Greetings from the Pacific NW, The wife and I decided to look for a third gen Riviera to cruise in and reminisce about our high school years. Found one in Seattle and will check it out this week. I look forward to gleaning knowledge from this site!
Welcome from your "southern" neighbor! The search for these old Buick's is half the fun; help from here on the rest of it!! Good luck , let us know what you find.
Greetings from Kent WA! I have a 71 Riv, if I can be of any help, let me know! Is it the one that is on ebay currently? https://www.ebay.com/itm/1972-Buick-Riviera/393037995395?hash=item5b82e3dd83:g:XRQAAOSwwD5fnfsT Thanks, Chris
Welcome from Florida! Good luck on the search. By the way, love the avatar photo. One of my favorite movies!
Welcome from Seattle! Let me know if you need to borrow tools or something ;~) Also, if you scroll down the main Forum listing near the bottom is a cars or sale forum...
For those of you unfamiliar (like I was) with Max Trac https://www.buick-riviera.com/maxtrac.html Also, I understand these computerized selling systems might just scrape the car out of Craigslist, but why would it say Tyler Texas? That's just weird.
The Tx Klompy ad looks to be a scam. In my opinion, the car is (and has been) overpriced. I sold a really nice 71 a few years ago for low 20's, quite a bit nicer than this one. I looked at this for about 2 minutes a few months ago, as it was parked at a gas station near my work in Bellevue. Was not impressed.
Welcome from sunny Southern Washington. Where in the PNW are you located? Good luck with your search.
Thank you for all of your inputs on this vehicle. I agree with cjp69, the Texas ad looks like a scam. In my quest for a Riv I've dealt with a couple of scam sites already: eAutoRiders Warehouse eautoriders.com (Russians) and a link from USClassifieds4all (which originated from an obscure cars for sale link). The second link was a 73 Riv GS 455 Burgundy, owned by (wait for it)... Robert Ballard of Titanic fame!!!! Honest!!! He sent me an email (robertballardexp@gmail.com) and said is was on assignment overseas for NatGeo, but a middleman would sell his car... located in Kent, WA!!!! I told Robert this was fantastic as I lived in WA and wanted to personally inspect the car, pay in cash and take delivery in Kent... <crickets> The old adage of, "If it seems too good to be true, it isn't" rings clearly in my quest for a 3rd gen Riv. I'm not looking for a restoration project or a show car, just a decent looking vehicle I can maintain and drive in the nice desert air. I checked out the owner out and his contact information matched the advertisement information - he lives in the Bellevue suburb of Medina - Bill Gates neighborhood. We exchanged emails and then I called him. The back story on the car is the current owner purchased it from a doctor in Chicago in 2008. Since then he's been putting money into it but doesn't drive it much. He has 9 cars (I confirmed it) and his wife is nagging on him to get rid of some of them, so the Riv went on the for sale circuit. Engine and transmission were rebuilt a couple of years ago and he claims they have around five hundred miles on them. The 455 was built up some and he claims a chassis dyno showed 320 hp at the rear wheels. The owner provided me with a copy of the title and also the contact information for the transmission and carburetor shops that worked on the car. I requested the engine build shop info. I also spoke with the transmission shop owner and he confirmed they did a full rebuild to include a converter with a higher stall point. He characterized the car as being a "nice daily driver but not a show car. Runs well..." I plan on reaching out to the carb shop today to get their assessment. $19,500 is too much, so if I decide to seriously pursue the car, I'll see what kind of price reduction he'll give. Documentation, documentation, documentation... Again, thank you for your inputs and if I purchase the car, I'm sure I'll need more... that tacky tach is going away; dash pad needs replacing; seat split repair; hood hinge adjustment or replace...
So it basically comes down to how much is it worth to him to have his wife stop nagging him vs. him not really wanting to sell it & just being able to say "well, I tried," lol. Good luck - Nice ones come up for sale so don't feel like you have to get this one although sounds like you're doing your due diligence. Not having the GS option (& IMHO the floor shift) hurts the value. Make an offer & if he doesn't take it, give him your contact info.
I used to be an owner of a Boat with the Boat Tail (it was a black 71 Riviera GS) and they are sweet cruising vessels. MPG not so good, though...
Hi Chris - Yes, I drove over yesterday and met him in Issaquah. The body is in good shape for a 48 year old car, but I did spot some very small rust bubbles under the paint in the usual places. The interior is ok, but needs a new dash pad and the passenger bucket seat has a split. The engine stunned me... rebuilt and looking very clean. The TH400 was also rebuilt and it has a nice hipo exhaust system. I drove it and she ran very smooth. Plenty of spunk too, which made me think it should have a posi with all that power. So I looked it over and then decided to buy it if he’d come off the $19,500 asking price. He immediately dropped to $17,000, I offered $16,000 and we agreed to split the difference. $16,500. Bottom line: I’m happy with it. Then I loaded her onto a U-Haul auto transport trailer, cruised over the pass and made it back to the Dry Cities before sunset. I stopped by a friend’s automotive body shop and he did a quick examination. He believes the rust is minor and overall the body is in great shape. Received a whole lot of honks and thumbs up on the trip home. People like the boat tails! Today the wife and I went through the car and found the old paperwork from the original owner! Window sticker and all! On the downside, today the driver’s electric seat quit workings... Guess I’ll have to find the proper manuals and start trouble shooting.
