Montana Viewpoint: Eleciton is over, let's go for a ride

I bought my first Deuce and a Quarter in 1990 from Gail Lewis who was the clean-up man at the LP mill in Trout Creek. “Deuce and a Quarter” was the nickname for the Buick Electra 225, as in two twenty-five—the deuce and a quarter. It was 225 inches long and this 1970 four-door hardtop had the biggest stock engine made up to that time,

a massive 455 cubic inch eight-cylinder engine. It was fast, but thirsty. “It’ll pass anything but a gas station” was the word. The 25-gallon fuel tank was barely adequate for a trip to town.

I learned all of that later. I was just looking for transportation and saw the ad in the local paper. It was nearby, just three miles away. I went down the hill to see Gail. The big Buick was in a garage, a treat that I was never able to give it.

“I change the oil every 2500 miles,” Gail volunteered in his rough, deep voice, a voice that resonated with certainty. “Without fail.” He added. Does it ship dust on the county roads, I asked. There was plenty of dust that would insert itself through the cracks.

“I don’t drive it on the county roads,” he said with finality. I got the point. This was a well maintained vehicle. I assembled a group of friends for a test cruise. “All right!” said one, “A four holer” referring to Buick’s traditional symbolic ports on the hood. He asked to drive it and proceeded to put his foot in the tank. It accelerated, not so much with the snap to the neck that a fast car delivers, but more like a jet plane taking off. A heavy machine gaining speed and momentum towards lift-off. I loved it. I bought it.

All 225.79 inches of it, all 4497 pounds of it, all 455.7 cubic inches of it, all 370 horsepower of it.

I gave a lady friend a ride in at the first opportunity. “Lower your windshield visor”, I said. “There’s a mirror behind it, you open the little door to see it.” She did. She laughed.

There, on the mirror a script read, “Buick is a beauty too.”

My second 225 I found on a back street in Bozeman. It had belonged to the Butte, Anaconda, and Pacific Railroad. My third 225 was found for me by Denver Black of Paradise, Montana. It was a 1973. Then there were a couple of Oldsmobile 98s. In particular a 1976 two door. The doors were so massive that I wished they had hydraulic assists. If I parked it on a side hill with the door on the uphill side, I could hardly open it.

I was driving it headed east on Highway 200 by Magpie Creek, east of Perma, and I was being followed by some kind of police car. I pulled over to see if it would pass me, but it pulled in behind me. It was a CSKT Tribal Fish and Game officer. “Do you know how fast you were going?” he asked. “Seventy-five,” I said. “Try eighty-five!” he said.

Then he almost got teary-eyed. “Boy, these big cars, they just float down the road.”

Making his hand describe a floating motion, he got back in his rig and drove on.

Driving the ’73 Buick west from Butte, a sedan with Montana government plates blew past me. I was offended that a state employee would violate speed laws so blatantly. I resolved to get his plate number and turn him in. I accelerated faster and faster, and the faster I drove, the better the big Buick handled. I finally caught up with him and slowed to his speed of 115 MPH. And once I realized that this was the ideal speed for which the car was designed, I decided to just fall behind a little bit and let him run interference for me all the way to Drummond.

Again, in the ’76 Olds (with the Oldsmobile 455 engine) I got pulled over one night just north of Three Forks. “Do you know how fast you were driving?”, said the trooper.

“Seventy-five,” says I. “Eighty five,” says the trooper, ”Your speedometer must be off.”

“That’s what I’m hoping,” I said.

He gave me a warning ticket and left me with this thought. “The speed limit here is 65.”

I obeyed the law all the way home.

These days they all sit moldering here on the ranch, while I sit and dream of finding another deuce and a quarter.

Montana Viewpoint has appeared in weekly and online newspapers across Montana for over 30 years. Jim Elliott served 16 years in the Montana Legislature as a state representative and state senator. He lives on his ranch in Trout Creek.