Seafoam65

Pete, you make a convincing argument, but having seen how perfect and correct your car is up to this point, putting a dash topper on your car is the equivalent of using a magic marker to put the finishing touches on the Mona Lisa. Your car is just too nice to cut any corners on the interior. This of course is the opinion of a purist who would like to go back to 1963 and relive it all over again! A similar analogy would be the fellow who does a perfect correct restoration on a 63 split window corvette, then decides when it is 95 per cent completed to cut the rear pillar out of the roof and install a 64 rear window glass so he can see out his rear view mirror better!

I'll tell everyone another story about this car...... In September 64 GM had a big strike which closed down the Flint plant. Only about 1,000 Rivieras were built before the strike ended production for a month. My Dad kept calling Bernie Dumas Buick in New Orleans to see if the car had arrived, and he was eventually told that it wasn't built before the strike and it would be at least another month before it came in. A couple of days later my Dad had to go to New Orleans on a business trip and he decided to swing by the dealership to inquire about his Riviera on order. When he drove up it was sitting on the showroom floor.....it was the only 65 Riviera that Bernie Dumas Buick got before the strike hit and they were lying to my Dad so they could keep it on the showroom floor and show it to prospective customers! Boy was my Dad angry when he found out it had been there for 2 weeks already! The following Saturday I rode with my Dad to pick up the car and drive it back to Houma Louisiana where we lived. We had to stop on Hiway 90 to get some gas as they had put very little in the tank. We pulled in to a deserted gas station and within a minute and a half, people were pulling off the highway just to look at the car.....it damn near caused a riot at the gas station.....everyone wanted to see the clamshells open and close!

No, we don't know the name of the guy in Ohio who bought the car.

I tried that 3 years ago and nothing showed up with that VIN.

Ok.....here are some pics. first is from Easter Sunday 1965 of me and my mom. Second is my younger brother taken in 1966. third is an interior pic showing the 1964 glove box emblem the car came from the factory with. The last two pics were taken by the the guy who bought the car from my Dad right before he sold it and it went to Ohio. Those pics were from around 1986.

Pete, if you know the correct length, Zepco in Richardson on Central Expressway northbound between Belt Line Rd. and Arapaho can make you one. Orange brick building just south of Reliable Chevrolet.

There are people who specialize in repairing speedometers of the fifties and sixties and seventies. Some of them advertise in Hemmings. Here in the Dallas area there is a shop who does this. You need to pull the speedo out of the dash and send it out to be checked and repaired as needed.

Yes, I do but I'll have to scan them into my computer first. One picture is of me and my Mom standing in front of it on Easter Sunday 1965.

The screw in the hole on the top attached to something you only had if you had the power trunk release option. I just bought new cardboard for my trunk and all everyone is selling now is the kit for power trunk release. If you order one for manual trunk you still receive the power trunk release kit. It doesn't really matter, the power trunk relase kit will fit fine, but you have to install a clip below the top hole for a screw to tighten up against so it looks like you actually have the power trunk release option. The screw in the hole on the side to the right of the trunk latch screws into a hole on the trunk latch bracket.

Also the car had tinted glass. One unusual thing about this Riviera is that because it was built very very early it came from the factory with the 1964 style Riviera emblem on the glovebox door. I darn near wore the paint off that car washing and waxing it when I was twelve years old. I was the one who talked my dad into ordering a Riviera.....He and I went to Bernie Dumas Buick in New Orleans so he could order a 65 Buick Lesabre station wagon. I walked into the showroom, flipped over the 64 Riviera on the showroom floor and talked my dad into test driving one, and he immediately lost interest in the Lesabre. My dad celebrated his 89th birthday a couple of weeks ago and he really likes my Seafoam Riviera....he regrets that he sold his car.

Slo Steve....... On your cracked armrest bases, reproduction custom interior armrest bases are available....just get new reproductions and paint them. No need to start patching cracks. I know you can buy them from OPGI as I've seen them in their catalog, perhaps from other vendors as well. From OPGI they are 465.00 for the pair. I know that's expensive but I think if you patch the cracked 50 year old ones they will continue to crack faster than you can repair them. That price includes the bases for the power window switches if your car has those and needs them.

My Dad sold his solid rust free Texas 65 Riviera in the late 80's and it got flipped to someone up in Ohio who was going to do a restoration on it. The original colors of the car were Arctic White with a saddle interior. Options were power trunk release and wire wheel covers and A/C and AM radio and front and rear factory floor mats. This car had the base interior with crank windows and base 401 engine. He ordered it in July 1964 and it was one of the very first 65 Rivieras built. The VIN number is believed to be 494475H900633. When sold it was a nice running car with a rebuilt engine that just needed cosmetics. The guy in Ohio claimed he was going to paint the car black when he redid the paint. Anybody seen this car?

PS-Seafoam and Riviadrian-Let's plan to get together, maybe over the holidays. I can host or we can meet someplace. Let me know. Pete....my wife Cindy and I go to the car guy gathering at La Madeleine restaurant on Saturday mornings at El Dorado Parkway and Hiway 75 in McKinney most every Saturday if it isn't raining. It usually starts up around 8:00 a.m. and ends around ten a.m. Let's get together for breakfast there some Saturday. I'll be driving one of my other collector cars as I don't have the rear bumper on the Riviera right now.

A good choice would be the motor oil that Hemmings Motor News magazine sells. It is blended for old cars and has all the zinc and phosphorous required for old engines. If your engine is in excellent condition I would go no thicker than 10W40...... 50 weight oil is OK for use in worn out engines with excessive bearing clearances.

Yes, the spring also takes up the in and out free play on the handle, as well as makes the door panel tight against the back of the handle. I only run into the springs on very low mileage totally unmolested cars, as everybody always throws them away the first time they take the panel off, myself included. My 69 GTO had them from the factory, and I tossed them in 1972. I can't tell you if Buick used them on the Riviera or not.....Since Pete had them in the boxes of parts for the interior of his car, I can't imagine why they would be there if they weren't originally on the car. No, you can't tell if they are there till you remove the door panel. That being said, if I was Pete I would throw the springs away, as the tension on them makes the door handle removal much more difficult and the door panel looks fine without them. I also dislike the washers as to me they make the handle look bad. Being an unmolested car my Riviera still has the washers behind the handles, but they look cheesy to me and I may remove them in the near future.

I love that exterior color......awesome car...congrats!

Here in the Dallas area we prep our classic cars for winter by gassing them up so they will be ready to drive again next weekend!

The spring goes on before the door panel is installed, with the large end toward the door panel.The purpose of the spring is to push the door panel out to meet the handle when it is installed so there is no gap behind the handle. After the door panel is installed, the plastic washer goes on, then the handle. Personally, I've never liked the springs being on there as it makes it a PITA to remove the handles to work on the door, so on my restorations I always leave them off as well as the washers, because to me the washers look cheesy. With no springs and no plastic washers the door panel looks nice and the handles are easy to remove, but if you want it to be factory, do it the way I said at the beginning.

:cool::cool: Darn right it has a 445....says so right on the air cleaner!

Dale congratulations on your purchase.....sounds like a real sweetheart of a car. Hope to see pics of it soon! Like you, I learned to drive in my Dad's new 65 and used to drive it when I was in high school and always wanted another one.....I always thought it was the nicest car I ever drove....and finally bought myself one last year.

One of the fine vendors who advertise in the Riview had my lens so I'm good to go if they will just take the repro tail light bezels off of back order!

Thanks for the info Bernie.....that has to be one of the finest 65's in the country for sure....magnificent!

For those who haven't seen the episode from last Summer, Google search: George Wallace- comedians in cars getting coffee and check out Jerry Seinfeld tooling around Las Vegas in a drop dead gorgeous Maroon 65 Riviera. What a beautiful car! Does it belong to anyone on the Forum?

You need to determine where the fault lies. Go behind the rear bumper and unplug the gas tank sender connector and when it is unplugged with the key turned on it should read beyond full. If you ground the wire going into the trunk from the connector the gauge should read empty with the key on. If these tests check out, you need a new sending unit and tank removal and replacement of the unit is in order. If these tests don't check out you probably have a bad gas gauge in the dash. It turns out to be the sending unit in the tank about 90 per cent of the time.

The money being asked for these cars is what you would expect to pay for a number one condition car. These two cars aren't even close to being a number one car. They both appear to have nice paint jobs on the outside, but everywhere else they are no. 3 condition drivers. There are early Rivieras that are worth what these asking prices are and even a lot more but these two cars are not one of them. Basically what they are is beaters that have been repainted in order to flip them for big bucks. If you took either one of these cars to an ISCA show you would be sucking air at the awards ceremony. I'm not sure you would even be accepted for entry. If you want to see what a no.1 early Riviera looks like, I would refer you to the two 65 Rivieras that have won best of show at the last two national Riviera meets. Those are no. 1 condition cars. The two cars for sale on ebay would need about 40,000 dollars spent on them to even begin to approach the condition of the last two Best of Show winners at the ROA meet. If these cars are worth $39,000 then those other cars are worth $99,000 and the old car price guides are way way out of whack.