master of the road in its time

I don’t know about you but when I was a kid we always had two cars and one of them was a station wagon. One I remember was a 1967 AMC Rebel. Mom and dad loaded us all up and we went on epic trips, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, the World’s Fair in New York, and tons of other places. Station wagons are pretty much ignored now. SUVs and minivans have taken their place.

I spotted a monster of a wagon the other day, this Buick Roadmaster. Manufactured from 1991 to 1996, everything about it was big. Its wheelbase was 115.9 inches, and its total length was 220 inches making it one of the largest vehicles ever built. As a frame of reference, the new Jeep Wagoneer’s wheelbase is larger yet at 123 inches, but total length is a bit shorter at 215.

To get that massive amount of steel moving it was powered by a Chevy 5.0-liter L03 V8. and since that wasn’t enough, it was replaced a year later with a 180 hp 5.7-liter small-block L05 V8. But that still wasn’t enough and in 1994 it received a modified dual-exhaust version of the advanced Corvette-derived 5.7-liter sequential point fuel-injection LT1 V8, increasing output to 260 hp. That’s the same engine used in the Impala SS, Chevrolet police interceptors, Cadillac Fleetwood, Corvette C4, Camaro Z-28, and Firebird Trans-AM.

You gotta love the vista roof and the fake wood paneling on this behemoth. Built on GM’s B-body, the last of these rolled off the Arlington, Texas, assembly line in December of 1996.

Be sure to check out my other car spots and check out my new ones published each Friday.