Buick Super Riviera 52

[Guest Cesarbrazil]

Recently, I bought in the US a 52 Buick, two door, pilarless. I am a resident in Brazil and I need to fullfill some required informations in order to get an import permit from our customs. The car is stored in Miami and I got a friend help to look at the car for me.

Questions I need help are:

1. What will be aproximate car weight?

2. Besides a VIN # plate on the lower short B post is any other place in the car where this number is engraved or stamped?

3. How many speeds the Dynaflow transmission has?

4. Does the engine has a stamped number? Where I have to look for?

Any information will be most appreciated. Tks:confused:

[Guest DaveCorbin]

Dear Cesare:

In response to your inquiry:

1) Approximate weight will be about 3500 Lbs (1380 KG).

2) The serial number of the car is usually stamped on the top of the right frame rail just behind the battery. (It can be very hard to see, covered with dirt or rust).

3) The engine number is stamped on the right side of the engine on a small machined surface at the distributor.

You want to be sure you have these numbers in your possesion BEFORE applying for import papers. Here in the USA, some states used the small plate on the B pillar as the vehicle number, but other states used the stamped engine number. BE SURE the USA paperwork matches one of these numbers or you could wind up shipping the car back or having it impounded for a very long time!

I can help you with decoding the numbers.

Regards, Dave Corbin

[Guest DaveCorbin]

Dear Cesare:

I realized after hitting "Send" that I hadn't answered the Dynaflow question.

A Dynaflow transmission is a hydraulic pump and turbine device in which the speed change is all done with hydraulics and therefore it doesn't "Shift" or have set speed gear ratios. In effect, the number of speeds is infinite over a range of 1 to 1 (high) to as low as 4 to1 (low)

Regards, Dave Corbin

[Guest Cesarbrazil]

I want to thank to Dave Corbin for been so helpfull. Since you offered to decode my VIN # it´s 16604103 and Body Number Plate says:

1952 Mod 52-56R

Style N. 4537

Body N. G 13470

TRIM N. 63

PAINT N. 18 ABD

any further info will be appreciated

[Guest DaveCorbin]

Dear Cesare:

The number you give is called the "Frame Number". It decodes as follows: 1 6,604,103. The 1 is the Flint plant code so it was built there. The balance of the number (6,604,103) is for a car built very late in June 1952.

Based on that, I would expect that you will find that the stamped engine number will be between 6,802,540 and 6,829,329 and that the last digit will be a 5 which denotes an engine for a Super series 50 car. It could be slightly out of the range I've given you, as Buick makes no attempt to match the frame and engine number.

I'm at work now, but I'll look up the body plate info this evening and post that from home.

Regards, Dave Corbin

[Thriller]

The Super (Model 56R) had an original shipping weight of 3775 lbs.

[Guest DaveCorbin]

Dear Cesare:

I'm sorry I'm a little slow on your data plate info.

Trim code 63 is for Gray Cloth with Red Leather seat bolsters.

Paint code 18 is for a 2 tone gray car (seamist gray upper and sky gray lower), with Apache Red wheels that have French white stripes on them.

It should be a really good looking car in shades of Gray and Red.

Regards,Dave Corbin