MAUI and SADDLE!

[Barney Eaton]

The other maui/tan convertible is 1G4EC33C4LB906998........it went to GM in Flint

 

The 1990 file is the largest and had lots of things to verify and correct.   Because of criticism of the database, I lost interest and it still need work.  

When I searched it for the Maui/tan cars I found things that needed correction and I highlighted them to make them easier to find when I get motivated.

 

I did do the 1989 this spring, Roy Faries did the original scan, said he sent me the file but if he did I lost it.   So I had the Fedx shop do a new scan and it has very few errors in the transition from hard copy to digital, making it much easier to verify.   Roy also lost the original 1991 sheets but I had all the convertible info and lots of the coupe already done since there were only 1554 entries.    Stan Light had also done a lot of 1991 research via CarFax and all that was combined.

[Ronnie]

Barney, What's with the large bold text? A lot of us here are old but we're not blind.

[NCReatta]

I spoke with the owner of the dealership who ordered my car. Worden-Martin Buick in Champaign. The owner said he remembered the cars. Mine was originally sold to a pizza chain owner named Al who bought it for his wife. No more info on it though.

Barney,

I would be glad to comb through the 1990 lists like I did for you on the 88s. just send them over and I can have them done pretty quickly.

[Barney Eaton]

Thanks but the digital file cannot be properly corrected without the original hard copy for reference. 

Some of the errors are obvious, an "8" that should be a "B", lots of "l" were a "1" should be. 

 

Is this size print acceptable to everyone?  looks like there was a setting that was making that happen.

I have another annoying problem with my email,  I use Thunderbird if that makes any difference.

When I type.......if I put more than one space between anything, the system put in an "A", 

So I send messages that might look like this 'A''A''A''A'between words or numbers, etc, what is set wrong on my computer for this to happen?

[NCReatta]

Thanks but the digital file cannot be properly corrected without the original hard copy for reference.

Some of the errors are obvious, an "8" that should be a "B", lots of "l" were a "1" should be.

Is this size print acceptable to everyone? looks like there was a setting that was making that happen.

I have another annoying problem with my email, I use Thunderbird if that makes any difference.

When I type.......if I put more than one space between anything, the system put in an "A",

So I send messages that might look like this 'A''A''A''A'between words or numbers, etc, what is set wrong on my computer for this to happen?

Well then send me the original hard copy! I'll send you my address.

[Ronnie]

... Ronnie, you have come across a lot of Reattas either personally, through your website and so on.  What do you think - do you think rare cars left the factory that may not be in the database (to sum up the issue a bit generically) and also some with clothe tops? 

 

To be honest with you I don't know enough about the production of Reattas to comment. Barney, Marck, and a lot of other people on this forum, have studied the production numbers for a long time. I haven't. They probably have seen more Reattas in one day than I have seen in my entire life. They are the experts. Based on what I have read here in the forum it is logical that odd combinations were probably produced at the customers request. I think it would have been easier to do on the Reatta production lines than with most other cars.  I always enjoy reading the discussions about Reatta production data but I hate it when it turns into an argument... as it usually does.

[Guest my3buicks]

On the type size, I like Barney am having issues with type size, sometimes when I type it is ultra tiny and I make it larger - in fact I was called out in another thread for hollering and someone but I was just making my type so it could be seen.  Let's give everyone a pass on the type size/bold etc until this issue works itself out.

[KDirk]

I have one thing to add here. By my recollection it has been postulated here in the past that "many" custom cars were made but not accounted for in production data because these custom colors or features were not in the system. I maintain that is bogus. Looking Marck's example, the car is clearly spec'd as built by the SPID tag. And - oh look - even has a D60 override code there as would be expected for a non-standard build. I never doubted such cars could or did exist. I did doubt they would be built without their SPID tags reflecting their true content. In other words, it doesn't have a build tag showing blue interior but they just pulled a tan one and installed it instead because someone put a post it note on the windshield saying "this one gets tan interior, not blue!"

Now, suppose someone ordered a car in another GM color that wasn't available for a Reatta. We can argue over whether such a car was built unless and until proof is brought forth. What cannot be argued is that if it was a GM color then it had an RPO code that would be entered in the build order and that would be on the tag as a result. Would the craft center setup the paint booth special just to do a one off in a non-standard (for a Reatta) color? Maybe, but I doubt it unless it was for someone with a lot of pull (like a top exec). Time is money and changing the booth over to a special paint color is a big enough deal that it is unlikely they'd be willing to do so. My point here however is that a non-standard build would still have a SPID tag, complete with any applicable option and override RPO codes on it, and in turn the production data would reflect the same as anything added would still have to be a existing GM option having a valid RPO code. It's not as though one could order a Reatta in a Ford color or with a Chrysler radio - those options wouldn't have existed period. So, anything ordered had to be GM sourced and thereby had to have a GM RPO code even if not ordinarily "approved" for inclusion on a Reatta.

Or suppose there was some other GM option available on a same-year E platform car (like the compass or cellphone from the Riviera just for example). These were items that had RPO codes already. Thus, if they were factory installed (unlikely though that may be) it could and should be evident in the RPO codes on the car. If such options are physically present but not listed on the SPID tag then it can be assumed they were specially installed post-assembly whether that occured at the craft centre, at the dealer or even done by the owner after taking delivery. The same could be assumed for things like wheels. Maybe someone wanted different GM rims on a Reatta, and quite many in that era were a direct fit. Ok, if it is a current GM rim it has a RPO code and that would be entered for the build order and reflected on the tag. No reason for it to be done off the books, so to speak. And if such changes were made after the build was completed, then I don't consider it to have been produced that way, but rather changed from the way it was ordered and came off the craft centre floor. Simple enough.

Finally, the notion that the craft centre could or would do "anything" is a stretch too far. They had a good deal of flexibility - much more than was typical for GM - as we have been able to determine. Yes, it was a hand assembled car built in an uncovnetional plant with a premium (for it' class) price tag. But this is still GM we are talking about. Rules and limitations were in place on what could be offered as a matter of practicality. It was not a Ferrari or a Rolls Royce where money is no object. While one can order some outlandish and expensive customization on such cars - which are almost all made to order - the craft centre was clearly not in the same position of offering "anything you want provided you are willing to pay". They simply weren't aiming at that sort of market and would've been laughed out of the room if they had proposed to make a car like that. Nobody was going to buy a $300,000 Buick and one does not get no-holds barred customization in a $30,000 vehicle that is still produced as a commodity, rather than high status boutique type car.

KDirk

[Guest my3buicks]

AMEN

[reattadudes]

Kevin,

 

you're applying production line logic that just doesn't exist here. the only good sales year for the Reatta was 1988. a convertible was promised for 1989, but we all know that didn't happen for another year. by 1990, dealers were chopping the roots from Reattas in their inventory. it was so bad that GM offered dealers a $5,000 incentive if they put the cars in demo service, and drove them until they hit 2,500 miles. my very first Reatta, a 1990 driftwood coupe, was one of these cars. it originally went to a dealer in Kansas City,  went to auction with 2,512 miles on the odometer, and was sold to Ewing Buick in Dallas. GM also used Reattas as an incentive for dealers to get more desirable, fast selling models like Regals, Rivieras, and Le Sabres. you want twenty more LeSabres than your allocation called for? well, take four Reattas. this procedure is VERY common in the car business, regardless of make.

 

so what could they do to move more Reattas, and keep things humming at the Craft Centre? build special cars! former Louisville Buick dealer and forum member Tom Payette told me (and others) many times that the Buick rep would show up and ask, "what kind of Reatta can we build for YOU?" when I stopped to leave my business card at Lake Buick in Cleveland back in 2002, the same thing happened. the parts guy ran to get the dealer principal, Greg Lake, to talk to me. Greg took me to his office, and pulled out a notebook with photos. inside were photos of about twelve Reatta convertibles, all with white interiors. black with white, silver with white, white with white (and NOT a Select Sixty), and red with white.

 

its all about "moving the metal", and the Craft Centre was designed to accomodate quick changes. it was perfectly suited for this. and let's not forget that Frank Sinatra Jr's three Reatta convertibles all had their custom exhaust systems installed AT the Craft Centre.

 

it must also be remembered that one of the main things that aso gave the Craft Centre a lot of autonomy was their location. the Craft Centre was a Buick factory in an Oldsmobile town. how many Flint-based Buick executives do you suppose relished the thought of a 60 mile (one way) drive to just "pop in", and see what's going on?

 

as more and more of the 1990 Reatta Comp Nine information is decoded, you'll see just how many of these special cars were actually built.

 

Mike Rukavina

buickreattaparts.com

[ghostymosty]

Seeing as how Chrysler could, would, and did paint their cars in non-available colors to suit buyers I was wondering what painting process was used by GM to paint the Reatta?

Chrysler would even paint batches of cars a GM or Ford color if they were part of a fleet order of cars, such as Air Force Blue, Bengal Charger Orange, Post Office White, various police dept or fire dept specified colors, or the GM orange on certain 68 Plymouth Barracuda or Satellite cars. Granted the order had to be at least 25 or 50 of the cars for the non Chrysler color and the paint code on them was 99 or 999 or just "special paint" on a second tag but the cars done in standard Chrysler colors from a different year or on a model the color was 'not available' on were done on a case by case basis. This case by case may have stopped when painting went from a man with a paint gun to a computer controlled robot with a hose fed paint gun but cleaning the system from color to color would only entail cleaning the hose and gun/tip which would have to be done periodically anyway just to keep from having drying paint gumming up the tip.

 

I envision the Reatta being painted in a booth by a man with a paint gun which would make the one off colors a piece of cake to accomplish. I don't see the robot being cost effective for GM on the Reatta but they could have used the procedure that electrically charges the car and opposite charges the paint which just gets sprayed into the room and goes for the surface of the car minimizing the waste of paint having to be cleared from the room by fans.

[KDirk]

Actually the craft centre used robotic paint booth(s) as several test bodies were allocated to setup and program the paint routine on the Reatta project. To add to the complexity of the build process, PPG ran the in-house paint operations at the craft centre. This created an arrangement in which GM "sold" the Reatta bodies in batches to PPG who had their personnel do the paint work on site. On inspection, once GM staff were satisfied with a painted body it was "sold" back to GM by PPG so that the car could be assembled. I'm sure there was some convoluted reason (union rules, liability, who knows?) for the temporary transfer of ownership but that is how it was done based on documentation I've read from various places.

While I could see a possible willingness to do special paint jobs, the issue is the cost and time involved in setup of the booth. Since GM wasn't running the paint operations directly (this was done by PPG under a special contract) PPG would have to be on board with this as well. This would have required special riders in the contract between GM and PPG or I suspect PPG would have told them to pound sand if someone from the GM side stepped into the booth and said "hey, we need one painted in high voltage yellow today". First, the paint would have to be special ordered. Ok, that is within the realm of possibility. Then the booth has to be setup for a new color other than what was already being sprayed. Ok, that means downtime which costs money.

Since this was all done under contract, it can be expected that there was an agreed upon per unit price that factored in cost of paint, setup time, finish buffing and whatever other factors were pertinent to PPG doing their job and being profitable at it. GM hemorrhaged money on the Reatta but I doubt PPG was in it without having their costs and expected profit margin covered. So, GM ate the losses as they were prone to do for so long. Look where it got them. PPG to my knowledge has never filed for bankruptcy, nuff said. I expect if special colors were done they had to be in blocks just as regular production units were painted in blocks of the same color several cars at a time. We know the latter is fact based simply on the production data we do have.

As was pointed out, Chrysler would do this back in the day with the caveat that a minimum order was required. This is the "juice" that made the squeeze worthwhile for the manufacturer. They sell you 25 or 50 cars at once and you can spec a special color that causes them extra work as a spiff of sorts. And I'll reiterate that if an existing GM color that was not spec'd for the Reatta were requested, it would have an existing identifiable RPO code that would have been used. Even if for some reason that wasn't the case there were still special override RPO codes (like the D60 code on Marck's maui/saddle car) that would reveal that a non stock color was specially applied even if a specific code for the color wasn't entered for some reason.

This was done in the late 80's and early 90's when everything was already fully computerized: order entry, inventory tracking, shipping and sales. Nothing needed to be done on the sneak as the craft centre process didn't negate nor operate exclusively of the existing GM systems to do all of that. The craft centre setting was adaptable for unusual situations I'm sure, but there is also no reason to suppose that adaptability precluded normal order and build data entry procedures. It isn't like these were rush order cars and snap decisions had to be made yesterday to get them done. Hell, average time to complete a car was probably at least a couple of days when considering the paint was subbed out to PPG on site and then had to be finished out by GM employees once ownership of the painted body was transferred back to them. And the build rate was not so frenetic that they were starting a car the very same day an order (whether dealer stock or customer special order) dropped into the computer. So, even at peak production there was probably at least a few days lead time between a VIN and associated option content for a car to be built being assigned and the time production of the car was actually started.

In the end though, the issue seems to have settled out by virtue of the fact that nothing more unusual than some color combo overrides (red/burgundy, maui/saddle, white/blue interior 'verts - and all accounted for by normal production process, not by off the line secret handshake arrangements) have been found to exist. We are now 25 years out - give or take - from when these cars were made. With the following this car has enjoyed, the attention they get at shows, and the number of people parting them for profit (especially in the past 5+ years) there have been no spectacular stand-out examples of a truly custom spec'd Reatta ever found and presented as indisputable proof (I'd consider that pictures including verifiable VIN and SPID tags to show exactly what was factory spec'd) that such arrangements were made with any frequency.

There were few enough Rettae made overall that something really out of the ordinary would have been found by now. If none have been found then either they didn't exist to begin with, or they were such rare occurences that they slipped off the radar never having been seen by anyone other than their mysterious anonymous owners. In the latter case, if these custom cars are really that rare, then it kind of shoots the rapid adaptability and willingness of the craft centre to accomodate special orders argument all to hell. If hardly anyone took advantage of this purported capability for factory customization, then why does it matter? Conversely, if many people took advantage of it then it defies all credulity to suppose not a single such example has ever been witnessed in the wild. And many of us have been looking for them, belive me.

A leap like that will get you into a Nike commercial. It won't convince the skeptical denizens of an online forum. You all know the long standing rule of the internet: pics or it didn't happen. I don't think that's too much to ask. I've been here 8 years. I've seen the arguments, supposition and bashing. I've seen claims of Reatta rarer than hi-def video of sasquatch having a Big Mac with Elvis in Times Square at noon on Saturday being defended with religious fervor. I've even participated in many such discussions. And one constant has held true in every single instance: no one has ever delivered proof of a truly and verifiably custom painted, custom interior, or custom anything Reatta that had anything more than an unusual color combo that was produced from parts readily availble in the craft centre inventory. The maui/saddle car here is a perfect example. It was made that way and can be clearly verified as such. It is also made entirely from standard on hand parts and materials, including the paint color and interior trim. So, it is not a custom car in the sense that they had to do anything really special. Just grab an interior trim and seat package from stock in tan rather than blue. Yeah, that was tough.

If anyone can show me, just as a hypothetical exercise, a factory built 90 convertible with a white and BURGUNDY (not red or blue) interior with a build tag to prove it was assembled that way then you have a legit claim to a truly special build. That is the standard that has to be met to make a convincing argument for the existence of truly extroidinary custom spec car. Or maybe a car in white diamond paint. Show the VIN and SPID and lets see what it says there. If it shows code 40 white for the paint, no dice. If it shows the code for white diamond paint then you can make a believer out of me. White diamond was already an available GM color in 88 so there was an RPO assigned for it. It also cost an extra $1000 or so to get it on a Cadillac then thus the window sticker or factory invoice showing that line item would serve to prove it was legit. Unless such proof can be presented all such claims are conjecture.

I don't know why this is so difficult to grasp. If you personally see something you know is unique and would only aid in making your case once and for all (and who doesn't enjoy a little vindication) then document it and put it up here. These aren't classified emails from the state department we're talking about here, just cars. That these arguments have gone on this long (well more than the 8 years I've been active here) and no one has proven their case is telling in itself.

Now that I spent an inordinate amount of time on this wall of text, I expect it to be a wasted effort. How much longer do we beat this to death without the proof that would settle it? No more excuses, no more BS. Put your cards on the table or fold. The bluffing, no matter how masterful, has just gotten tiresome. There are enough owners here with enough exposure to these cars in quantity that the proof should have been readily producible a long time ago now.

KDirk

[KDirk]

True enough, much of what I stated is speculation based on logical inference and anecdotal evidence. The difference? One, I'm not claiming the existence of cars having been made that has never once been supported by a single thread of satisfactory evidence. Two, my "speculation" is strongly supported simply by the abscence of proof to the contrary. After more than a decade of these arguments on this board, nobody claiming a fantastic special one off build done that way straight from the craft centre has ever backed up those claims with anything even remotely resembling the kind of proof that would be accepted as legally admissible evidence. That is the standard that has to be met to put this whole thing to rest. Otherwise, we just keep wasting time arguing over it. What if's and could be's can be entertaining to think about, but they remain nothing more than imaginative daydreams until they are proven up.

A few of those making the claims that these cars exist (and thereby that the craft centre process allowed for their creation in the first place) are certainly in a better position than most to have supplied that proof as they have (or at least claimed to at various times) to have bought and sold a very large quantity of Reattas and parts. Every time they were pressed for proof, a litany of excuses usuaply ensued for why it wasn't forthcoming. And of course a lot of us watch venues where cars are sold with enough regularity to see any unusual examples worth investigating if they were out there.

The burden of proof is on those (trying) to make this case. I haven't made claims of these special cars existing - and having personally seen them - or that the craft centre was so equipped to build them. And again, Marck's recently posted maui/tan car is NOT proof of a special custom accomodation made by the craft center. It is a standard build that simply was ordered with other than the color combination suggested by GM marketing materials, so please stop using that car as supporting evidence for these claims of custom work being done within the craft centre. It is in no way supportive of such a claim. In essence, it is no more unqiue than a car ordered with matching (instead of black) side moldings or one ordered with pin stripes in other than the suggested color, or even with no pinstripes - and those have been known to exist for quite some time. It was ordered and built that way because even though there were suggested combinations, almost any standard equipment (standard being the key word here) could be spec'd when an order was keyed.

It appears very few non-suggested combinations were locked out from being ordered. The only one I can say for sure would not have been allowed was the white 16" wheels made for the 1990 select 60 convertibles being ordered on anything other than a car with white exterior. It was clearly established that the white wheels (when ordered on other than a 1990 select 60 on which they were standard) could only be specified if the cars paint color was white. Whether this meant that the order entry system would automatically kick out a combination of white wheels with a paint color other than white specified, or would accept it but was then subsequently cancelled by someone up the chain after informing the dealer that they wouldn't do that, doesn't matter. We know the only paint color allowed with the white wheel option was, in fact, white.

Anyway, all I want is the proof. I will accept the results either way as I'm only interested in knowing what really took place. I'm not interested in (nor will I ever accept as proof) this carrot dangling from a stick approach that has been repeatedly employed here for years of making bold claims and then weaseling out of supplying the proof to back it up. It is time that either the proof gets presented or those making the claims pipe down until they are willing and able to produce the proof. There is nothing else left to discuss in that regard, until the evidence is made public. Anything less just results in threads like this where arguments and excuses are made but the issue at hand is never resolved to anyone's satisfaction. Then a few months or years later the process is repeated, as has just happened again. We've done enough of that here. There is a name for this behavior in internet forums. It is called trolling. The trolls have now been fed to the point of morbid obesity. They need a crash diet and we need some table scraps to satisfy our hunger before the next course is served.

KDirk

[Guest my3buicks]

KDirk is the voice of reason and everything he states I would agree with totally.  Even if a purple car with a pink interior was built, it would have been documented as such in the records.  It is a long tradition for "special order" cars to be built, for instance the special paint order Flame Orange Centurion convertible I had,  it was both documented on the car, on the build sheet, and in production history records.  The same would hold true for any special Reatta built.   Also as he said, there are enough eyes watching Reatta's across the country to have seen at least one of the so called undocumented anomalies.  

Edited August 27, 2015 by my3buicks (see edit history)

[KDirk]

Except that it has been asserted here in the past that special builds might not be documented exactly as built. So, hypothetically, if a pink car was built it may have a build tag that shows white paint since no code existed for pink paint and the direction to paint it pink was made "outside the system" by now untraceable and unrecorded (handwritten, verbal?) change orders. Prior to the era of computerization of automakers operations, that might have happened. I don't buy that happening with the Reatta.

The problem with selling this idea of off the books custom work is that if anything was possible but not neccesarily documented, then nothing presented as factory custom can be proven (or disproven) as authentic. This is a big problem for highly valuable cars as it can lead to convincing forgeries being accepted as genuine. We have no such concern presently as the value of even the best Reatta doesn't really justify such efforts to profit. Despite that, I don't like that idea taking hold as it dilutes the value of factory documentation being considered accurate. See where I'm going here?

The craft centre wasn't run like Ferrari's plant where every car has hand selected and stitched upholstery or an engine that is hand assembled from the bare block up by a single craftsman who signs his name to it when tested and passed. Pre-built sections and subassemblies of the car (seats, interior trim panels, harnesss and so on) were shipped to the craft center ready to install in the cars. Many of these items were made by subcontractors to GM who had set specifications on what was to be made and sent to Lansing. This inherently limited how far outside the lines they could go if you stop and think about it. They couldn't just "make" an interior in a color or material that flat wasn't offered as there was no on site upholstery shop. They couldn't offer powertrain or suspension upgrades as that parts content was set with no alternatives available. Were they going to stuff a Cadillac V8 in it? Sure, it would fit (the cradles are even near identical) but then how do they handle the ECM and instrumentation which aren't programmed to work with that engine? Are we to suppose they had a custom tuning operation on site? What then to be done about EPA and other certifications? There are too many barriers to customizing these cars for there to have been that much done differently even if they were willing to do so. Really, paint might be the one qnd only thing that was somewhat negotiable.

Really, when you give it proper consideration, there wasn't much customization that could be done at the craft center. Yes, there were options for paint, body trim (black or matching), interior color, pin stripe color (or none) and top color for convertibles. Sunroofs, cd players, uplevel seats (in the four or five colors offered) and for 90/91 white or silver wheels (subject to the body color). But those are the sort of choices available with any car even if mass produced on a regular line. And all the choices offered were still dictated by available parts that would be in inventory at the plant. As these were offered in the catalog, choosing any combination of options, no matter how unusual, is still selecting from a limited menu of what you are told you can order.

My point is simply this: if a car was built that may be unusual (say in color combo) but has a stock paint color and a stock interior color, then it isn't custom. It is a deviation from what was suggested by GM in their marketing and ordering materials, but it was available to be ordered that way because the parts were on hand and GM was willing to let a customer specify a subtitution or override from what was recommended. Much like ordering pepper jack instead of American on your chessburger.

So again, Marck's maui car isn't custom. It is a standard available paint color and a standard available interior color for the year built. It does prove that someone chose to utilitize the trim override that was offered to forego the dark blue interior (default for maui blue cars) in favor of medium beechwood because, presumably, they preferred the way it looked. I suppose it is most accurate to say it was built to order. In no way shape or form is it custom by the definition of the word as typically ascribed to cars. While the interior color override may not have been heavily publicized by GM or the dealers, neither did it require a secret handshake and burnt offering to get done. Thing is, they always want to sell from invetory rather than build to order. But it could be done.

Now, custom, at least as I would define it in this context, would be a car that was built with an interior color or upholstery type that wasn't offically available, painted a color that wasn't offered in company brochures, or fitted with options that were never listed as available for the model and year in question. If there were a Reatta with factory velour seats, painted in two tone crimson pearl metallic upper and metallic charcoal on the lower body and having a Delco/Bose stereo and factory cell phone installed, that would be custom. If it we made that way during original assembly in Lansing then yes, it would be proof of the much vaunted flexibility to customize that has been bandied about here.

ZZ Top's 34 Ford coupe pictured on their Eliminator album back in the 80's was a custom car. The stuff Chip Foose does is custom, often in the extreme. Building a Reatta roadster with tan rather than blue interior isn't. I'm not knocking the car here, it is very nice. I'm trying to establish what we are going to call custom to prevent confusion going forward. I'm glad Marck posted it as it does settle a long running debate over whether any cars were ordered and built in that combination.

That said, maybe now my insistence on clarifying definitions will make more sense. If we are going to call a car that was made from stock parts custom just because it didn't follow marketing guidelines for interior color selection then we will suddenly have a great many "custom" cars documented in one fell swoop.

Getting back to the proof angle briefly, the matter of owner privacy was raised and has been before as a reason why no pictures of vehicles claimed to exist were ever posted. Ok, I get that. But you don't have to supply any personally identifiable data to provide proof. License plates can be removed or obstructed for photos. People do this all the time. The VIN can be partially blurred (we already know the first several digits on a given Reatta anyway) and VINs are searchable on many public or semi-private databases anyway.

Carfax and Compnine do this and don't reveal an owners name or address. The SPID tag could easily be shown with the VIN partially blurred if that is even a concern and would show that the way the car exists in pictures was the way it was built. To claim otherwise is a cop out. Are we to believe that every single instance of a putative truly factory custom Reatta is owned by some eccentric Howard Hughes type who forbids his car to be shown under pain of death? Do come on now. Far too convenient an approach to claim "I saw it but can't show you, so you'll just have to believe me". After all this time there would have been numerous opportunities to deliver the proof to back up the hype.

I expect some will think I am making far too much an issue of this but after so many years of this stuff being the cause of pissing matches here, I decided it was time to systematically dissect the hype in logical fashion and demand some accountability for the claims that have been made and never backed up. So, I've made my case. Those who disagree and have the means to do so are free to make theirs.

KDirk

[Machiner 55]

I... for one... disagree.

 

About alot of things. To be honest, almost everything... except for these recent posts .

 

John F.

[Barney Eaton]

From Imperial62 post...."A Polo Green convertible was an available color in 1991." 

Yes, Polo green was an available color,

Yes, you could get a 1991 convertible.

What we know for now is that when the last Reatta convertible (900622) was built only 1 Reatta, a coupes had been painted Polo green (900614 owned by Martel Gibson),

the next documented green car is 900623 (built after the last convertible)  why had no green convertibles been ordered or built?

At this time we have no documentation that show a Polo Green convertible and like Hillary Clinton's emails,  we are waiting on that information.

Edited August 29, 2015 by Barney Eaton (see edit history)

[padgett]

OK when I worked for GM in the early seventies, the billing card was king and listed all of the options and codes including special ones. Today it is the SPI sticker. Now it was not unheard of for a car to be pulled as it came of the line and sent to engineering for experimentation. Any car that was changed in a way that affected certification (like RWD or a turbo) was supposed to be crushed. Not all were.

But the same as one of the marks of an early '60s Pontiac with a super duty dual quad 421 had a build sheet that said "389 2bbl, three speed manual trans", never say never.

What I did say in setting up the "platinum" class at POCI was that anything non-stock needed documentation and admit I once threw the book at someone who duplicated a very rare guage package but with the instruments in the wrong pod (and I had all of the cluster data sheets - did not know of any built but was in the parts book).

So anything is possible but the key is provenance. Without that points will be deducted. Of course if you do not care about points (none of my cars are stock but there is only one I had to take a sawzall and cut off tool to) then what's all the hubub bub ?

[Barney Eaton]

I just wanted to clarify.........

[repriebe]

As a first-time new car shopper in 1990, I wanted a Buick Reatta. I went to Vandergriff Buick in Arlington, Texas and ALMOST bought a 1990 Maui Blue Convertible with saddle interior (the salesman said that the top was the same color as the interior, but I never saw it, as it was down - the car was inside the showroom). I remember this well, because tan has never been my favorite, but this was the only Reatta convertible that they had. The reason that I did not buy it? It was a hand-built car and had a flaw IN the driver's door paint (nont a scratch or dent, but a small flaw, almost like a buildup of too much paint in a small strip). I asked the salesman to document the flaw, but when I pointed it out to him he said "I did not see that" and refused. He stated that he would not sell the car with a flaw, and that the car was going to go immediately to their bodyshop and the flaw would be "fixed", even if they had to repaint the whole door. I told hm that if they "fixed" it, that I did not want it, because it was not "original". He said that if I did not want it fixed, that he could not help me. After unsuccessfully trying to negotiate with him more, I gave up and left. A day or so later I went with a friend to help him buy a Ford Mustang and I wound up buying a brand new 1990 Ford Probe GT (as fun as it was, it NEVER compared). I now own seven Reattas in various states (including a 90 white/burgundy convertible that I just purchased and my 90 red/grey coupe daily driver that just got totaled by a red-light-runner a couple of weeks ago), but always think back, wishing that I had bought that Maui Blue convertible (even with the tan interior)! I do not know what ever became of that Reatta, never took any kind of pictures, and had no idea what a build sheet or SPI sticker was at the time, but it was there.

[Barney Eaton]

Since the 1990 data was recently completed,  and Marck did a sort by exterior color/interior color.... it shows two convertibles were built with that combination.

905651 had standard seats and was delivered to Worden-Martin in Champaign IL,  the second one 906999 had standard seats and just indicated GM in Flint... either of these cars could have been in Arlington TX via dealer trades but most likely 906999 is the car you saw in Arlington.

Because the cars were not selling that fast in 1990,  Buick probably had a production plan (schedule) to build X number of vehicles each month. 

If the car was not a dealer order, it was just assigned "GM Flint" and then somehow was later distributed to dealers wanting floor model vehicles.

[repriebe]

THANKS! Now, I wonder................did it STAY in Texas??????