In 1985, Buick recorded its best year ever in North America, racking up just over one million sales with a surprisingly diverse product line.

LeSabre Limited Collectors Edition Sedan

We need to begin this story with a great big qualifier. In global terms, 1985 was not Buick’s biggest year. The Buick name has known success in China, selling products that often bear no resemblance to those offered here in the States. And there, Buick sold more than 1.2 million cars in 2016. However, here our focus is on Buick in the United States and North America. And here, the GM division scored its best sales year ever in 1985, producing slightly more than one million cars.

In the mid-1980s, both the Buick and Oldsmobile divisions at General Motors were red hot. Oldsmobile hit the magic one-million mark three times, while Buick managed it once. From our perspective, Buick accomplished the feat with sound marketing, tasteful styling, and on-point pricing—-with a broad product line that included eight, count them, eight separate models. In retrospect, the number of distinct products is a bit astounding,  really.

Riviera Coupe

For compact buyers, Buick offered the front-drive Skyhawk, Skylark, and Somerset Regal. In the mid-size range were the front-drive Century and rear-drive Regal Coupe. The rear-drive LeSabre and front-drive Electra slotted into the full-size class, while the Riviera continued as Buick’s personal-luxury flagship. That’s a lot of cars for a single GM division, at least by current standards.

This proliferation of models could be written down to the fact that in 1985, some were on the way in while others were on their way out. This was the final year for the X-body Skylark, introduced in 1980, and the first year for the Somerset Regal, a small-ish but posh N-body coupe. Also new in ’85 was the front-drive, full-size Electra, while the traditional body-on-frame, rear-drive LeSabre was in its last season. This was also the final year for the Riviera in its ’79-’85 product cycle. It would return in ’86, but in smaller and totally different form.

Century Limited Estate Wagon

By far the biggest seller in the ’85 lineup was the mid-sized Century. With base prices in the $10,000 range, it was a nice fit for many family pocketbooks, and with nearly 263,000 deliveries, the Century accounted for more than a quarter of the division’s production. The Century Estate Wagon was also the best seller in Buick’s wagon catalog, which included the Skyhawk Custom Wagon, LeSabre Estate Wagon, and a  rear-drive holdover, the Electra Estate Wagon. These wagons each sold in the four-digit range, while the Century Wagon managed around 28,000.

The old-school, rear-drive Regal and LeSabre turned in respectable numbers, close to 125,000 each. Signaling to its traditional full-size, rear-driver buyers that the end was near, Buick offered the LeSabre Limited badged as a Special Collectors Edition. The glamorous Riviera sold around 65,000 copies, including 1,000 turbocharged T-Types and 400 Convertibles, but sales would tank the following year when a smaller, plainer Riviera was introduced.

Somerset Regal Limited Coupe

It’s interesting to note that this long, deep product lineup would remain largely in place at Buick for another decade, finally shrinking to five models in 1997. And by 2006, the U.S. Buick line consisted of just two models, LaCrosse and Lucerne. While the Buicks currently offered in China include sedans, EVs, and a luxury MPV, as of this writing the Buick product line in the USA consists of four models, all SUV crossovers assembled in Michigan, China, and South Korea. Compared to 1985, Buick is a very different automaker today.

Electra Park Avenue Sedan