Buick Lesabre

The Buick LeSabre is not one of autodom's leading sex objects. Its styling goes beyond conservatism and achieves yesteryear. The protruding chrome door handles are '50s fugitives. Ozzie and Harriet would have loved the seats. The dashboard design speaks to us from a fresher grave. And you know what? None of that anachronistic frumpiness has hurt the LeSabre's popularity one bit. It continues to be America's best-selling full-size sedan, a title it has held for the last five years.

When last we looked, the Buick LeSabre was waddling off to the General Motors fat farm, its halogen headlamps moistened by the prospect of life without Twinkies. Well, it's time to look again. Because the post-diet 1986 LeSabre is one dramatically different automobile. It is still full-sized, but no longer full- figured. It has lost weight and inches, and a bit of its thirst, while gaining a new, more aerodynamic body and some fresh technology. The all-new LeSabre emerged from its downsizing nearly two feet shorter, and more than 400 pounds lighter, than the 1985 model.

Darryl Orr saw his stolen car at Eighth Street and Woodland Avenue on Monday night and walked up to the man behind the wheel. "This is my car," Orr told the man. And this is my gun, the man seemed to respond as he leveled a black handgun. One of two other men sitting in the car told Orr to leave. Which he did, and watched as his car drove off, police said. Orr, 35, told police that he had been walking along at 8:15 p.m. when he spotted his 1983 gray Buick LeSabre, stolen Sunday from outside his Camden home, and engaged in the brief exchange with its occupants.

A speeding car blew a stop sign Thursday afternoon, plowed into one vehicle, narrowly missed another and then crashed into a cement wall inside the front entrance of the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer parking lot at 15th and Callowhill Sts. Luckily, no one was hurt. Just after 3 p.m. a late model red Buick LeSabre with Delaware tags sped westbound on Callowhill through the 15th street stop sign and hit a southbound Cadillac. The out of control Buick missed a car exiting the parking lot by inches, plowed onto the sidewalk, ran over a parking sign, bounced off a cement wall, and hit the wall by the parking booth by just a few feet.

One man was killed early Easter morning in a shooting on the Schuylkill Expressway near the Montgomery Drive exit that closed the highway for three hours. Police said they do not believe the shooting was random. Police have identified the victim as Kareem El, 29, hometown unknown. El was driving a silver 1997 Buick LeSabre eastbound on the highway about 2:50 a.m. when an unknown vehicle pulled up along its passenger side and fired numerous shots inside, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

Bill Elliott and his Ford are the team to beat in today's $1.4 million Daytona 500 (Channel 10, noon), but many of the 40 other drivers are convinced that Elliott is not invulnerable. "If we get together, we can chase him down," said Geoff Bodine, who will start in the second position in a Chevrolet. "I don't think he can break the draft. " Benny Parsons, who won this race in 1975, said, "The General Motors cars can run closer to Elliott. . . . These cars are definitely more stable, and it figures that somebody will be able to run close to him. " Gone are the boxy General Motors cars that Elliott embarrassed a year ago when his Ford Thunderbird ran away with the Daytona.

Two men in a stolen car being pursued by the owner in another vehicle were killed yesterday morning when they ran off the road and struck a utility pole in Lumberton. Authorities said both men, who had yet to be identified more than 15 hours after the crash, were pinned in the stolen car for several minutes before rescue workers could free them. Investigators believe the stolen car was traveling about 100 m.p.h. when it struck the metal utility pole on Main Street near County Route 541. Capt.

A car crash that happened here last week claimed a second life yesterday when a West Chester man died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident. William Smith, 74, was injured Friday after his car struck one driven by Eric Drakely, 54, also of West Chester, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Smith had been taken to the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center by helicopter. Neither hospital officials nor West Goshen police would say what injuries he suffered. Smith's wife, Grace, was the only passenger.

State police are searching for a 41-year-old Chester County woman and her 4-year-old daughter who disappeared after leaving home Wednesday night to visit a relative. Foul play has not been ruled out, Trooper Thomas Barton said. Veronica Faith Henry Roadside, a school bus driver in Caln Township, had been living with her former husband, Robert, and their child, Alexis, police said. The mother and child left home in a white 1993 Buick LeSabre at 9:30 p.m. to visit a relative in Newtown Square but never got there, Barton said.

Man shot dead on I-76 * Eastbound lanes, near Montgomery Drive exit A man driving a Buick LeSabre was shot and killed about 2:50 a.m. Sunday by a person in another car that pulled up alongside on the Schuylkill Expressway. Someone fired numerous rounds into the Buick's passenger side, hitting the driver, identified as Kareem El, 29, of Philadelphia, State Police Lt. Paul Gustaitis said. The Buick was brought under control and stopped in the left lane of the highway, Gustaitis said.

Man shot dead on I-76 * Eastbound lanes, near Montgomery Drive exit A man driving a Buick LeSabre was shot and killed about 2:50 a.m. Sunday by a person in another car that pulled up alongside on the Schuylkill Expressway. Someone fired numerous rounds into the Buick's passenger side, hitting the driver, identified as Kareem El, 29, of Philadelphia, State Police Lt. Paul Gustaitis said. The Buick was brought under control and stopped in the left lane of the highway, Gustaitis said.

It was nearly 3 a.m. Easter morning when a car pulled up alongside the eastbound silver 1997 Buick LeSabre on the Schuylkill Expressway. A barrage of shots followed. The driver of the Buick was killed, and the gunman or gunmen fled in a vehicle of unknown make and model. State police on Sunday were searching for answers in the dramatic and deadly shooting, which closed one of Philadelphia's busiest highways for three hours. But they seemed fairly certain the shooting did not appear random.

A speeding car blew a stop sign Thursday afternoon, plowed into one vehicle, narrowly missed another and then crashed into a cement wall inside the front entrance of the Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer parking lot at 15th and Callowhill Sts. Luckily, no one was hurt. Just after 3 p.m. a late model red Buick LeSabre with Delaware tags sped westbound on Callowhill through the 15th street stop sign and hit a southbound Cadillac. The out of control Buick missed a car exiting the parking lot by inches, plowed onto the sidewalk, ran over a parking sign, bounced off a cement wall, and hit the wall by the parking booth by just a few feet.

Richie De Coatsworth was riding solo that morning. Driving south on 51st Street, he saw a blue sedan, and as it passed, he sensed something wrong. The driver and three passengers looked as if they should have been in school. The car might have been stolen, so he made a U-turn, but the car was already out of sight. "So I began to survey the area to see where they went. " De Coatsworth was 21, only six months out of the Police Academy. He had recently moved to a spartan Korman Suites apartment in the 16th District, where he worked.

A 12-year-old riding in a minivan was critically wounded early yesterday when a man in a car shot him and two teenage companions in North Philadelphia. Police were searching for a blue Buick LeSabre that reportedly pulled alongside the minivan carrying the three, who were not identified. An occupant of the car peppered the minivan with bullets about 1 a.m. along the 1400 block of North Broad Street. The gunman was described as 19 to 21 years old, muscular, and wearing a T-shirt and a hoodie.

A 2000 Buick LeSabre speeding down Kelly Drive toward Center City at the height of yesterday's morning rush left the roadway and plunged into the Schuylkill in full view of horrified rowers and runners. The Buick sailed nearly 30 feet from the embankment before plummeting into the waters. "It was just like a Charles Bronson movie," said Bill Ban, a rower who was finishing his morning routine just north of Boathouse Row around 8 a.m. when the crash happened. "I heard squealing tires, then boom!

A North Philadelphia car chase that killed three young men early this year began at a neighborhood car wash as an attempt to collect $180, according to testimony at a preliminary hearing yesterday. Hanif Presley, 27, demanded that his stepbrother Jarrick Marigny pay him that amount for damaging his car and, to emphasize his point, displayed a handgun, testified Derrick Williams, Presley's passenger. Marigny said he didn't have the money and fled in another car, Williams said. The exchange triggered a bumper-to-bumper pursuit of Marigny, with Presley's 1993 Buick LeSabre going close to 100 m.p.h.

A Chester County mother who had been reported missing with her 4-year-old daughter since Wednesday is now being sought for interfering with custody and concealing the girl's whereabouts, authorities said yesterday. State police issued an Amber Alert and asked for the public's assistance in locating Alexis Roadside, whose long brown hair was cut short and dyed black on Thursday. District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll said authorities were concerned for the child's safety. At a news conference, police said the child's mother, Veronica Faith Henry Roadside, 41, left her West Caln Township home on Wednesday night with her daughter after telling her husband, Robert P. Roadside Jr., that she was going to visit relatives in Newtown Square.

State police are searching for a 41-year-old Chester County woman and her 4-year-old daughter who disappeared after leaving home Wednesday night to visit a relative. Foul play has not been ruled out, Trooper Thomas Barton said. Veronica Faith Henry Roadside, a school bus driver in Caln Township, had been living with her former husband, Robert, and their child, Alexis, police said. The mother and child left home in a white 1993 Buick LeSabre at 9:30 p.m. to visit a relative in Newtown Square but never got there, Barton said.