Talk:Buick LeSabre

Untitled
1986-1991 (sixth generation), and 1992-1999 (7th generation) LeSabre was built only at the Buick City Complex, in Flint, Michigan. This world-class building facility deserves it's due credit. What is shown in the manufacturing data is incorrect.

Also, 2000-2005 are H 'Book code' (parts books and service manuals), and also designated as such for marketing and VIN's. However, they are on the 'G-car' platform, with Aurora (2001) and Bonneville (2000), as well as the Buick Park Avenue (1997), and the Cadillac DeVille (2000). Rtuttlemichigan 14:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

00-05's are H-bodies
Here is a link to the picture of the 2000 service manual and an on-line manual showing the Lesabre is an H body. It is further denoted by the 4th letter of the VIN, as all GM cars are done.

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q111/Tyliniemi/LesabreServiceManualPic.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q111/Tyliniemi/hbody2.jpg

--Tygone2 17:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Shoulder Room Declined Substantially in 1977
Here are the usual facts for four door models (which can easily be found in sales brochures and data books):

1971-1976

Headroom f/r 38.9/38.0

Legroom f/r 42.3/38.8

Shoulder room f/r 64.3/63.5

Luggage cap. (cu. ft.) 19.7

1977-1985

Headroom f/r 39.5/38.2

Legroom f/r 42.2/38.9

Shoulder room f/r 60.6/60.5

Luggage cap. (cu. ft.) 20.8

The EPA has published annual fuel economy guides since 1978. These guides categorize cars based on "interior space" which is defined as the sum of passenger volume and trunk or cargo volume. For example a midsize car has 110 to 119 cubic feet of interior space and a full size has 120 or more. Passenger volume is computed by finding the product of headroom, legroom, and shoulder room for both front and rear, converting each to cubic feet, rounding to the nearest cubic foot and then summing them.

For example the 1977-1985 Buick LeSabre has 39.5x42.2x60.6 = 101,014.1 cubic inches of passenger room in front. Dividing this by 1728 cubic inches per cubic feet yields 58.45 cubic feet of front passenger room. It has 38.2x38.9x60.5 = 89,901.8 cubic inches of passenger room in rear. Dividing this by 1728 cubic inches per cubic feet yields 52.0 cubic feet of passenger room. Rounding to the nearest foot and adding them yields 110 cubic feet of passenger volume.

Now turn to any 1978-1985 EPA fuel economy guide and what you'll usually find is this for a 4 door Buick LeSabre:

BODY TYPE/INTERIOR SPACE PASSENGER/TRUNK OR CARGO(CU.FT.) 4DR-110/21

EPA fuel economy guides obviously did not exist in 1971-1976 but repeating this calculation for a 1971-1976 Buick LeSabre yields 115 cubic feet of passenger volume. Thus the interior space of a four door 1977-1985 Buick LeSabre is 110 + 21 = 131 cubic feet whereas the interior space of a four door 1971-1976 Buick LeSabre is 115 + 20 = 135 cubic feet. The 1971-1976 Buick LeSabre is clearly roomier than the 1977-1985.

The main reason for the difference is shoulder room and the difference between 64.3 inches of shoulder room and 60.6 inches is dramatically obvious to anyone who has seen both cars. Furthermore the only interior dimensions that increased in 1977 were front seat headroom and trunk space.

This also underscores the fact you cannot shorten a car by nearly 9 inches, make it narrower by over 3 inches, loose over 700 pounds and not lose interior room.

I know that the GM ads of the time pushed the idea that the 1977 full size cars were just as roomy despite the drastic downsizing. This usually involved mentioning (often trivial) increases in headroom or legroom from the previous year. (Interestingly, by odd coincidence, most full size GM models experienced correspondingly small decreases in headroom or legroom in the two years before the downsized models were unveiled.) However, nobody took it seriously then because anyone could see that there was a substantial decrease in room. And besides all of the interior dimensions were published in the sales brochures and data books for anyone to see.

Let's not keep promoting 33 year old sales propaganda. It is a vain hope of mine that wikipedia will someday be a source of factual historical automotive information.

Sadowski (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Problems
I might be biased, but 1958 GM models had a radical (though superficial in reality) design change. The visual line went from hard edge to frill and glitz. This was a much more significant visual change than the gradual modifications of the early fifties or even '56/'57, where "hard" really finally became dominant. The changes in the 1959 etc. models were first softenings and then modifications for a few years. However, the article doesn't directly talk about the 1958 model change. The only mention I found was the retrospective comment in the sentence about the re-introduction of the port-holes, yet at the time (at least in the avid teenager's mind), the removal of the port-holes in 1958 was a shock, and the biggest automotive stylistic news (if not automotive news over-all) of a year with a lot of (mostly superficial but still visually very powerful) stylist changes.

While we are told about the introduction of a 'fasten your seat-belt' notice in one year, the much more important introduction of ( optional and then? ) mandatory seat-belts is omitted.

"The last LeSabre rolled off the Lake Orion, Michigan assembly line on June 18, 2004 (retooling the plant to build the Pontiac G6) and the last Hamtramck, Michigan LeSabre rolled off the assembly line on July 22, 2005." This is bad English: if the last LeSabre rolled of one assembly line in 2004, thee could not be a later one rolling off a specific line in 2005.211.225.33.104 (talk) 03:11, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

And I remember a Buick spokesperson defending the removal of the portholes, saying that you can't save a sinking ship with holes in its sides.211.225.33.104 (talk) 03:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

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