Minneapolis Street Sighting: Buick Electra 225

While true classics are getting scarcer and scarcer by the day, thanks to our rough winters. While nature does its best to destroy classic cars, a new breed of destruction is forming. It's called "donk ryders", or "tight whips", as they're sometimes called. Unfortunately this Buick is in the hands of someone who doesn't give a rat's ass about how it looked stock. As I was taking the pictures, he came outside and confronted me with regards to what "da white boy" was doing. After he calmed down, he laid out his plans. Purple candy paint, scrap the "tiny ass" stock rallyes for some 24s or 26s, and gut the stock interior in favor of TVs a plenty. Now do you see why classic cars are becoming scarce outside of the dry states?
This example was fairly clean for a Minnesota car. No gigantic rust holes, and no bondo present on any part of the vehicle. Just the way the homies like em. With this example about to go under the knife, be pimped out, then likely left to rot, let's take the time to examine why this car represents GM at its finest. When big cars were king, cars as a whole were about the details. Exquisite badging, fine chrome trim, and trim pieces specific to each model.
The Electra 225 was one of the bigger non-Cadillacs you could buy, available as a coupe, convertible, or as the sedan depicted here. With the 454 reigning as king in Chevys, and a 455 available in Pontiacs, the Buick was stuck with a "small" 401 Nailhead. Sadly, the 401 in this example will likely get chucked for a cliched 502 crate motor. What is quite ironic though, is that tranny mated to said 502 will have better gearing than the stock two-or-three speed auto that provided duty when this big boat rolled off the assembly line.
While I don't totally hate donk rides, most of them look extremely tacky, and more often than not, the owners chop up perfectly decent classics. I could understand if it was a rustbucket, or unrestorable, but please. Show some respect, and think about what these cars of days past looked like when new before you chop em up and render them useless rolling bassboxes.