(first posted 10/7/2015) I’ve gotten in the spirit of the vintage reviews we’ve been having lately, and my contribution is from the oldest Car and Driver I have, from December 1963. Note that this is not just a “test” or ‘review”, but a “Road Research Report”. And that means quite long and very comprehensive. If you’ve ever wondered what the roll center height or spring rates of the Riviera were, and in comparison to a few other cars, this will be satisfying. If not, it’s a good read and window into a time when car reviews were a bit different, as were the cars themselves. (click on images for larger size)
Whew! Still want more? Here’s my very much shorter take on the ’64 Riviera
Car and Driver was very interesting back then. I started reading it when it still was Sports Cars Illustrated. I read it for fifty years and then just lost interest. I am still interested in cars, but not in car magazines I do miss the early columnists from that era. Warren Weith, Gordon Baxter, Gordon Jennings. And from the later years Brock Yates and Pat Bedard. I guess that the glory days of auto magazines are gone forever.
Yep We have the “Interweb” to thank for that.
Paul, I have many such road tests from the 1960s. If you would like me to submit some, please contact me.
Love the series you’re running, hope it will be an on going feature on CC.
Best,
Richard Truesdell
Rich, thanks for the offer. One of our readers 9″GN”) has pretty much everything magazine-wise all the way back to the 40s, and he’s going to be posting regularly. And another one is posting from a collection of R&T from the 1980s.
But maybe you’d like to do some posts featuring your splendid photography? I’d love to see that. 🙂
The A/C blows the ashes off the passenger’s cigarette??? Sounds like a deal-breaker; cancel my order?! It is indeed a thorough review.
Winston tastes good ●as● a cigarette should (correct grammar).
Awesome article. Two of my favourite car magazines have always been Car and Driver. I’ve always liked the 1963 and 1964 Buick Riviera. Thanks for posting. 🙂
Obligatory….but then again that C&D review was so thorough it might have well been written by a certain half-Vulcan science officer…..
I think C&D were more rigorous. And how often did Spock actually make a rational inference?
http://scienceskepticism.blogspot.com/2013/01/spock-vs-critical-thinking.html
To be fair, if TV & screen writers took the time to understand their subject matter better, they probably wouldn’t have time to write!
I remember his daughter selling Oldsmobile Silhouettes (Which neither lived long nor prospered.) Fascinating!
You may be cool, but you’re not Spock-leaning-on-a-Riviera cool.
In pre-digital days, imagine how much labor went into those graphics.
Not to mention the “double exposure” effect done in the “soup” rather than Photoshop!
Those double exposures are fantastic. How was it done?
Film cameras did not require the film to be advanced to the next unexposed sector, but allowed the camera to take a second picture over the first. Normally the film would be advanced right after taking a picture so a double exposure isn’t done accidentally. Electronically controlled cameras would advance the film automatically.
It looks like they mixed up the labels for the left hand air conditioner outlet and the light switch.
It’s interesting to look at the spec sheet and find out that the Riv can do 55 mph in reverse (“-55”).
You need that speed for those bootleg turns 🙂
So cool. Back when GM actually made products you wanted to own. Sadly, was not long before they also made Ford and Chrysler fans, due to their products. Not to mention Nissan/Datsun and Toyota fans.
Like the description of how to drive the Riv on winding roads; to a lesser degree this applies to a lot of big GM cars, they handle surprisingly well if driven as the article recommends.
I also love the pipe ad on page 3. I can picture myself getting into a ’63 Riv in ’63…cord jacket, turtleneck, Brooks loafers, and that pipe, then accelerating out of a curve on Storm King Highway.
Thanks; a lot to read on one of my all-time favorite cars. A silver ’64 Riviera was my grandmother’s last car (she got into that from a 1950 Buick Special, so it must have quite a contrast) and lord, did I lust after that thing. I rode in it quite a bit but only ever got to drive it once, around1975 or so, at which point it was already being seen as something of a classic. It was in nearly flawless condition, and tooling around Bethlehem, PA with my younger brother, we attracted quite a bit of attention.
My uncle had bought it for her to begin with, so when she passed away, it went back to him. Fair enough.
One comment on the review itself. I thought that the Super Turbine 400 transmission was Buick’s version of the Turbo Hydramatic. This review makes no mention of that, and implies that the Super Turbine 400 was somehow developed in the Dynaflow lineage.
I enjoyed reading this, though, and wish that I could experience this car.
In hindsight, it amazes me how much misinformation I had about the pedigree of GM technology, such as Powerglide/Dynaflow, SBC vs. BOP V8s. It didn’t help that the latter often had equal or close displacements, which otherwise might’ve been a good hint.
I used to get their Annual Report (having inherited some Common Stock), but of course that told one hardly anything. Annual Reports are about as informative as Presidential press conferences; the really interesting stuff is suppressed.
Your impression is correct — Super Turbine 400 = TH400 Turbo Hydramatic. Its relationship to Dynaflow was pretty much limited to, “Well, they both have torque converters.” The early ST400 did use a variable-pitch stator, which was something Buick had also used on some of the Dynaflow-derived transmissions, but so did the Cadillac and Oldsmobile versions.
A riveting read that increases my respect for the Riv’s roadability. The other interesting thing was the lack of a single mention of the Thunderbird.
“Riv”eting read? I see what you did there…
It was kind of an irRivierant reply, wasn’t it?
I’m guessing that the omission was intentional. The magazine tested a 1964 Thunderbird convertible, and didn’t like much about it (I believe Brock Yates wrote the article).
In a comparison test of a 1967 Eldorado and four-door Thunderbird (previously referenced on this site because the magazine took Cadillac to the woodshed for the Eldo’s lousy standard drum brakes), the magazine said that the first four-seat Thunderbird was “hardly a memorable car.” The same test referred to this Riviera as one of the “most stimulating” domestic cars since World War II, if I recall correctly.
One of the quirks, if you will, of the first gen Riviera was that they were available with two fairly distinct interiors that had some impact on how special you might regard this car to be – especially if you were shopping with the expectations of somebody in 1964.
The base interior was nice, probably about the level of Buick’s mid trim full-size Wildcat model. Options like power window switches were mounted flat on the door card, like most GM cars except for top luxury trims in the C and D body range.
Moving up to the top trim gave you a full length door armrest console and standard power window switches on the armrest. In my ’65 Riviera, that also meant you got copious real wood trim on the door cards and the rear seat side cards, The full length armrest included a very cool second interior door release lever that allows rear seat passengers to easily let themselves exit the car. If you had the optional power driver’s seat, the controls for that also moved to the armrest.
There has always been very little documentation on the top interior. It never had a model or trim designation, and I’ve never seen documentation on its price.
Even this comprehensive review does not list this feature among the car’s options, but the car does have it based on the photo of the window switches in the montage.
This page regarding power windows from my 1965 Riviera owner’s manual give some allusion to what I’m taking about.
The center left photo is the rear release on the door. On high-line interiors, this was on both the driver and passenger door. I suppose a safety hazard if you had small kids in the rear seat. But, cool nevertheless…..
The 65 Riviera is one of my ten favorite cars of all time. I have seen the real wood trimmed interior of them. It reminded me of a 1960’s multi millionaires idea of an airplane cockpit…glorious
My ’64 and ’65 Riviera’s are very different cars, the ’64 was base interior, Cloud Silver out/black in, bought from a GM rep who wanted and got a factory hot rod, no a/c, power seat, power ant, no radio, it DID have heavy duty suspension, rear sway bar, factory lowered, 1″ wider wheels, body sections lightened, even the interior dash light switch was deleted, accessories were PS,PB and power windows (a problem, flat on the door, I often lowered a window when my knee pushed the button), this car, owned over 45 years, handles better than stock, (and my ’65 with GS suspension), and is VERY fast, my ’65 has luxury int and all accessories, is very nice, but I love the ’64
The quality of these cars is hard to understand today if you’ve never had the opportunity to really handle the interior parts. When I was detailing / lightly restoring my essentially similar ’65 Riviera, I had removed the center AC vent from the dash to better clean up the real wood trim. Even at 20 years of age, the heavily chromed white metal vent was in perfect condition with no pitting. The vent felt like it may have weighed a pound or more. Not exactly designed for fuel economy, but a real piece of metal that can be maintained, restored and re-chromed for generations of use.
My ’65 about 1985.
Sadly by the late 60s GM interiors lost a lot of that metalwork from previous years and was replaced by chromed plastic. My 68 Electra has a stylish but not exactly timeless design inside. The chrome plating has chipped and faded on several spots in my car and the process of re chroming is extremely expensive and most people just use a silver or aluminum paint to touch it up with mostly yucky results.
A possible reason for carmakers moving to plastic components was that steel prices rose during the ’60s, attributed to rising labor costs & investments to stay competitive with foreign sources.
Plastics aren’t durable in the long run as they become brittle, at least where I live, but what carmaker cares about that?
Ah the Riviera. Such a revolutionary car. The first generation had such a popular following then and now. The car inspired a band from South Bend Indiana(ironic since this was the home of Studebaker) to call themselves the Rivieras after being forced to change their original name due to another band already using it. The car was also featured in the band’s album covers and promo materials.
Learned a lot from this article. Never knew you could shift into low at 30-60 mph and the trans would actually go into second, and if you went below 25 mph it would stay in 1st but going from drive to low again would re-engage second. And top speed forward 125 mph. Top speed reverse 55 mph. Car and Driver really got into the engineering of the cars back then. I would still be reading C/D today if it was written the same way as in ’64. I don’t really care about some authors road trip sites and favorite eating and lodging stops. Or what Aunt Mildred thinks of the car. Or the amount of soft touch vs. hard touch plastics. Or 80% of the article talking about the cars electronics. These ’60’s and early ’70’s write up’s are the ones I really like.
I love the thoroughness of the report, but also remember that Car and Driver was essentially a put-up job to counter enthusiast magazines who thought Detroit could do no right. This was shortly before the faked GTO v GTO test that only occurred in DED Jr’s imagination. GM test cars were ringers, and Car and Driver knew it. One giveaway is when they talked about torque converter leadership without mentioning Chrysler.
Some of the article’s text on the ST-400 transmission is inaccurate, but GM did indeed use torque converter automatics well before Chrysler did. GM didn’t invent the torque converter, of course, but they did lead in the use of the torque converter in passenger car applications. If they were going to mention Chrysler at all in that context, it would likely have been that the ST-400/TH400 and TorqueFlite both licensed a planetary gear train patented by an independent inventor named Howard Simpson.
I have a mental shrine for the ’63 Riv…right next to the shrine for the ’66 Riv…right next to the shrine for the ’71 Riv.
I get a kick out the ads…Colgan Upholstery, 1130 N. Hollywood Way in Burbank is apparently still some sort of Auto Shop per Google Earth Street View.
I believe the headrests I installed on my ’61 Monza in 1968 came from them.
It is today a cannabis dispensary, but next door is an independent Mercedes specialist.
The original Riviera wats quite a car, based on Buick underpinnings with a special body and specific interior parts. Leather was only available on the ’63 model, then the deluxe interior was high quality vinyl. The custom interior option netted you the full armrests and four door release handles. Both of my 66 models came with that option. After ’65 the interior changed completely. The integrated console and bucket seats were gone and a plain bench was standard. I had had a bucket seat ’67 and 71, but I actually preferred the optional “Astro” bench with the individual back rests and the big pull down armrest, very comfy and it surprisingly held you in place in the curves. The first and second gen Rivs really were the equal to the Eldorado in peformance and prestige.
This car is the automotive “Venus Di Milo” of the early 1960’s.