(UPDATED FROM 6/16/2024) David Burrell has written what may be the most detailed account of how William Mitchell vainly tried to shift the “boat-tail” 1971 Buick Riviera to a mid-sized platform. Burrell’s story in Retro […]
(UPDATED FROM 7/1/2024) General Motors has been criticized for going too far in downsizing its 1986 E-body personal coupes, which included the Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado. Sales fell off a cliff, but […]
(UPDATED FROM 12/14/2023) The 1963-65 Buick Riviera was one of the more memorable designs of the 1960s. However, the car didn’t really look like a Buick. Nor did it sell very well — arguably due […]
One of the biggest assumptions of U.S. automakers in the postwar period was that they desperately needed splashy new cars. Yet when I think about the biggest disasters of that era, they often involved expensive […]
(EXPANDED FROM 7/14/2023) I grant you that top-whatever rankings can be clickbaity, but I decided to do this story for a specific reason. In the postwar years Detroit tended to assume that rapid-fire restylings were […]
(UPDATED FROM 5/19/2021) The July 1966 issue of Popular Science breathlessly predicted what U.S. automakers had planned for the next model year. Even though introductions were only a few months away, a surprising number of […]
(EXPANDED FROM 6/6/2024) Top-10 lists strike me as rather clickbaity, but I am not above presenting them if they illustrate an important historical theme. Last year I was motivated to create this list after seeing […]
(EXPANDED FROM 12/15/2023) I don’t think one can fully understand why the 1963-65 Buick Riviera wasn’t as successful as commonly argued in automotive histories without considering its relationship to the Electra 225. So let’s do […]
(EXPANDED FROM 5/2/2022) Whatever else one might say about the 1971-73 Buick Riviera, its styling did represent a heroic level of resistance to the brougham look then sweeping through the U.S. auto industry. Instead of […]
(UPDATED FROM 3/30/2023) Newly declassified intelligence documents show how a crash program by American automakers to switch to eggcrate grilles for their 1972-73 models thwarted a space alien invasion. The strategy worked so well that […]
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