J3Studio

I'm having trouble narrowing this down—when was the 264/322 Buick V8 first referred to as the nailhead? Was it common parlance when the 364/401/425 came along?

Am I correct in thinking that wasn't very common?

I'm worried that this search is going to make me have to sign up for Facebook … 😉

The color meets my specs—the mileage is just a little higher than I'd prefer.

Thank you for the photos.

Thank you @Walt G

Which would have made it a far more distinctive and interesting car. But, folks seem to like repainting the second-generation cars in black.

Just two Rivieras at Mecum Dallas this week. [Lot W194] 1964 Arctic White Buick Riviera coupe with red vinyl bucket seats—$34,000 hammer price. [Lot F89.1] 1966 Regal Black Buick Riviera coupe with green vinyl Strato Bench seats—$25,000 hammer price.

LOL!

The 1985 Corvette has been sold and I am far less "defective" than I was back in March/April/May. So, making another run at my picky spec—which none of the 12 1996-1999 cars listed in the current Riview meet.

There's a lot of discussion out there in general publishing about the relative merits of footnotes versus endnotes. What are the thoughts amongst automotive historians?

Thank you @Frank Barrett

The final year of the truly big and heavy (4,000 pound plus) Rivieras—in a very attractive color combination. At this point, my research tells me that 1976 was an all-time high for the amount of available individual options on the Riviera, with that number sitting at about (gasp!) 90. It would be an interesting exercise to count how many of those options this particular Buick has.

The shorter skirts were sometimes called "High Profile wheel opening covers."

This amazed me when I first read about it. Details: https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Engines/starting-the-sr-71-blackbirds-j58-engines-ag330-start-cart

Sold for $18,058, with 16 bids. According to Hagerty's Valuation Tools, that's between #3/Good and #2/Excellent money.

$22,000 includes the 10% buyer's premium. Hammer price was $20,000—car was sold with no reserve.

Now bid up to $13,000 with two days to go. According to Hagerty's Valuation Tools, that's almost #3/Good money.

Thank you for the kind words—still not sure a) when it will be done, b) what it will be called, and c) what avenue I will choose for publication.

An expansion on what @jj5794 has said, from the still very unfinished Riviera Project: Some contemporary sources believe that William Porter was also responsible for the seventh generation (1986-1993) design, in addition to that of the eighth generation.

You are very welcome—the chart is a) a little prettier now but b) still looks better in print. The sixth generation was immensely successful, with average sales of about 53,000 a year—representing fully one-third of total Riviera sales between 1963 and 1999.

This is a great observation. What many Riviera fans now think of as the ultimate Riviera actually looked a little dated in 1965. Buick updated the first generation by cleaning up the styling and adding the hidden headlamps, but the basic design was from early 1960—and it showed.

Sales slipped almost 30% from 1969, but I wonder how much of that was the strike and how much of that was the general aging of the second generation platform, the arrival of the next generation Thunderbird, and (perhaps) the brand new Monte Carlo. Sales of the Eldorado actually increased significantly—and all of GM was on strike. Buick did still manage to produce 37,366 1970 Rivieras.

There weren't even that many 1970s at Gettysburg, though there were a ton of second generation cars.

1970 Buick Riviera GS coupe on Bring A Trailer. Regal Black (original color was Silver Mist Metallic) with a black vinyl top and a black front bench seat. Located in Toronto and currently bid up to $6,500 with five days to go. A few BaT commentators have noted where it departs from stock. NMOC. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1970-buick-riviera-gs/