72 BUICK CENTURION CODE

That’s poor but I guess there’s no stopping that. It disappoints me that cars are literally picked apart by people who have never laid eyes on the actual cars. What that nets out is not a lot to fund the restoration that is needed, so the buyer may need to be more interested in the rarity of their newly acquired prize as opposed to its resale value when the dust settles. Add to this the rare engine and subtract the overall condition of the car. Hagerty comments that $20,000 is what a nice ’72 Centurion ragtop should go for. We see little of the interior, but the front seat looks to have a slit working on the driver’s side bottom. Everything the seller says about the car’s heritage should be backed up by the factory build sheet which is also provided. We believe the gas tank has been replaced, but they’re so hard to come by that the seller says he kept the original and will pass it along to the buyer. Under the hood resides the original 455 High-Performance V8, which is said to run, but only off an external bottle, for the time being. 1 of 48 with the 3:42 Positraction rear differential.1 of 232 Centurion convertibles built with the HP 455 V-8 engine.We’re given a long list of how many similar cars were built with this or that, so we’ll drill down here to a few:

The buyer will receive a mint NOS passenger side rear quarter panel, which suggests that sheet metal needs replacing. We’re told that just 33 of these cars were selected in this color. The original buyer paid extra to have the car painted Sunburst Yellow, a color from the Skylark playbook. As the photos will attest, rust is a problem, but the hood and trunk lid seems to have caught the worst of it. We don’t when the seller acquired the vehicle, but it seems to be in fine company with some other ‘70s GM iron in the garage. The last time the car was registered for highway use was 1990. The original buyer sold the car after two years and apparently missed it so much that he bought it back two years after that. The seller’s Buick has only had two previous owners. Kudos to Concept Carz for the production data. The convertible was the rarest of the body styles, with less than 2,400 coming off the assembly line. After an abbreviated 1971 production year due to an extended labor strike, Buick would do some catching up in 1972 by building nearly 680,000 cars, of which some 36,000 or just five percent were Centurions. Unlike the Buick’s traditional tri-shield, the car’s emblem was a side profile of a centurion soldier. The car’s name was inspired by an earlier concept car and borrowed from the term used to refer to an officer in the Roman army. Like the Wildcat before it, the car was intended to be the sportiest iteration of the three full-size series. The Centurion was slotted between the LaSabre and Electra during its short stint on the Buick payroll. Thanks, Ikey Heyman, for digging out this one for us! The Buick can be found in Fall River, Rhode Island, and here on craigslist for $10,500. It’s said to run, but the sheet metal is rather rusty, and it needs a restoration.

The seller’s Centurion is said to be one of those ragtops and benefits from the research the seller has done to substantiate when, where, and how this automobile was built.

72 BUICK CENTURION CODE

There were just 2,396 Centurion convertibles built that year, and we understand that only 10% of those or 232 came with the “W” Code GS 455 engine. The Buick Centurion was a short-lived replacement for the Wildcat and was only built for three years, 1971-73.

72 buick centurion