posted at the Cohort by canadiancatgreen
Cohort Outtake: 1973 Buick Riviera – That’s One Way To Deal With Those Pesky 5-Mile Bumpers
– Posted on June 19, 2019
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Curbside Classics Archives
posted at the Cohort by canadiancatgreen
We’ve been calling the 5 MPH bumpers “cowcatchers” for years, but this guy has taken it to a new level.
I (think) I like the placement, but the fill panel is very busy where it meets the angled radiator frame. I think I’d also like it with the headlights moved down and centered between the bumper and the hood.
Yeah, better I think.
Of course, it’s a quick and dirty fix in Photoshop, but 300 hours of metal work in the shop….
The owner could have gone bit further by swapping the sealed beam headlamps for larger rectangle European headlamps from Ford Europe’s Granada Mk1.
This is a case where you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
The automotive equivalent of an Abe Lincoln beard.
Best solution for the 73s I’ve seen yet! The bumper wouldn’t scare me away on this one!
Do you have any idea what bumper is on the burgundy car I like that look and I have a 73
I guess it good that this boattail Riviera is still on the road, but I don’t get why people are always messing around with the bumpers on the 1971-1973 Rivieras – this is not a good look, nor is a bumper-less Riv.
I really hate it when a 1st gen ‘63-‘65 Riv is chopped and channeled like it’s a ‘49-‘51 James Dean Mercury, and that gorgeous sixties four bucket seat interior is altered.
IMHO if you need to personalize a Riviera do it with a 1970 model – it needs extra help.
As far as I am concerned the Riviera was perfect in 63-65, almost perfect in 66-70, so why fool with perfection. The 71-73 was a let down and after that well… I’ll leave it at that. However, I have never seen a Riviera, whether a 63 or a 73, that looked good as a resto-mod. What a shame about this Riviera.
How about this?
…..or this?
These are quite a good looking car considering the bulk.
George Barris would be impressed. 🙂
Now that these bouncy bumpers are no longer required, is there anything to stop you backdating the car with bumpers/sheetmetal from a ’72 or ’71? Or removing the heavy mechanism behind the bumpers so they’re fixed?
The “heavy mechanism” behind the bumpers is there for a good reason. Just as the bigger so-called bouncy bumpers were engineered and mandated for a very good reason: For your safety. Maybe, perhaps, you’d want to back date the ’73 Riv a little more, to, let’s say 1965, so you can remove its seatbelts. How about removing those heavy steel guard rails inside the doors so you have no side impact protection? Yeah, don’t safety items suck?
Sorry but those big bumpers had nothing to do with safety. They were the result of insurance companies griping about expensive repairs from minor bumps and were there to protect nothing but the sheet metal around them.
What are they gonna do next, remove the roof?!
The last living relative of Ralph Nader….. Lol
I never thought I’d see a Riviera that reminds me of the Family Truckster. There is room for four more headlights!
Locomotive in the front; Boat-tail in the back.
Party on, Garth.
I really dislike most people’s ideas of “improving” a cars looks through customizing. That poor gold Riv looks absolutely stupid with its upside down bumper, and it affords no crash protection either. Just foolish. It reminds me of a little kid building a model kit and not reading the assembly instructions correctly and putting parts in the wrong places or upside down. Stronger bumpers were pushed mainly by insurance companies arguing that the weak, thin bumpers used on many pre 1973 cars were costing insurance companies a lot of money in low speed collisions. Thankfully the safety feds in DC continue to push for safer and safer vehicles. People can piss and moan about the bigger bumpers, but I like the fact that they add a measurable level of protection with a beefy energy absorbing steel bar behind the bumpers. The ’73 Riviera was still a very handsome automobile despite having a larger front bumper that added a monumental level of crash protection over the ’71-72 bumpers.
I don’t think that a 5-mph bumper was any safety asset, nor was it ever advertised as such, nor mandated for that purpose. As mentioned above, the insurance companies were asking for low speed crash protection for the purpose of cheaper repairs, not safety. I recall commercials of the era showing a person walking into a barrier and then a car moving at the same speed doing the same. Obviously, the human suffered no ill effects, but the car had hundreds of dollars of repairs needed. It was a case of policy holders having the audacity to ask insurance companies to pay for repairs to minor accidents, when a big bumper would negate those claims.
Yes, safety became an issue for the feds, but not much of one. NHTSA was formed at the end of 1970, and yet it took how many years for airbags, for example? How many items were required before they already were readily available as options?
Those big bumpers were for the edification of the insurance industry. No one else cared or wanted them.They did nothing but spoil the designs while saving a couple of bucks on repairs to the surrounding metal.
I agree, 70’s cars needed the massive bumper, it fit in fine with the luxury train car look, and it leaves a big empty hole where it used to be, giving the cars very week chins. Hot rodded 50’s cars with no bumper look just as weird.
I remember a TV show where a collanade coupe was customized including making the bumpers slimmer and mounting them closer to the body, it turned out beautiful.