Found: 32,000 actual mile '69 Riv!!!

69 Rivs suck.

 

HAH! Just kidding!

Very nice timecapsule indeed! I have never seen a 69 console IN THE CAR. Mine came from a black interior car, and not being sure of the correct paint scheme, I only painted the outside of the console the color of my saddle interior. Interesting to see that the area around the shifter handle is also the interior color. I left that area all black on mine. Which, I think, looks just fine.

You are very lucky in that the plastic chrome on that console is still all there. Mine is all gone and MAYBE someday I'll send it out for rechroming.

Do yourself a favor, before you tackle any repairs/upgrades/mods, contact me first. Believe me, there are certain ways the 69 Riv has to be handled the first time you do a job or you'll be spending a lot of extra money to correct it later.

That is the identical color scheme as my car. If you look hard at the seatcovers you'll see a "two-tone" effect, called "antique". Unfortunately for me that process in unable to be duplicated on door skins. I can get the seats redone in the OEM fabric, but the doors wouldn't match from the sun baking and fading them. And the upholsterer is unable to dye the doors to match the antique. So I'm converting to a black interior, which will look fine too.

What radio does it have? FM stereo with seperate amp was available at the time (for the rear seat speaker). AC? Does it still blow cold? It would be something if it still had a charge after sitting 20 years!

Really nice score. I love the road wheels, but they do allow the wheels to sit too inboard for modern tastes, espacially the fronts. They look almost lost in there. The cornering lamps are killer. Just a beautiful treatment on the fenders.

A word of advice if I may... find disc brake pads now and store them for when you need them. Word is they are becoming incredibly hard to find.

Rightious ride, just beautiful!

 

Thanks a million for all the kind words and I really appreciate all the advice. As a matter of fact, the air does still hold the original charge and, yes, it does blow cold...this is the God's honest truth. I am pretty familiar with the 1969 Rivieras as my first car was a '69 Riv and altogether, between my Dad and I (I'm 36 now, he's 60) we've owned seven including this one (this is my third, he's had four, I also owned a '72 and a really nice '71, I'm not including these in the totals though as they are just too different). This is by far the nicest. He owned a 1969 GS350 4-speed that he bought new and I had a '72 Stage1 after I sold my first '69 Riv, I guess we qualify as a Buick family!

 

You might want to keep an eye on these.
Disc Brake Pads

 

I second the fact of the brake pads being hard to find. It took me abouth a month of searching to get them for my riv. Now I need to get new rotors.

nice car, will

 

Brake pads are frequently on Ebay, they are the same for 67-68-69 LeSabre Wildcat Electra and Riviera models. I got two spare sets for cheap, one is a Delco like the one in the auction, it has the same part #.

The rotors are much harder to find however. Until now, I only got used ones...
I almost bought a 68 Electra Limited parts car just for it's disc brakes but the owner wanted 1000$ for it... It was running, it had a great interior and chrome trim but the frame was bad, the engine made a loud noise and there was body filler everywhere on it...

The calipers are also expensive to rebuild, I had one that leaked on my Riv my Buick dealer sent it for repair as the car was being fixed for an accident repair and it took weeks before they got it back, and it did cost about 400$ :eek2:
I replaced both on my 74 and 75, they had them in stock at NAPA and it cost 40$ for both sides!
There are also inexpensive rebuild kits that appear sometimes on Ebay for the 67-69 calipers, I have bought one since but haven't used it.