J3Studio

Thank you @keiser31 as you might guess, this is not the center of what little expertise I have. I forgot about the later ones with the more serious grille.

A non car-person sent me this picture. I've figured out that the grille badge is for the Royal Automobile Club, but the car itself is giving me fits. Thoughts?

How's this restoration going—or am I asking too soon?

That would be correct.

The barrier to entry may be (much) lower after several years, but the maintenance costs don't change.

Agreed. I'm just proving that even the thread originator can take it off track …

Since everything old is new again, I'm now wondering if Chrysler or others did actual wind tunnel work with the Airflow, et. al. I am stunningly non-expert with things pre-war automotive.

I can think of little serious wind tunnel work designed to lower the cd (besides Citroen and NSU) for production cars between the 1950s and the late 1970s, but maybe I've missed some. Some examples that come easily to mind: the Mercedes-Benz W126 debuted in the 1979 model year, the Corvette's first serious usage was for 1980, the Audi 5000 and the Camaro/Firebird twins were 1982. After that, the deluge …

I've seen many versions of this chart over the years.

Everything @JZRIV says is true. Based on experience with multiple different automotive organizations, one of the most impressive things about the ROA is how inexpensively Roy and others manage to deliver a great experience. 2021 Convention costs (no travel/hotel included) for us would likely be about $195—for another organization, costs for about the same services provided would be about $610 this year. That's a big difference—and I hope it means there's a little more wiggle room on the numbers needed.

April Fools day and cars always makes me think of the advertisements BMW used to run in car magazines, like this one.

But, even that is a question of timing—the equally restrained and gorgeous 1956-1957 Continental Mark iI seems to have had little influence on any other designs. Certainly the simplicity of design and the somewhat smaller size of the 1961 Lincoln Continental compared to previous Lincolns was a harbinger of the future. It's funny about tailfins—even Mercedes-Benz had them.

That's a 1961, I believe—the final year for fins on the 300. I see the "letter cars" as comparatively restrained in 1955 and 1956, and than fairly ornate for the rest of that decade.

It's interesting, because GM's refrigerators of the day (Frigidaire) were ahead of their cars in styling trends. For 1957, Frigidaire moved to the "Sheer Look," with "sleek, trim, elegant" styling. About twenty years later, Cadillac's Seville would inaugurate GM's automotive Sheer Look—with the same name.

As many have said, there's so much knowledge here. I truly feel like I can ask any automotive question and get many coherent answers, like with today's 1950s to 1960s design changes question, or with the question about good Mercedes-Benz books a couple of months ago, or …

Thank you for all the responses, folks. As is usual, I learned some things and got some unexpected viewpoints.

The two organizations maintain (I think) cordial relations, but the decision-making is separate. @Ray_Knott is free to correct me.

Ooog …

Is anybody else thinking about the 2021 ROA Convention in June? My wife just pointed out that she probably should request those days sooner than later if we are able to attend …

Subtitle: For Detroit—here are the reasons for the sales slump

Hah! I was hoping someone would drop in with more/better information. I had (stupidly) not thought of looking at the owner's manual though I have seen some of the 1984 parts book references. I'll update my original response. Sigh … … thank you, @1965rivgs Does anybody know if the versions in 1984 and 1985 were exactly the same?

Any thoughts on why the relatively quick change happened in automotive exterior design from the ornate late fifties cars to the far more spare early and mid sixties cars? I find a lot of coverage of what happened and not a lot of why. I have some thoughts, but I'm interested in what you folks think.

John, that quote is from my research for the not remotely finished and thus as yet unpublished Riviera Project. The sources for that particular piece of data come from period documentation and news articles.

My thinking is that 1984 would have made more sense so that Delco and Buick engineers would have enough lead time to fix the inevitable bugs in that bleeding-edge technology. Again, that's a great find.

That video is a cool find! According to various sources, those systems were from 1984 and 1985 models: "Speaking of new electronics, another rare option that was from the factory was Y93 Cathode Ray Tube. This option indicates one of the 100 cars built with a test version of the Graphic Control Center that would be standard on all 1986 through 1989 Rivieras." —I've never seen one.