and I wouldn’t let him touch it,” Mitchell said. John DeLorean, who was at Pontiac, “had some crazy ideas. Mitchell steered the car to Buick because it was the only division that agreed to take it without major changes. So Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick were allowed to make a play for it (Crippen, 1987). That’s presumably why the front fender tips hint at the styling of a 1940 LaSalle’s grille, with its thin horizontal lines.Īccording to Mitchell, Cadillac didn’t want the car. The Riviera lacked Buick’s design DNA because it was originally designed by Mitchell to be a Cadillac. Why the Riviera didn’t actually look like a Buick 1940 LaSalle ( Old Car Brochures) The rear of the car had relatively little chrome and understated sheetmetal sculpting for an American car of that era. Some of the Riviera’s most beautiful lines were in the C-pillar (top image), which seamlessly arched into the deck. They went on to make the interesting argument that the Riviera’s first-year output of 40,000 units “was a record figure for any Buick in its first year as an entirely new model.”Īt the risk of disagreeing with two esteemed historians, I would like to offer another perspective. Norbye ( 1985) described the Riviera as “much better looking” than its arch-rival, the Ford Thunderbird. I grant you that this may not be a popular view. The first-generation Riviera strikes me as illustrating GM’s difficulties in responding to the rise of personal coupes in the first half of the 1960s - and Ford’s “hit ’em where they ain’t” product strategy. Pictured is a 1963 Riviera (top) and a 1965 T-Bird ( Old Car Brochures). The 1963-65 Buick Riviera was slightly longer, taller, narrower and lighter than the Thunderbird - and had less pronounced long-hood, short-deck proportions. Indeed, after only one year the Riviera would look dated next to Buick’s new-for-1964 mid-sized Skylark. The result was a design that was not as exotic nor as forward looking as the T-Bird. The Riviera was cobbled together from GM’s aging big-car body. The results were admirable given that head designer William Mitchell was not given anything close to the latitude of his counterparts at Ford. But then in 1963 Buick came out with a more direct competitor. The 1963-65 Riviera was a case of too little, too lateĪs we discuss further here, GM initially responded to the Thunderbird by offering sporty versions of its big cars - the 1962 Pontiac Grand Prix and Oldsmobile Starfire. Click on image to enlarge ( Old Car Advertisements). The 1961-63 Ford Thunderbird had advanced features such as curved side glass and sportier proportions than were typical for cars in the upper reaches of the premium-priced field. That was an unexpected achievement for a narrow range of two-door models lacking in the roominess of traditional premium cars. The only threat was the Thunderbird, which in the early-60s outsold the Buick Electra and the Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight. In 1962 the automaker captured three-fourths of the premium-priced, big-car market.

Perhaps GM dragged its feet because it was already so dominant in the upper reaches of the market. The Riviera came out five years after Ford’s four-seater Thunderbird. One might think that GM would have tried harder because it was playing catch up. Nor did it sell very well - arguably due to its confused personality and penny pinching by General Motors. However, the car didn’t really look like a Buick. The 1963-65 Buick Riviera was one of the more memorable designs of the 1960s.

Thunderbird car interior