I just, is this an actual thing? someone please confirm this!! they said it was a prototype? With two separate rear axles? I’ll find the description if need be
That has been around the internet for years. Not engineered, produced or anything else by Buick. Wild claims trying to get more money.
From my post from September 8th: For sale on Facebook Marketplace in Fleetwood, PA, asking price is US$ 100,000: Seller's description 1971 Buick Electra limited prototype. Purchased brand new in 1971 and conversion made between 1971 and 1972. Originally thought to be used for towing, I recently got confirmation it was designed to keep your car straight in the snow. Financed with a grant from penndot, it is a one of one prototype. Professionally built with fully functional automatic retracting Wheels. Has a 455 big block with 80,100 MI. Family owned for 37 years. There is no fiberglass in the construction, it is all steel. Serious inquiries only please. One of one prototype. Click photos to visit the listing on Facebook
Recent article on dailyturismo dot com: Six Wheels Strange: 1971 Buick Electra What is the weirdest thing on the internet? Okay, don’t answer that question…for the love of all things, please. What I meant to ask is; What is the weirdest car for sale on the internet? Yes. That is a much safer question to ask and I’d posit that it is a 6-wheeled Buick that spews mystery fluid on the ground and the only thing higher than the asking price is the seller. Find this 1971 Buick Electra Prototype Limited offered for $100k in Fleetwood, PA via crazybook mercantileplace. From the seller: 1971 Buick electra prototype Limited $100,000 Listed 2 days ago in Fleetwood, PA About This Vehicle Driven 80,100 miles Automatic transmission Exterior color: Blue · Interior color: Blue Fuel type: Gasoline 3+ owners This vehicle is paid off Clean title This vehicle has no significant damage or problems. Seller’s Description This is a one of one prototype 1971 Buick Electra that was funded by a PENNDOT grant for $60kback in 72. It does run and drive, but it needs some work. This has been an old Buick forums and people speculated that it was a second rear axle for towing capacity, which isn’t true. The second rear axle is actually independent on each side and the factory gas tank still sits where it should. The whole purpose of this prototype was to solve the problem of rear wheel drive vehicles of the era, sliding out during the winters and showing up the roads with winter and studded tires. Although the original gas of extra weight for towing could hold some ground, there is no hitch attached. I’m attempting to help the owner sell the vehicle. The asking price is $100k which is a lot this some and reasonable to others. This is one of one prototype and a piece of American history.
More text from the seller's Facebook page: Hold on to your pants for this one, you’re gettin a lil history and if you’re interested, it IS for sale. This is a 1 of 1 prototype 1971 Buick Electra “Limited” Seen in old Buick forums rumored to be a backyard project, this Electra is actually a PENNDOT grant funded prototype. The grant was issued for $60k in 1971/72 which is roughly $433k in todays money which is insane. A Buick 455 V8/ TH400 transmission lies within the engine bay in this beast, and you may ask “why theres a… second set of rear wheels?” No its not 4WD, the second rear axel is a sort of tag axel that drops down using a fluid motor and screw drive to provide extra stability in the winter. PENNDOT had issues with roads, being torn up by winter and studded tires, seeing as how vehicles from this era were rear wheel drive and prone to having the rear end slip out, causing unnecessary wear and tear on the roads from studded tires digging into the asphalt. The second rear axle would be deployed in the ice and snow to keep the vehicle tracked straight. While the main rear axle provided power without slipping side to side. People originally thought the second rear axle was to allow for more weight for hauling/towing and while it would, that was not it’s intent. I saw this vehicle while scrolling through Facebook marketplace and decided to contact the seller so I could come and see it for myself and that’s exactly what I did today, it is a beautiful vehicle that rides wonderfully smooth, and once again is a 1 of 1 prototype that never got to see production. If you would be interested in purchasing this vehicle, you can reach out to me and I can relay the information to the owner as they do not have Instagram. I will say this now, the asking price is $100k, don’t shoot the messenger. This vehicle has been in their family for close to 40 years. It is located in Fleetwood PA USA
And in this old comment (2013) about an article on Bring a Trailer someone says that there is another one around, located in California? Ok guys, I just had enough of the BSing and I called the guy myself. I let him know I contribute to an online forum, and that there are alot of disbelievers and skeptics, but quite possibly someone interested in this car as well. Either this guy is a crazy liar, or everything about the car is as follows. BTW, he’s an older guy who was a Cadillac dealer for a number of years. I can’t imagine he would spend 20 minutes talking to me and lie through his teeth. According to Robert, he has had a devil of a time getting information as to the factory build of this, which he believes it to be and has some paperwork that seems to indicate this. He got pointed into the direction of a body shop that supposedly did the final assembly of the car. They told him that there was more than one made, and that this particular one had shown up with ALL the parts, including the skirts, wheels, etc, and the car had to be put together and detailed. He believes these were prototypes. The purpose? To tow 10.000+ trailers safely with more rear traction. The wheels originally “jacked down”, and he has the instructions on how to do that with a crank at the rear of the car. Somewhere along the line, it was modified with hydraulics and there is a tank at each rear wheel. The hydraulics are run by the power steering pump, so the car must be on to lower the wheels. The unit does still work, a switch is depressed to the left of the brake pedal. He also has all four skirts, both for the regular wheels and the supplemental ones. The wheels look larger, but they are in fact all 15″, although the rear tires may have a different profile. The rear axle is a “tag” axle in that it has no power. His car came in from California, he bought it at an auction 27 years ago and no one wanted it. He said he has shown it many, many times at very large car shows and always gets a crowd looking at it. The other pictures I linked to do in fact show it at a show. He believes they were tested in California, and knows another woman in CA who has one. He also heard that the failure was in the transmission, hauling the extra weight and tire load on the car. As with most prototypes, they are typically destroyed. He was a nice guy, we had a nice chat, and this car is real. Hope someone finds a home for something this wild and interesting.
Wow pretty cool Erik. Curious why the extra axle would have no power if the whole reason was more traction in winter. Unless they just wanted a bigger footprint. Very odd nonetheless.
I think both stories are BS, neither make any sense. To make a car track straight in the snow???? Why would PennDot care???? Did only the ‘71 Electra have issues in the snow? The other story debunks the first story as to why it was made, and vice versa. Tandem rear axles to safely tow more weight?? I think not. These people are making up stories to justify the butchering done to that Electra.
Dropping the wheels with any suspension is going to reduce traction to the drive wheels. If the point to to aid in traction and wheelspin, it fails. The amount of low RPM torque, the tires are going to spin on splippery roads, without something to aid traction. The "slip out" aid is questionable as well, other than the torque drift that "spinning" the tires might cause from accelerating on slippery roads, that extra mass increases the moment on the back of the car and would contribute to "slip-out", especially on corners at low speeds. That think would be a "Donut machine" in a parking lot! While there may have been some funding from PENNDOT, this certainly did not involve serious mechanical engineering in design to address the "slip-out", because it fails in the basics of physics on that. A "true" (Buick Division factory) prototype would have likely been a car with the back end cut up, no attention to aesthetics, proven/failed concept on a test track and then abandoned. And likely some documentation on it, because, beancounters...
Neither story makes sense, but it’s really interesting to me that the add-on axle in the picture from ‘72 has what looks like either snow tires or oversized heavy duty truck tires (yet they’re still double stripe whitewalls!). Maybe there’s a clue there? Patrick
I also wonder about that California story. The build sheet says it was delivered new to a dealer in PA: So PennDOT gave orders to built the car. But the car was tested in California. He bought the car on an auction in California and so it returned to PA? The car was delivered new in PA, it went to CA for tests..... Because that's what PennDOT does: testing a vehicle designed for snow in CA After the test it came back to PA? Or did it stay in CA and the current owner, who was miraculously living in PA, bought the car 27 years ago?
2013 Article on CurbsideClassics dot com: The Mysterious 1971 Buick “6 Wheel Factory Car”; Or Not So Mysterious At All – Posted on October 4, 2013 There’s been a bit of an internet firestorm over this car the past few days. It showed up at BringATrailer, and the initial response was “photoshop”! Then someone called the seller and got an explanation: This was “a factory job”, one of two or three made by Buick to test the concept of a hydraulically actuated tag axle in order to increase trailering capacity to 10,000 lbs. And just about everyone is buying that. Not me. There is NO WAY this abomination would have been designed and engineered at GM. You think Bill Mitchell would have let this go out the door? From the same company that engineered the superb GMC Motorhome with its air-spring twin axles? What we are looking at is the work of some entrepreneur who came up with the hare-brained idea that it would really be wonderful if a big Buick had a second axle that could be lowered for extra weight capacity. American ingenuity at its finest; straight from the pages of Popular Mechanix. And he managed to build two or three in his shop to test the market, which obviously gave him a resounding answer: This is not what America had been waiting for. I give him a wee bit of credit for at least covering it up with this, but he still went about it all wrong. IF GM had designed such a tag axle for the Buick, they would have used a little 12″ or 13″ wheel and tire, as a tag axle doesn’t need a giant 15″ wheel and tire to help support the rear end. And it would have been tucked up very discretely into the Buick’s bodywork. But there’s no doubt that Buick would never have gone down this road anyway, as their cars were able to tow quite large trailers anyway, properly equipped. And the market for something like this was zilch, especially since the trailering market was moving to Suburbans and trucks. Nice try….
To me, the most likely and logical story is oddball owner with money paid a shop to do it to add weight capacity for trailer towing (or as above an entrepreneur tried it). It was done when the car was only a year old so, in my opinion, more likely the original owner. Patrick
