After ridiculing the automotive efforts of communism earlier in the week here’s a car that proves a) we occasionally show a BBC-like impartiality here at TLCB, and b) capitalism can get it just as wrong.
It is of course a Buick Roadmaster Station Wagon, and it typifies everything about American cars that makes Europeans chuckle. Boat proportions? Check. Ladder frame chassis? Check. Wheezy V8? Check. That V8 was an utterly ridiculous 5.7 litres, and it produced… 180bhp. Our office food blender makes more power than that.
To put that figure into perspective a similar vintage BMW 540i made over 100bhp more. Even the basic 525i was more powerful.
So would we like to own a Roadmaster? You bet! Yes it’s a compete turd, but with the Elves in a box in the trunk just look at how far away they’d be from us in the front!
Oh, this Lego version is the work of Ralph Savelsberg on Flickr, making one of his regular appearances. See more at the link.
I’m was really curious about the engine you mentioned, since it seems like gross ineptitude to make a 5.7L V8 that only produces 180bhp. You’d almost have to purposely try to make an engine that inefficient.
From a rather quick internet search, it looks like the initial engine used in the 8th gen Roadmaster was a 5L V8, which produced 170bhp. Then they “upgraded” to a 5.7L V8 in the ’92-93 model years, which gave 180bhp. In 1994 they put the Corvette’s LT1 V8 in the Roadmaster, which gave it 260bhp, which isn’t AS shameful.
The most baffling thing of all? The review on the TheAutoChannel.com for the ’93 Roadmaster which concludes that it is “a powerful, luxurious, well equipped, and most of all, a quite versatile means of transportation for both people and things.” If that can be considered powerful, then the 150bhp my ’99 Accord squeezes out of 2.3L is nothing short of God’s greatest miracle..
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