The Guinness Book of World’s Records has no record for the number of 1990s GM personal luxury cars parked on one street, or on twenty yards (18.288 meters for our readers outside of the United States) of one street, but if they create one, then this group could become the record holder.
Whoever lives on this street in Washington, DC and owns these five Eldorados and Rivieras parked there (with a sixth possibly parked in the empty space to the left but out and about at the time of this photograph) has to be the world’s biggest fan GM’s big coupes of the late 1980s to early 2000s.
Two 1986-91 Eldorados (one covered), two 1992-2002 Eldorados, and a 1995-99 G-body Riviera were present, so I will hazard a guess that the owner decided to drive his other 1995-99 Riviera to work that day. GM personal luxury cars of 1986-2002 are still generally considered to be ordinary used cars rather than classics to be sought by collectors, so whoever is collecting these cars is following his own desires, not anyone else’s definition of what is a classic or not. He has found his own path to classic car happiness–may we all be so lucky!
He must be out driving the Toronado Trofeo with the VIC of course….
Good comment! Too funny!
The last generation Rivera is quite sexy I wish Buick still made a luxery coupe, but the market has changed.
Funny sometimes what Google Ads places after the article for me. Usually it’s cheap car insurance, but something about this article moved their robot upscale.
PS: I do use an ad blocker on my browsers, but I set it to show ads for this site. CC needs the pennies to pay for bandwidth. Fellow readers, you’ve done that too, haven’t you?
HAHAHA………….You can’t have Opera Lamps without the Opera.
Indeed! +1
I’ll take that 02 Eldorado collectors edition please…
They all look a little saggy in the butt, I wonder how many bodies are in each trunk?
These aren’t all from the same owner, each owner has been stuffed in the trunk and left by the hit men. This is their dumping ground.
An odd thing about these cars, which I did not mention in the text, is that most of them were stacked from floor to ceiling with auto parts in the rear and front passenger side of the passenger compartment. (The driver’s seat of each was clear, though, so each car was drivable.) The trunks were no doubt full of similar items. So the sagginess is with good reason.
My theory: the owner’s wife is not completely happy about his collection of cars and makes him store his huge stash of parts in the cars themselves. So his hobby is permanently in the doghouse, literally and figuratively.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen an Eldorado (or any Cadillac) in that BRIGHT red before. It actually looks really good.
My father once came close to buying a mid-1990s Seville STS in that hue of red (with a black interior). Lovely car, lovely color.
I thought the same thing, I always did like this generation Eldorado in general but something about the red I really dig
I’m not the biggest fan of these Eldorados, but that color looks pretty cool. It reminds me of the bright red you’ll see occasionally on Volvos and Benzes. I wonder how it’d look on the Seville from the same generation, which I am a big fan of. The red/black leather STS Alex Ripley mentions sounds just about perfect!
That’s a 1953 color to commemorate the end of the line for the Eldorado. It was a special edition car with a numbered plaque and some special features like the 1953 Eldorado color (Aztec Red), special exhaust, wheels and some interior color highlights. It does brighten things up quite a bit.
Yes, it’s a final edition. The only one I’ve seen in person was a brand new one at Horst Zimmerman Cadillac back in 2002. The red was so sharp!
There were 2 final editions, a cream/pearl white colored one, with special birds-eye maple or something and the red ones with a black interior and no wood, I think they had some sort of metallic panels or fake carbon fiber, or something instead of the wood on a regular Eldorado,
Always liked these Rivieras. The Eldorado was, from the ’83 to ’98, an also-ran to the Lincoln Mark VII and VIII for my affection, and still runs second to its roman numeralled rivals, but after the discontinuation of the Mark in 1998 the Eldo was the only game in town until its demise in 2002. Didn’t like them very much when new even in comparison to the similar Seville, but they’ve grown on me over the years. While I can respect the 80’s Eldorado(s) as a well-preserved survivor and a traditional Caddy interior, I’m still not a fan of those overall.
So that begs a question. Would you take this, or it’s Ford equivalent? That would be two ’84-’92 Mark VII (one covered), two ’93-’98 Mark VIII, and one Cougar XR7 as the closest thing I can think of to the Riv.
Well the Fords would likely be more mechanically reliable and not as shrunken for the 80s models.
I take that back. I’d take any non-Northstar, non-4100 Caddy first, but the Fords would be easier to find one that wasn’t a ticking time bomb because of the engine it was stuck with.
Definitely the Ford lineup even though I really love the last gen Rivieras. Maybe I’m a bit biased owning a Mark VIII tho.
It’s fantastic to see someone actually collecting these Caddy’s and the Buick without them having to be old enough to be considered a true classic yet. Most somewhat “ordinary” cars do not get this level of attention and end up in the junkyard often before people realize that they are worthy their love. A shame really.
I am also a Mark VIII owner. I really wanted to like the Cadillac, as I like the lines of the STS and Eldo and even went so far as owning one for a while, but the possibility of catastrophe had me on the lookout for a change almost from day one. The fact my dear wife loved it so much as to name it made it very difficult to accomplish. The Regal GS has fold own seats to hold everything a photographer can possibly need for a shoot, including a six foot ladder. She didn’t like the Lincoln as she said it was hard to see the corners and the fact she slipped and floored it and left two stripes down the street didn’t help my case. The packaging of the Northstar and Aurora engines was world class in 1992, so to have an un-recalled defect looming over their flagship was unforgivable. GM hasn’t really done it right from top to bottom since Sloan retired. A sixty year slide without respite. Three generations of executives. Bankruptcy. No GMAC, just a shadow called Ally. I am of the age when they were owned by everyone with any portfolio whatsoever. Now, with this latest fiasco, what next? Suicide on the 30th floor? It just seems to never end. And I used to vigorously argue the death watch series. Did I ever get that one wrong.
I feel i just need to complain both the reliability of both Mark VIII and Eldorado. as an owner of three Mark VIII ( first one was hit by a truck. second is mechanical nightmare. third one is much improved but still far from reliable ) and one single Plymouth Volare, i feel Volare is much simpler to keep if not for the rust ( so there is a New Yorker. but it doesnt hold up too well, that a LeSabre replaced it) the Mark VIII has the issue of air ride, once an air bag is leaking, it means a damaged air bag, plus a damaged air pump, and a damaged alternator. quite frustrating
Former Mark VIII owner here, and I didn’t see any reliability problems in the two years I owned mine. I did have an air bag starting to leak but it didn’t damage the pump or alternator. Loved that car…unfortunately it was totaled in 2006 when an SUV pulled out in front of me. Wanted another but I couldn’t find a good one while I was looking.
The Eldorado would scare me reliability-wise far more than the Lincoln. Even in the basics…the 4.6 DOHC is just as bulletproof as the SOHC version if you take care of it. The Northstar, while a great design in most regards, has of course well-publicized issues.
Aside from the current mess they’re in, “New GM” actually seems to have done alright these past few years. The cars are more appealing than they’ve been in decades and they’ve been doing extremely well in CR. Whether this is a sign that the company has actually changed or if they’re just “making nice” long enough for people to forget the bailout backlash remains to be seen, but I’m optimistic!
You should leave a note in his windshield about CC. He maybe thrilled to find other people that also appreciate his secret stash!
That’s enough Eldorados to at least get one some sort of Organized Crime watch list.
And the Grammy for best title for a CC article goes to…
Maybe he’s having some work done on his underground garage. The cars on the right seem to be almost 3 feet away from the curb, and the tree sap and bird bombardment would play havoc long term. This may also explain why the cars are loaded with parts. And possibly tools in the trunks.
You know what would be odd….if they were all owned by different people and there just happened to be a really large concentration of E-body owners on this street.
Impressive and weird collection! Looks like a nice neighborhood, too – reminds me of the more scenic, older suburbs in Westchester County and northern Jersey.
The final Riviera is a seriously underrated/under-appreciated car. Some of the proportions were still a little funky, but man… what a comeback from the ’86-’93 models. It’s a shame no one was paying attention by that point, especially since – like the Mark VIII – it seems GM put a lot of money and effort into getting it right. At least they went out in style!
I think for a coupe the 95 Riviera was perhaps a bit too big. The interior plastics on the door panels and in the rear seat area (under the rear windows) were not great looking and hard to the touch. The Aurora’s plastics were equally bad, except that the Riviera’s dash plastics were quite good. The Aurora did get some wood trim, while the 95 Riviera did not. Later Riviera’s did get some wood trim. Still a much nicer car than the previous generation. My car, which I ordered, went through the factory twice (the first one was taken for “evaluation”).
Buick interiors during that era seemed noticeably higher quality and better put-together than the stuff Olds or Pontiac got. Like you said, you could still find some chintzy details, and they were hardly in the same league as their foreign competition, but they were at least respectable.
I thought the Riviera dash was a very cool design that really could’ve used some contrast to break up all that beige plastic (did they come in any other color?!) and more closely resemble the original it was inspired by. Google image search reveals that tons of people have accomplished this themselves with aftermarket kits, and GM tried it themselves on one of the Riviera show cars.
I’m sure this stuff is really flimsy and probably doesn’t even look that good up close, but you can get the idea from this picture. This would’ve looked so great if they did it from the factory:
They were fantastic driving cars, quiet up to 100mph, serene driving experience. The Park Avenue of the same vintage was really nice too, I sold both of them new. Solid structures, great ride and very quiet. Buick had spent a lot of time engineering better seats in the mid 1990’s, resulting in some of the best seats that were available at the time.
What happened with the Lucerne? Biggest POS seats EVER. Notice the lack of lumbar support. Horrible seats.
I bought a really cheap ’98 LeSabre last year and if nothing else, it is a supremely comfortable car. The seats do leave a little to be desired in lateral support, but fuck it – when I get in that thing after work and know I’m gonna be sitting in traffic for the next hour (at least), it’s nice to know I’m gonna be comfortable. I never drove a Park Avenue or Riviera, but I imagine they’re a better version of the same thing.
When you sold Buicks, did you get a lot of the “Touring Edition” or whatever LeSabres in? I need to do lots of routine stuff that was never done on mine and now that the weather is warm, I want to see if I can scrounge through the junkyards and find any of those parts… BUT I don’t want to do it if they’re gonna ruin the ride quality. The car handles well enough as it is (it’s a big ass FWD Buick, so that is an extremely relative statement) – I’d like it to be a little better, but without totally changing the balance between comfort/agility. Whaddya think? How do they compare?
I like the last gen Eldorado. I frequently see one nearby the office, cream white. It’s in a showroom-condition. An elderly man behind the wheel, might be the first owner, since these Cadillacs were officially imported back then. Alongside the contemporary Seville and some Buick models.