CarBrandLogos archive · Buick · 1963

BuickRiviera

Bill Mitchell's answer to the Thunderbird, and the sharpest shape Detroit drew in 1963.

Photo: PATRICE RAUNET · Public domain

The story

A defining chapter in Buick history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Buick Riviera, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

1959 Buick Electra 225 Riviera Sedan side

Origins

General Motors watched Ford sell four-seat Thunderbirds through the late 1950s and wanted the same business. The car that answered arrived for 1963, and the way it looked was the whole point. Bill Mitchell's styling team produced a shape with knife-edge creases, a formal roofline and thin pillars, said to have been inspired by a Rolls-Royce glimpsed through London fog — sharp, restrained, and unlike anything else on an American forecourt.

1959 Buick Electra 225 Riviera Sedan side · Nimmerya · CC BY-SA 2.0 de

Design and engineering

It was mechanically conventional beneath: a big V8, rear-wheel drive, a properly sorted chassis by the standards of the day, and it drove better than most large American cars because Buick's engineers were given room to sort the suspension. It succeeded the Super in Buick's lineup and established the division's presence in the personal luxury market, where a buyer wanted style and comfort rather than seats or speed.

1966 Buick Riviera -Side View · Harleyriv · CC BY-SA 3.0

In production

Subsequent generations swung between brilliance and excess. The 1966 car was cleaner and larger; the 1971 boattail, with its dramatic tapering rear screen, is either the most striking Riviera or the most self-indulgent depending on the audience. From 1979 the car moved to front-wheel drive on the E-body shared with the Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, and in 1986 a severely downsized version with an early touchscreen control system flopped badly enough to force a hasty restyle.

1966 Buick Riviera GS - Rear View · Harleyriv · CC BY-SA 3.0

Legacy

A final, much better generation ran from 1995 to 1999 with a supercharged V6 and a curvaceous body, but the personal luxury coupé market had gone. The Riviera is remembered almost entirely for the first one, which is fair — it is one of the few American cars of its decade that still looks deliberate rather than decorated.

Technical specification