Buick Riviera

The Buick Riviera is a 2-door hardtop from Buick, built from 1963, in the decade that gave the world the pony car and the mid-engined supercar. Under the bonnet: 401 cuin Nailhead V8. Bill Mitchell drew it.

The story

The Buick Riviera is a personal luxury car that was marketed by Buick from 1963 to 1999, with the exception of the 1994 model year. As General Motors' first entry into the personal luxury car market segment, the Riviera was highly praised by automotive journalists upon its high-profile debut. It was a ground-up design on a new GM E platform debuting for the 1963 model year and was also Buick's first unique Riviera model.

Unlike its subsequent GM E platform stablemates, the Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado, the Riviera was initially a front engine/rear-wheel drive platform, switching to front-wheel drive starting with the 1979 model year. While the early models stayed close to their original form, eight subsequent generations varied substantially in size and styling. A total of 1,127,261 Rivieras were produced. The Riviera name was resurrected for two concept cars that were displayed at auto shows in 2007 and in 2013.

What is underneath

Power comes from 401 cuin Nailhead V8; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. It shifts through a Twin Turbine Dynaflow automatic (1963) / 3-speed TH-400 automatic (1964-1965). The layout matters: a front engine drives the rear wheels, the classic proportion — long bonnet, cabin set back — that most people picture when they picture a sports saloon or a grand tourer. The wheelbase is 117.0 in. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Its place in the line

Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Buick Super; assembly was at Buick City, Flint, Michigan. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Aston Martin DB5, the Maserati Quattroporte, the Pontiac GTO — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Buick catalogue sit the Buick First Call and the Buick Funeral Car.

What it costs now

MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Buick Riviera has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.