Select 60 emblem

[Jim]

There are special Select 60 hood emblems out there. I have one as seen in the picture next to my name.

I got this emblem when I recently bought an '88 Select from a long time owner.

Did these emblems come with both the '88 Select 60s and the '90 Select 60s or just with the '88s.

I do know they never actually came with the car but were given to the dealer separately along with the car but the question is which year?

Thanks, Jim

[NCReatta]

From my reading, all of the '90 SS came with the ornament already installed. In '88, there was just an emblem sent to the dealer for put with their "Select 60" car. (black/tan '88 with all the options). However, the dealers would sometimes just not get around to installing the hood ornament. So you end up with one like you have.

This is all just my understanding. That the '90s were delivered with the SS ornament in place, and the '88s came after the car was delivered.

[Barney Eaton]

The special Select Sixty hood emblem was a mystery for some time but in conversations with people on the Reatta program and viewing cars, the answer is pretty clear.

A brief explination of what Select Sixty Dealers were....... within Buick there were something like 1700 dealers. They were rated/graded on sales, service, and several other factors.

There were some factoring built in so that large high volume dealers would not have an advantage over the small dealers. At the end of each year (calander year, not model year) the winners were announced and there would be an awards celebration at some nice hotel where they were wined and dined and told what a great job they were doing.

In 1988 it was in Phoenix and 1990 it was in Miami. There was another awards catagory below the Select Sixty known as the General Manger's Pacesetters.

Also, the dealer was not given the car. In 1988 it was added to his allotment, and some small dealers without a market for Reattas, probably negotiated for another model Buick.

Also based on the samples we have we know all 1988 cars with the X22 code were built around the 901000 vin number. In 1990 they were spread out a little more over the vin range and the first one built was 904077 and the last one was 904739. Using information accumulated over the years the 1990's were built in batches sandwitched between coupes and other production convertibles.

In 1988 there was a Reatta made for the 1987 Select Sixty dealers. In a conversation with Ed Mertz (Buick General Manager at the time) the dealers were allowed to add one of these cars to their allotment. At the time Reattas were hard to get as production only started in Jan 1988 and every car they could build was spoken for.

The 1988 car is a standard coupe. black with tan interior and 16 way seats. To account for the cars, they have a X22 code on the Service Parts label. Ed said that they wanted to make the car special but did not want to disrupt the line as it had just started making cars so the 1988 SS60 cars are all alike, there were 55 made with the X22 code and they were built with a standard hood emblem because the special Select Sixty emblem was not available when the cars were being assembled. The special Select Sixty emblem was sent to the dealer under seperate cover and in many cases the car had been sold by the time the emblem arrive and was probably put in the dealer desk. This accounts for the number of 1988 cars that do not have emblems and the number of new emblems that show up at swap meets.

We originally thought the special emblem was for the 1990 convertible version of the SS60 but never saw any of them with emblems. I have seen the 1990 SS60 that was in the GM collection at least 4 times and it does not have the special emblem.

Until I talked with Ed Mertz the emblem was sort of a mystery. Within the last 2-3 years there have been a couple of 1990 SS60 convertibles on Ebay and elsewhere that have the special emblem. I feel the simple explination for this would be the Select Sixty dealer installed the emblem he received in 1988 on the 1990 car he received. It is quite possible there were several dealers that received both 1988 and 1990 Select Sixty cars and since the sales by 1990 had slowed dramaticly, they may have put the car on the showroom floor and it probably sat there for some time... they may have even made it their personal car and wanted to show off the emblem they received in 1988.

I hope this helps clarify the story about the special Select Sixty hood emblem

[Jim]

Barney,

Thank you for the excellent information. I had heard this before and then forgot. If anyone would have the correct info it would be Ed Mertz.

When I bought my '88 Select 60 last December I got the emblem with it, with the intention of putting it on my '90 Select 60. I probably still will but now know it won't be right.

[padgett]

Wouldn't the 88 emblem be smaller than the '90 ?

[Guest Greg Ross]

Jim,

To possibly reword Padgetts question just a little;

where the 88 emblem was smaller diameter then 89 thru 91, was the SS emblem the same diameter as the later 89 - 91 emblems including the outer SS data ring.

[Guest steveskyhawk]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. To answer Padgett and Greg's question; the 1988 standard hood ornament was 2" in diameter. The Select Sixty hood ornament was 2.5 " in diameter and the standard 89-91 hood ornament was 3" in diameter. Interestingly the convertibles had a standard 88 ornament mounted inside in the middle behind the seats.

The notion that the special Select Sixty hood ornaments did not belong or were not intended to be on the 1990 Select Sixty convertible is preposterous.

[reattadudes]

I have several Reatta convertibles on consignment right now, including a one owner, one driver, low mileage Select Sixty with every single piece of documentation since the day it was purchased.

included in the documentation is a box dated 5/1990. in the box are the following four items:

1) engraved plaque to be affixed to the front of the Owner's Portfolio.

2) Select Sixty Certificate of Authenticity in it's own padded portfolio.

3) Select Sixty hood emblem in it's own engraved box.

4) a personally signed letter from then Buick General manager Ed Mertz, thanking them for the purchase of their Reatta. the letter also instructs them to make an appointment with their dealer to have the Select Sixty emblem installed on their car at no charge if they so desire.

I did not have a new Reatta myself at this time, but can remember Cadillac sending out a gold medallion with the number of Cadillacs I had owned with very similar instructions to take the medallion to my Cadillac dealer to have it installed in the grille at no charge.

I had purchased several Buicks back in the 1990s from Childress Buick, a longtime Buick dealer here in Phoenix. they are now out of business.

during innumerable visits to the dealer for oil changes or other services, I would sit in the customer lounge waiting for my car to be serviced.

in one of the glass cases in the customer lounge, there was a Certificate of Authenticity for Mr. Childress's own Select Sixty, as well as the Select Sixty hood ornament in the opened box.

I can remember asking Reatta engineer Tony Alberto many years ago about Select Sixtys. it was a stretch of my imagination to even think of GM being able to order 65 of anything. Tony laughed, and said, "do you really think that GM could order 65 of anything?" "the real number is GM ordered 500 of everything."

that's 500 sets of white wheels, 500 sets of white seats, white door panels, and 500 of anything that was exclusive to the Select Sixty. as Barney has pointed out before, GM showed inventory of hundreds of white door panels many years after Reatta production ended, verifying that indeed there were many more parts made than cars to install them on.

the Select Sixty hood ornament was a "parts shelf" item, and as everyone knows, was originally designed for the not-so-special 1988 Reatta. since they had hundreds of ornaments left over, it made sense to have it available for the 1990 Select Sixty as well, since it was a bonafide special edition.

since it's been over 20 years now, I'm sure a lot of the Select Sixty hood ornaments original owners received have since been long misplaced, forgotten, or thrown away.

Mike Rukavina

buickreattaparts.com

[wws944]

Was the Select Sixty hood emblem something that anyone could have walked into a Buick parts department and ordered?

When I owned my '78 Turbo Regal and got into a little, er, crunch, Buick made us provide them the VIN before they would send the special "Turbo 3.8" hood ornament. Also remember a similar earlier situation with my dads '70 Electra Limited - which had a special "Limited" emblem on the front of the bumper...

[padgett]

1638940 - 88 Hood Emblem (88 P&A)

20687010 88-91 Hood Emblem (93 P&A)

and that is all that is in the P&A. Apparently if an 88 needed an emblem by 1993 it was replaced with the larger 89- .

[NCReatta]

1638940 - 88 Hood Emblem (88 P&A)

20687010 88-91 Hood Emblem (93 P&A)

and that is all that is in the P&A. Apparently if an 88 needed an emblem by 1993 it was replaced with the larger 89- .

Is there a number for the emblem between the seats in the convertible?

[Barney Eaton]

I have sent Emails to several people I know that worked on the Reatta program and am contacting some of the dealers that received the 1990 Select Sixty convertibles.

My thoughts/question ....... if the SS60 emblem was made in 1988 for the first Reatta, and as has been speculated that they purchased 500 pieces, when they made the 1990 Select Sixty convertible, why did they not put them on at the factory when the cars were built?

Why would they put a regular production emblem on the car when it was built, then take the special SS60 emblem and have a special box made for it and send that to the dealer.

Sure, it you want to award someone, you give them something in a nice box. However in this case, the real award is the car and it would be the "box" with the emblem already mounted. Doesn't make sense to me and GM normally didn't intentionally do thing twice, like sending out the car with the standard emblem only to have the dealer take off the standard emblem and mount the SS60. The second part that seems off line is the letter that tells the customer to take the car to the dealer to have the emblem mounted.

These cars were made for the dealers, so why would there be a letter tell the person to take it their dealer. From the Certificate of Authenticity letter that went with each car.... "These unique Buick luxury two-seaters are to be distributed to the winners of the General Manager's Select Sixty program in recognition of outstanding achievement for calender year 1989"

One possible explination for the car that Mike featured. 65 cars were made for 60 dealers.

I have a list of the cars and 18 of the cars do not have a dealer name attached. Under the dealer name "NONE LISTED" is on the line. These cars could have gone to GM and Buick upper management for their use and then sold to employees or at auction.

I know of one car that is in Grand Blanc MI owned by the same person since new. He was a Doctor (foot specilist) . on retainer by GM/Buick and had a special relationship with them. He got a phone call one day and they ask if he would like to have one of these special cars and he still has it today. His did not come with am SS60 emblem but did have a custom cover with the Reatta emblem on the front (I have a photo of that) I don't think the custom cover was part of the Select Sixty package and no other owner has ever mentioned a cover.

There may have been some additional "special" people to Buick that received similar treatment and got some "extras".

I don't belive that because one vehicle has a group of documents, accessories, and in this case an emblem in a box, you could say they add did without further sustaining documentation or testimony.

I do not intend this to be a contest about who know what, we Reatta owners need to build

a Reatta reference base with information about the cars. Stories are not always fact, if we want facts, then they should be established with solid information. We will tell stories around the fire when we are having a beer.

[padgett]

Illustration just shows the whole filler panel but under grp 12.981 there is "90-91 E97 Conv Rf(C05) 12501849 Emblem ctr tr fin pnl ("Reatta")

[reattadudes]

Barney,

after spending my entire adult life in the car business (including ten years as a new car dealer), I can't even imagine how many "special editions" I've been "awarded".

to a dealer, it's just another unit; you can't imagine the "excitement" most dealers felt when another Reatta, more expensive than any other, got dropped off the transport truck.

if you talk to any Buick dealer that was selling cars at the time the Reatta was out, they will tell you (with the exception of 1988 models) that the Reatta was an albatross to sell. if they wanted an extra allocation of twenty LeSabres, they had to take a Reatta or two to get those LeSabres.

you seem to be confused about the ultimate owner of the Select Sixty; it wasn't the dealer, but the retail customer. this is why the letter (along with the engraved Owner's Portfolio plaque, Certificate of Authenticity, and Select Sixty ornament) were sent to the retail buyer, NOT the dealer. did some dealers keep the cars for themselves? absolutely. but they were in the minority.

it seems a little odd that you can't imagine why the emblems weren't affixed on the 1990 Select Sixtys. why is it just a stretch to believe this when they did exactly the same thing in 1988? nothing cements a relationship with a customer like when they receive something special in the mail.

I bought a new 1993 Cadillac Allante in June of 1992. the first production cars built were Indianapolis 500 pace car replicas, all finished in Pearl red with a black cloth top, and neutral leather. a few weeks after I purchased the car, a box arrived with Indianapolis 500 pace car decals. why weren't they put on the car before delivery? could it be they were giving me the choice, beside the fact that it amounted to a little after-sale "swag"?

ditto in 1996. I bought a new Dodge Ram 1500 Indy pickup, the pace vehicle that year, several weeks later, the pace vehicle stripes arrived.

I've seen 14 Select Sixtys myself, all with original window stickers. not a single one has a dealer listed in the "sold to" box on the window sticker, and for a reason. they were all built at the same time (even though they don't have sequential serial numbers) specifically for the spring selling season in 1990. in northern climates, the spring selling season is a narrow one. the cars should be on the ground in April, and gone by June. any convertible still on the lot in August will most likely be having a birthday at the dealership the next spring. the Craft Centre built the cars, and then regional zone representatives determined who should receive them.

excellent CSI scores are always tilted towards small dealers in small towns, and not too many dealers in small farm towns would get excited about the prospect of a $37,000+ convertible in their teeny showroom to gather dust, as well as burdening their floor plan financing when floor plan interest was running at 15%. $37,000 was a lot of money then, and they could have two quick-selling pickups with that same $37,000.

many small town dealers traded their Select Sixtys away to larger dealers just to get rid of them. the only clue to who the original dealer was that received the car is to look at the small print on the bottom of the window sticker where it says "deliver to dealer at". the one issue here is if it is a large city like Minneapolis or Houston, where there were multiple Buick franchises.

let's look at some of the past "differences of opinion" that we've had in the past nine years:

-you thought the 1990-1991 Owner's Portfolio Craftsman's logs were "autosigned". how did that turn out?

-how many times, right here on this forum, did you disagree with me on the fact that Reatta convertibles did indeed come with cloth tops, right out of the Craft Centre?

your belief that none were produced was based on the fact that "you had never seen one". it looks like we're heading down exactly the same road with the subject of the 1990 Select Sixty emblems.

there are a lot of things I haven't seen, yet I never doubt their existence.

Mike Rukavina

buickreattaparts.com

[Guest steveskyhawk]

I think we can now all agree on at least a couple of things.

1) Most if not all 1990 Select 60 Convertibles left the factory with the standard 3" hood ornament.

2) The "Special" 2.5 hood ornament was delivered to the RETAIL purchaser of the car via Mail at some point after the sale.

One possible reason that so many 90 Select Sixties are still without the badge is simple. The original owner for whatever reason did not get it installed. I for one would be very concerned that the paint would be damaged removing a 3 inch badge and replacing it with a 2.5 inch badge.

To answer Jim's original question; Feel free to install the SS badge or leave the standard badge on your 90 Select Sixty. I personally prefer the SS badge but I believe for judging purposes either hood ornament would be considered accurate. My Select Sixty is in the paint shop as I write this and it will have the special badge when complete. Cant wait.

See you all in Danvers this summer.