A Time of Change
Our goal in moving from Endicott to Vestal, NY in winter of 1974 was recapturing the rural magic of living in Unadilla. While the move was a well-intended attempt, the results were uneven.
I quite liked living in Endicott. Coming from Unadilla, Endicott was like “big city” living to me: sidewalks, street lights, and ice cream trucks (!); corner stores (that sold balsa wood gliders!), parks and school within walking distance. I’d made a couple of good friends at school. Also, the regional food specialty: Spiedies!
Moving meant another mid-school-year change. I was in the middle of second grade and headed to my third school district. Where Unadilla was pastoral and idyllic, our location in Vestal was remote and isolated. There were few surrounding homes and even fewer kids around my age. I resumed riding the bus to school. Both our driveway and our road were steeply graded; “bicycle riding” meant coasting downhill and pushing your bike back uphill. On top of that, the green wagon was getting rustier and rustier every day.
“In stocks of local interest, . . .”
My father had worked nights at GAF (General Aniline & Film) since we moved to Endicott. Some of you may remember GAF or its predecessor, Ansco. GAF, like Kodak, was in the camera/film/chemistry/paper business. But, unlike Kodak, GAF was much smaller and far less successful. In the late 1920s, Ansco merged with Agfa of Germany to become Agfa-Ansco (A-A). With access to Agfa’s technology and resources, A-A enjoyed record earnings in the late 1930s.
A recently-constructed Binghamton plant during the Agfa-Ansco period. I’d guess mid- to late-1930s, based on the cars. In the upper left, the “Agfa” portion of the sign has been covered with what appears to be ballpoint pen. “Agfa” script appears on the water tower.
However, the U.S. government seized and nationalized A-A as enemy property in 1942 with America’s entry into World War 2. Along the way, the name changed back to Ansco. After 20 plus years of government supervision and limited investment, the company, by then renamed GAF after its parent corporation, was running on fumes when finally sold in the mid-1960s.
The Agfa-Ansco building in the previous photo, the last one left in Binghamton, was recently renovated into a sexy mixed-use commercial/loft apartment complex shown here. It’s called, fittingly, The Ansco.
By the mid-1970s, it was clear that GAF’s consumer filmmaking business was winding down. But like the turmoil of inflation and the energy crisis, GAF’s troubles were invisible to me in early 1976. Looking back, I thought we lived comfortably then, at least comfortably enough for my father to splurge on some real wheels!
Going to Get Some Quality
“Quality Motors” was our destination. It still exists, with the same name and sign, still in Johnson City, just a mile or two from their previous lot. They often stocked interesting (to an eight-and-change-year-old boy) vehicles, like El Caminos, early ’70s GM A-bodies, and the like.
Different location, same sign.
On the way to see the car, I asked my mother what kind of car we were getting. “A Buick,” she replied. When I asked which model it was, all she would tell me is that, “it starts with an ‘R’.”
Why do parents say things like that to children? Why, why, why? For the rest of the ride, I bounced my brain around my cranium as I recalled which Buick models started with an R. Roadmaster? No, too old. Regal? Has to be Regal.
“It’s a Regal!” I declared. “Nope,” replied my mother.
“It HAS to be a Regal!” I countered. “No, it’s not a Regal. Keep thinking about it,” she said.
Stumped, I stewed in the back seat of the green wagon. With my “expansive knowledge” of vehicle makes and models, it irked me that I drew a blank on the model.
First impressions
At the lot, I hotfooted over to the car. “Riviera, ohhh . . . .” Immediately, I forgot about the “Great Model Name Irritation Crisis of 1976.” I’d certainly seen Rivieras before, but not like this one.
Some of us like things that are different than what others have. My father was like that and I am, too. The Buick was my first exposure to that philosophy. At the time, I thought it looked customized and fast, with its body side sweepspear trim, fender skirts and fastback roof line. Today, the proportions remind me a bit of Johnny Bravo’s long torso and short legs: looong hood, looong doors, and small rear quarters and trunk. The effect is more pronounced to me on ’70s with the shorter fender skirts. Our car’s full skirts somewhat mitigated that effect but also made the rear quarters look heavy-hipped and formal.
1970 Riviera: Proportionally, the “Johnny Bravo” of personal luxury coupes.
Johnny Bravo: Proportionally the “1970 Riviera” of cartoon characters. From Pinterest.
Bill Mitchell wanted the ’70 to look more “French.” I hope he meant Talbot-Lago and not Citroen DS21. The ‘70 was styled for full fender skirts; shorty skirts, as on the white car above, came later.
The Green Machine
The exterior was Emerald Mist, with the body side sweep spear trim in a complimentary Sherwood Green. I thought the darker color made the trim itself more subtle than if painted in a high contrast color. But, I’ve always had mixed feelings about that trim: one part of me saw it as frivolous gingerbread; the other part thought other ’70s without it were a bit bland. Today, I think the sweet spot might be to keep the trim but paint it body color, allowing the trim’s thin chrome outline to provide contrast as on the vehicle below.
The body-colored sweepspear adds a subtle highlight. Also, no vinyl top. Buick road wheels could make an oxcart look good.
Gloriously, ours evaded the dreaded, trendy vinyl top option. Most of the ’70s I’ve seen have them, and while some top colors are more complimentary than others, I prefer the entire exterior to be the same color.
Meet me in the club room
The interior was the standard pattern in black vinyl, which on sunny days was quite unkind to shorts-clad legs and bare arms. Fake woodgrain trim and numerous brushed or chrome accents on the doors and dashboard provided a fitting contrast. I still prefer this interior over the optional ones — it’s more “1960s” while the upgraded interiors are more “1970s” and “proto-brougham.”
The twin to the interior in our ’70. To me, the interior had a strong “man’s car/club room” vibe.
Even its power window switches were impressive: a big chrome switch surrounded by a big chrome bezel, or four big chrome switches in a giant chrome bezel on the driver’s door. I half expected to see the lights dim throughout Broome County when I pushed the button.
I had the back seat and center speaker all to myself.
A Work of Art. “Art who?” I wondered.
But the pièce de résistance was the console and shifter. Oh my, the console! If my father had said, “I bought this car just for the console,” I would have replied, “Of course you did. All ’70 Riviera owners did.” It was a piece of mid-century art to me: shapely, lean, with a strip of chrome molding that separated the smooth matte black finish from the black textured plastic.
Few gauges; lots of lights. I guess speedometer and fuel gauge are all you really need. Alternator idiot light lens says “GEN” — if they haven’t changed it by 1969, no need to change it for 1970.
In front of the shifter, the wood-grained area with the Riviera “R” stencil covered a small storage area that held the obligatory pack or two of cigarettes. Behind the shifter, with the lockable button on top, was the door to a larger storage area.
Details count: Stylized silver “R” on the front storage door; thin silver stencil running parallel to the wood-grain’s perimeter; shift pattern in black on an arch of chrome.
But, the shifter itself, with its cantilevered, pushbutton handle and arched, chrome shift pattern plate; the pattern cast into the plate and highlighted in black . . . . My, my, my. I didn’t have any words then and I don’t have any now. It’s the most elegant feature on the car. I’ve rarely seen other ’70 Rivieras with the console/shifter, but while working on this installment I found a couple of ’69s with it. Push in the button and the handle slides with a heavy, well-oiled motion that implied “ready for flight” when it chunked into D and the whole car did the “Turbo 400 Squat.”
Cleared for takeoff
To me, it was ready for flight. It’s hard to avoid romanticizing sensations from so long ago; I choose my words cautiously now as I write this. But, the Buick just flat-out moved. In its time with us, and for many years afterward, I considered its 455 V8/Turbo-Hydramatic 400 combination to be peak “classic” General Motors drivetrain excellence. The engine and transmission were perfectly matched. The 455 had that muscular, slightly ominous “blub-ub-ub-ub-ub-blub-ub-ub-ub” at idle. But, this was an upscale “gentleman’s car” — no lumpy/lopey idle and droning exhaust here. This sled had dual exhaust with mufflers and resonators (!) even, to keep that tone audible but never coarse.
The co-pilot’s view. Not much to do; enjoy the ride and periodically watch the scenery pass very quickly.
My father was not a “hot dog” driver, at least not with me in the car. But, I considered him to be an excellent driver: smooth control inputs, situationally aware, focused on the road, and kept a good pace. Thankfully, he was certainly not averse to “blowing the carbon out” periodically. Passing other cars was a glorious treat for the senses, and so easy to do. Just push the accelerator to the floor: The Quadrajet’s hungry secondaries immediately snapped open—AIRR! MOREAIRRRMOREMOREMORE!!—the Turbo 400 smartly downshifted RIGHTNOW!!—and, in full afterburner mode, we shot past the slower vehicle. And the soundtrack, even muted by the resonators, was 100% muscle car to my ears.
On a two-lane road, waiting for a straightaway to make a multi-car pass? This is the car. If Wheaties cereal put cars instead of athletes on the front of the box, the Buick would be there, rendered in a glorious illustration with lots of speed lines.
Buick 455 looks modest in enormous engine compartment with standard gratuitous front overhang. What it lacked in aesthetics, it made up for in torque, drivability, and durability.
A quick learner
The Riviera’s arrival gave me quite an education. A few things I learned right off the bat:
- I liked the “squished into the seat” sensation from the Buick’s 510 lb.-ft. of torque. I liked it a lot. It seemed like we had enough torque to reverse the Earth’s rotation if needed.
- It was good that we sold the white ’66 Ford wagon (a.k.a. “my car”)–I’d found “my car” for real this time. Problem solved.
- On paper, a 10.3 cu.-ft. trunk on a car this size was hilariously inadequate. But the Riviera was a personal car, not a family car, unless you were a family of three, like us.
- Dad really hit it out of the park with this car, as far as I was concerned. I loved it and never wanted it to go away. Ever.
Length: 215.5 in. Width: 79.3 in. Curb weight: 4,216 lb. Trunk capacity: 10.3 cu.-ft. Wait . . . 10.3 cu.-ft.? That’s it? Note that trunk depth tapers from “kiddie pool” to “nearly two-dimensional.”
Vacation motoring
Our big vacation for 1976 was Hershey Park and Gettysburg for the Bicentennial. Naturally, we took the Buick.
Fourth of July, 1976: My father at our motel in Gettysburg, PA. If you’ve read my other COAL installments, you’ve noticed the admittedly poor image quality of our family photos. I blame it primarily on low-end 110- and 126-film cameras, with a small side of GAF film.
My mother and I get our turn next to the car. I hope I quickly outgrew those rust-colored pants.
I remember a lot of walking on the various battlefields, the parade on July 4th, and a group of Civil War re-enactors “camped” on the grounds of the restaurant where we had dinner. A few of them played Civil War-era songs on period instruments as they cooked over a fire, and the restaurant got real quiet while they played. I think the patrons were reflecting on what it must have been like during the actual battle.
On the road again
Speaking of Bicentennial spirit, autumn of 1976 brought some spirited conversation around the house about “exploring new careers,” shall we say. My mother enlightened my father to the fact that, as I approached 10 years of age, he and I barely knew each other. She was right. (Not for the first time, not for the last time.) Other than the first couple of years after I was born, he had been either on the road booking bands or working nights at GAF.
Her point received, he hit the want ads and in early 1977 found an opportunity in Rochester, NY. Beginning in February, he stayed in Rochester during the week while my mother and I remained in Vestal. He’d drive home Friday evening, then return to Rochester Sunday evening. By May, the job was going great, everything was falling into place, and we were planning our move to Rochester. I even started summer vacation two weeks early, as we left in early June.
Got Room?
When it was actually time to leave, we had a problem. The moving company had come and gone, and we had set aside various odds and ends in different sizes, as well as Smokey, our beloved gray cat, to take with us. At this point, the green wagon was also gone, sold to a colleague in Rochester. Which left the Buick, with its limited rear seat room and 10.3 cu.-ft. trunk.
In the end, everything fit . . . barely. I half-squatted/half-balanced on the end of the console, my arms resting on the top of the bucket seats. Smokey was next to me in her carrier, propped up on the back seat. At that time, driving from Vestal to Rochester took about three-and-a-half to four hours. For the whole trip, Smokey entertained us with a non-stop performance of her famous hit, “MrrooOWWWW! . . . , MrroOOWWW! . . . MrrooOWWWW! . . . MrroOOWWW! . . . MrrooOWWWW! . . . ” in the Buick’s cozy interior.
Ironically, that same summer, GAF withdrew from the consumer photography market and closed the consumer film operation in Binghamton.
Meanwhile, the Buick ferried us around Rochester for several months as we explored the region. Although the Buick’s COAL story is not fully told, it is on temporary hiatus, as in early 1978 a brand new car was on the horizon. Our next COAL installment highlights what I considered the greatest perk of working: a company car! What could it be? A GM B-body? A final-year Mopar C-body? An early production Ford/Mercury Panther platform? One hint: it’s not one of those “foreign” cars. Stay tuned for more.
Related CC reading on the ’66-’70 Riviera:
Curbside Classic: 1966 Buick Riviera – The Ultimate Mitchell Mobile?
Thanks for a a great story. I wasn’t aware of that shifter, it’s a gem.
All that effort for a shifter that’s a work of art, and then they combine it with a generic, non-descript Buick steering wheel.
Agreed re: steering wheel. The OEM wood grain ones with the stainless steel spokes are more my speed.
Thanks for another great article! I love the details about the towns and the moves, too. This car immediately made me think of a car in my family I had not thought of in years. A 1970 Electra 225, bought new by my great-uncle “Unc”. Same steering wheel for sure, but no cool floor shifter, and a very similar dash. It was silver with a black top and black brocade cloth interior. It was his wife’s car (“Aunt Lu”), and she rarely if ever drove anywhere.
I don’t recall it too much from when it was new, because he had an orange 1970 GTO (with a bright white vinyl interior) which I played in all the time when I was a kid. They bought both cars new as their nice “retirement cars” like people did back then (they were both born in 1899). You would have to know Unc to understand him buying an orange GTO at age 71….he was a prominent architect where I grew up, and a “Mad Men” kind of guy.
When they moved to a retirement village in 1978, he sold the GTO and they kept the Electra. By 1985, I had my learner’s permit, Aunt Lu had died, and Unc had stopped driving. He offered the Electra to me, which had very low miles and a new paint job and vinyl top. It looked amazing. My Dad put a stop to that, saying “you don’t want that old barge”.
I went on to have a 1982 BMW 320i as my first car, which I wrote up as a COAL, and of course I loved it. But man, that Electra was something else. If I had to pick one to get back in my garage right now, I’d want that Electra.
Glad you enjoyed the article. A ‘70 Electra rings all the right bells for me, too. Silver and black is a very elegant combo for that time. Before we got the Riviera, my father and I test drove a ‘70 Electra convertible, dark metallic blue with a white top and interior. It got the job done on the highway, too. My dad liked it more than I think he expected to. He went back to the dealer a couple of days later and it was gone. Sometimes I wonder if it was the impetus that led to our acquisition of the Riviera.
Your “Unc” and “Aunt Lu” sound like my kind of people. I’m fascinated by the idea of someone born in 1899 buying an orange GTO. Props to him for getting what he wanted. I also have to say that you having a 320i as a first car is pretty cool.
My dad’s best friend had a Riv of this generation for a while. It was the first car I was ever in that had power windows. I remember the chrome switches and bezels well! It also had the cool shifter.
I never got to shoot any Ansco/GAF film while it was fresh, but a couple years ago someone sent me a roll of GAF Versapan 125 b/w film to try. It had been stored frozen since the 1970s. I published some of the images I got on my blog.
https://blog.jimgrey.net/2021/12/03/shooting-gaf-125-ansco-versapan-black-and-white-film/
I recently started digitizing old family photos from the 1950s and ’60s, which included quite a few Anscochrome slides. Overall they held up quite well, not quite as well as the “just took this photo yesterday” look of Kodachrome, but vastly better than early Ektachrome slides which turned monochrome red and white over time. I’m a bit too young to remember when the Ansco brand was still in use, but I clearly remember GAF (which I didn’t know was related until recently) from three things: (1) they made the View-Master 3D film reels and viewer I had a a kid, (2) they were the official film at Disney World when I went there twice in the early ’70s, the only film available at the park, and (3) they made a high-speed ISO 500 film that allowed indoor shots without flash, which often meant single-use flashbulbs or flashcubes back then. Kodak’s fastest color film at the time was ISO 160 High Speed Ektachrome. But the GAF 500-speed film produced grainy, orangish slides so I only used it once or twice. GAF to me seemed to be the second most popular film brand in the US at the time, though a distant second place to Kodak. Maybe they weren’t; I noticed they seemed to just go away in the mid ’70s; GAF today makes roofing and sealants.
La673–We also have some pictures on Anscochrome slides. We’ve never figured out why my father did that because we never had a slide projector. We also have two sizes of slides: the ones from the ‘50s have faded substantially and are an odd size; the ones from the ‘60s are a more standard size and seem to have held their color much better. We still don’t have a slide projector, haha.
I have an Ansco Speedex here that belonged to my father—I believe that’s what the ‘50s slides were taken with. My father did a seven-year stint at Ansco back in the ‘50s and I assume that’s when he bought the camera.
Ansco film was also used on some of the early U.S. manned spaceflight launches. And yes, they were a distant second to Kodak, which is part of why they pulled the plug on consumer film in the ‘70s.
Part of the reason they were a distant second was thanks to George Eastman. Eastman infringed on Ansco patents and dragged out the trial. The issue was eventually settled 10 years later with Ansco receiving $ 5 million, which would have been a substantial amount of money in 1914. But, by that time, Kodak was so much bigger than Ansco, there was nothing Ansco was going to do to catch them.
I’m unclear as to whether by “odd size” you’re referring to the cardboard mounts or the film slide itself. All slide mounts I’ve ever seen are 2″ x 2″, except for the 30mm x 30mm plastic mounts used with early 110-film slides for use in “pocket Carousel” projectors that didn’t catch on. I vaguely recall occasionally seeing 35mm slides with a film window that was a bit taller than usual, but the main alternative size was “half-frame” 35mm which squeezed two frames into the space usually used for one, doubling the number of shots per roll at the expense of resolution; the camera had to feed the film vertically to get landscape-orientation photos.
As for why your dad shot slide film, I’m guessing it’s because Kodacolor negative/print film in 35mm (135) size wasn’t sold until 1958, whereas 135 Kodachrome has been around since 1936. The colors on early print film emulsions also tended to wander off a bit, with blue skies looking turquoise. Not everyone used projectors; tabletop or handheld slide viewers were popular. Prints back then were much smaller than the 4×6″ or 5×7″ prints that late were the norm so some preferred to use slide film.
Jim—Great results with the Versapan! Made me want to go to the Kopper Kettle. I took a required media photography class back in college (using an early ‘80s GAF-branded 35mm that was made by another company) and have much respect for people like you who honed their skills on the whole process, developing and all. I ruined many rolls of Kodak B&W in that class just trying get them developed.
Great story and well-written, Chris!
Count me as a lover of the ’70 Riv too, and it was wonderful learning about it from the perspective of someone from my generation. All those details that a grade-schooler would notice. I also like the photos that you included… and appreciate the omission of one that you did not show: those dastardly looking headlights!
Thanks, Paul. One advantage of those headlights was it made the car instantly identifiable at night. When, as a teen, I started working part-time at the mall, it was easy to tell when my dad was coming to pick me up: the low-beam headlights were further apart from each other than any other car on the road.
I’d forgotten about the GAF AGFA/ANSCO connection. What I remember are the GAF Viewmaster commercials with Henry Fonda https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x35gy9u. Another enjoyable writeup. Thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it, Ron. You know, you would think that I’d have a much bigger stockpile of View-Master slides and viewers. I have some slides, but the viewers seem to have gotten purged along the way.
It’s funny that you posted that ad. When we flew from Rochester to Toronto that summer, we got on an elevator in a hotel and Henry Fonda was on the elevator. He and my dad (a big movie buff as a child and teen in the ‘30s and ‘40s) casually shot the breeze about his movies for a minute or so.
Meanwhile, my mother says to me, “That’s Henry Fonda.” I replied, “No it’s not.” For some reason, I was going through a phase at that age I thought I was being BSed most of the time. So, she kept telling me it was him and that I should ask for his autograph, and I kept telling her that it wasn’t him. I’m sure she would have liked to slap me silly.
I remember GAF and Agfa as well as Agfa-Ansco, but never knew the connnection. In fact my first camera was a 120 Agfa. Now I associate GAF with “asphalt” roofing. I’ve bought my share of GAF Timberline shingles. As for the Riv, I’m an American of the right age to be familiar with that console and shifter, but it had completely slipped my memory. Wow!! There’s a black Riviera that I sometimes see driving around town; if I catch it parked somewhere I’ll have to peek inside and see it for real – if it has that configuration.
Thanks for a great story and refreshing my memories of a beautiful car.
Glad you liked it, dman. Yeah, there was a chemical component to that GAF operation that tied them in with roofing materials. The photography/films part got sold off: at one point, it was part of International Paper Co, then part of it got renamed as Anitec, and the part that ended up with the GAF brand name was the roofing.
Re: the console and shifter — To me, the interior is nothing without the console/shifter — it could be any 1970 Buick.
Endicott: well I live there (Endwell actually) and it’s recently been coming out of a 30 year slumber initiated when IBM decided to pink-slip 15,000 employees starting in the ’70s and E-Js (Endicott-Johnson, the world’s largest shoemaker), equally large, went belly up in the ’80s. But nowadays:
High tech at Binghamton University, where Nobel Prize winning Stan Whittingham, the co-inventor of the Lithium battery is a Prof and is spearheading new battery technology, which is finally rejuvenating the place, with old factories torn down or repurposed for the new tech, and some like the Ansco Lofts and amazingly the huge old E-J “Victory” Building even being turned into gorgeous MCM lofts. If you have’t been back the transformation is great to see.
https://www.victorylofts.com/
The Spiedie Fest still highlights our local gourmet treat, and legends like the biggest Mafia bust in history, the FBI Apalachin Raid of 1958, still resonate here, and the old mob haunt The Oak Hill Inn, is still there in all it’s ’50s glory. Several excellent micro-breweries have popped up, great food everywhere, especially Italian…lots of fun stuff these days!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachin_meeting
As to the ’70 Riv, a young couple I used to babysit for had the same car, in the same green, it was a very different car, less sporty than previous Rivs, but had a really sophisticated vibe, imo the skirts really suited the look… I’d take one!
That Riv console is beyond cool… but to the instrument panel was a huge let-down after the ones that came before, minimal “gages” (in GM speak) and plastic-y.
The ’66/67 Riv’s panel is one of my favorite of any car ever, full gauges (the Toro didn’t have that, odd for such a ground-breaking car) a great design, done in metal, and the console even had real wood. Here’s a pic of my friend’s ’67 GS:
The circular gauge oh the RH side of the console, is it a vacuum gauge? If so, added during a “gas crunch” of the 70s?
Yep, good looking interior on that car! I think the Toro also had the revolving drum speedometer, didn’t it?
Actually iirc it’s a tach, being a GS model he drives it quite enthusiastically.
yes all 3 of my Toros had the drum speedo, up to and including ’70, but as time went on they lost the other “gages” of the ’66 except for Fuel, oddly.
Randerson! I love Endwell! I always wished we had bought a home there rather than in Vestal. My wife and I still go to the Triple Cities relatively frequently, especially when the weather is nice. We have been known to pick up an order from Lupo’s and periodically take it to Northside Park to enjoy. If I had a job offer that required me to move to that area, I’d be looking for a house in Endwell.
Yeah, the 1-2 punch of IBM and E-J was bad. My grandfather Clark was a lifer at E-J (and I’m talking about from like 1905-1945). There were many employers that dried up down there: IBM and E-J as you noted, GE had an operation there, Ansco/GAF, Link Aviation (of flight simulator fame), Kroehler (“World’s largest furniture maker!”
Even after all the visits my wife and I have made over the years (she loves the area, the food, all the old haunts), I have never really gotten used to the current state of Washington Avenue in Endicott. So forlorn and neglected looking.
Re: food — I still feel like I know more good places to eat (and I don’t mean chain restaurants) in that area than I do in Rochester, and I haven’t lived in the Triple Cities area since 1977.
Re: ‘66-67 dash — Agreed — the ‘70 shows the beginning of the great “plastification” era. Hard to beat the barrel speedometer. Brilliant idea.
Another great chapter. And thanks for reminding me about that shifter and console. What a gem, even if the updates on the Riviera’s styling were less than stellar.
Thanks, Paul. I agree that compared to the ‘66-‘69s, the ‘70 is not as cohesive of a design. It’s a bit fussy and very sensitive to exterior color choice, which I tend to use as a metric for assessing the success of a design. I’ve seen a ton of these in Bamboo Cream with a brown vinyl top and find them gag-worthy. But that 455 and certain parts of the interior made up for a lot of that.
Sweet ! .
I don’t remember these well but I did have a close friend in the 60’s who’d father was a BUICK Man and he had more than a few really nice cars .
-Nate
Nate—As a child and young adult in the ‘70s and ‘80s, I was happy to identify myself as a Buick man. Once the G-bodies went FWD with the GM-10 cars, they lost me. I found the FWD B-bodies to be a mixed bag (liked the LeSabre T-type; the Electra/Park Ave not so much). Other than the Opel Insignia-based Regal in the 2010s, they’ve not done much to draw me back.
I remember thinking of that model year as “distinctive”, but a “bit off”. Dr ((can’t shake out his name)) had a brown one for a long spell.
Used to see it in the small lot next to the “aged, Medical Arts building” in my hometown.
Don’t recall if it had the fender skirts.
I generally prefer the 1965 to 1969 Riviera’s, but this 1970 looks good in white with the black vinyl top and no fenderskirts. This car looks much sportier without rear wheel skirts. And, the red/maroon car also looks good without the vinyl top, even though it has skirts!
I wonder why GM changed the car so much for just one year before it was radically restyled in 1971.
The Toronado got new, single-year sheetmetal, too. Then there was the single-year ’70 Buick Estate Wagon.
My guess is that the original plan was to largely carry it over for 1971, then do a major for ’72. GM’s large cars seemed to be on a 6-year cadence in these years… 1959-64, 1965-70, 1971-76… with every other year seeing a major refresh, at least in the Sixties. In the Seventies it was every three years. But at some point they seemed to realize that the Riv needed to share more with the B-bodies, so they short-cycled it and did a major for 1971.
Longhornaccord—Agreed that the white car with black top and shorty skirts is attractive. As a teen, my objective was to go with the shorty skirts and OEM Buick road wheels when it became my car. I also agree that the red car with no vinyl top and full skirts looks good, too.
It does seem like an inordinately high number of changes for a model one year away from a complete redesign and new platform. Another rumor I picked up somewhere was that they wanted the boat tail for ‘70 but it was delayed to ‘71, so maybe that was part of the rationale for the ‘70 update.
Paul West—Another consideration may have been that they wanted to get rid of the x-frame as this gen Riviera was the remaining vehicle still using it.
Great story! My memory isn’t as good as it once was!!
My father was a Buick man for the early part of my life. When I was born, he was driving a 1962 maroon Invicta convertible. It was just beautiful. Then after it was stolen, he went to a 1967 LeSabre custom convertible. Not my favorite car and he was rear ended in that. Then he went through a couple of Cadillacs and Lincoln’s before finally letting me pick his new car in 1978- a black Electra 225.
When things went bad with the economy in 1979, he went bankrupt. He knew that he had to relinquish his Buick and came outside where I was waxing it, and he began to weep. Now dad didn’t ever show me a soft side, so I was taken aback. I asked what was going on and he told me that he did not want to lose this car because he and my mom were going to surprise me with it when I graduated in 1981. It made sense more why he asked me what options were important to me. Tilt wheel, cruise control, velour seats, etc and he bought it as I described it to him.
In the end everything was OK. He went on to bounce back from his bankruptcy (he was 57 when that happened)
he and my mom were getting along much better, and he surprised me with a 1977 Cutlass Supreme Brougham. But that’s another story
Chip—Thank you for sharing those poignant memories. Glad things turned around for your folks and I would have been pretty pleased with a ‘77 Cutlass. Sounds like you were pretty pleased yourself.
GAF (General Aniline and Film) has an interesting and controversial history. Prior to and during WWII, it was controlled by the German conglomerate I.G. Farben, a major contributor to the Nazi war machine, including the production of Zyklon B, the gas used in Nazi concentration camps. The U.S. government seized GAF and all of its stock in 1942 as enemy property. The government essentially ran the company until 1962, when it sold its stock in a Wall street IPO. GAF operated as a totally U.S. corporation thereafter.
GM and Ford also had extensive operations and in Nazi Germany prior to WWII. Hitler was such an admirer of Henry Ford he kept a picture of him on his desk and awarded him the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.
Thank you for the background. Indeed, I didn’t know about GAF’s history tied with Nazi Germany. As a kid, I just remembered GAF for the View-Master slides, with Henry Fonda pitching them. My understanding is that that product now belongs to Mattel, which makes sense.
I was also a photography buff as a kid, and remember taking photos with Ansco cameras, and Agfa film, though I didn’t know they were connected.
Great story, and great car too! There are few better pleasures in life than being a little kid, and going with mom and dad to pick up the family’s new car. Doubly great when it’s a car like this.
I’m several years younger than you, but I remember seemingly everyone took vacations to Gettysburg and Valley Forge around the Bicentennial.
Eric703–Glad you enjoyed it. Yes, going to get the new car was always super exciting. I told my wife a few years ago to give thanks for the current state of new automobiles, because it meant I would no longer be wasting hours on car lots looking around—there’s very little of interest to me to look at.
Another great story from your childhood. The ’70 Riviera was a transition model between the end of the second gen styling, to the Boat tail of the early ’70’s. From what I’ve read, the “French” that Bill Mitchell referred to was the 1937 Delage D8 120 Aero Sport coupe. I think that Mitchell wanted to prime consumers for the upcoming neo classical
’71 El Dorado.
The ’70 Riv was the first year for the 455 engine, and as usual, the Riv was a satisfying and powerful road car, despite the tiny trunk.
The Riviera was always a special car, I sure miss cars like this.
Thank you Jose. The Delage influence makes perfect sense, as it also has the same body side character line that dips past the the front door. It’s much more pronounced on the Delage. That character line made a prominent appearance on ‘50s Buicks like the ‘53-‘54 Skylark and the trim on Buick’s whole ‘57 product line.
Excellent point on the ‘71 Eldorado. I remember my dad and I test driving a used one of those in ‘74-‘75. That crazy 500 cu.-in.V8.
I really enjoyed this one, and it gave me a new appreciation for the ’70 Riviera, which I’d always regarded as a letdown compared to the gorgeous ’66 model.
21delray — Glad you enjoyed it. It’s tough to compare a facelift like the ‘70 to an original design like ‘66-‘69. I rarely find facelifts to be an improvement on the original. My dad was definitely a “fender skirt” kind of guy; I also think that its relative rarity at the time was appealing to him. It wasn’t a car you saw coming and going every day.
I really enjoyed your well written story! I remember these Buicks. A very different and unique personal cruiser. Now that shifter is a real piece of sculpture…awesome. Would love to feel the physical selection of the gears. Never have driven one of these but would like to. Reminds me of the sound and feeling of closing the door on my 993. The pure sound of quality.
William—Glad you enjoyed it. Honestly, until writing this COAL, I never gave much thought to how very 1960s this car still was, regardless of its plasticized dash, anodyne steering wheel and 1970 model year designation. And I think we’d all agree that 1960s cars have a more “mechanical” kind of feel to them.
I like the comparison between closing the door your 993 and the Riviera’s console shifter. I would not recommend comparing door closing on the two — GM loved their frameless door windows but it didn’t take much for the glass to rattle around in there. I had an E36 series 328is coupe and felt that was “frameless door glass” done right.
The ’70 Riviera is notable for being the last GM car to use the cruciform X frame, which was dropped from other GM cars (only some of which used it) after 1964.
Chris, you are a fine raconteur. I have enjoyed reading your remarks. So sorry that you grew out of those rust-colored pants (snicker). Your description of the Riviera makes the car fascinating. As for Endicott, it is a three-hour drive from Valley Cottage. So, I might be putting that on our day trip list for this summer. I agree that the dashboard is boring and rather “one size fits all.” The steering wheel, too. As for the rest of the Riviera, just beautiful.
Thomas, I take great pride in your “raconteur” description. And Valley Cottage — I was in your neck of the woods periodically when I’d travel to Volvo Cars North America HQ in Rockleigh, NJ.
Randerson above points out some entertaining activities in the area, such as the Spiedie Fest. You might want to plan a visit when there is an event. Not knowing your interests, I am concerned that you might travel to Endicott just to say, “What is this place?!?!?!” Its downtown area is neglected and run down. But, if you like places that show the remnants of what once was, or like to shop for mid-century furniture, or occasionally discover an artifact from IBM or E-J shoes, it’s a fun place to go explore. There is an excellent used book store on Washington Avenue called the Book Vault. Have bought many history books and biographies here.
Lupo’s Char-Pit on Main St is our go-to lunch spot. The first warm day of the year, my wife and I drive to Lupo’s, split a footlong chicken spiedie sub and a large fries (essentially a paper lunch bag stuffed with fries), sit under their low-rent corrugated steel carport thing that serves as a covered dining area, look at the crummy strip plaza across the road, watch and listen as cars and motorcycles and trucks speed back and forth, and agree there is nowhere else we’d rather be at that moment.
Bring cash—Lupo’s doesn’t do plastic.
The 70 is the most underrated Riviera design and by a mile the best of GMs 1970 one year wonder PLCs (the Eldorado was toned down and the Toronado… well…) The Riviera in my opinion got uglified with the 68 facelift and the thorough restyle for 1970 not only gave it a clean new face but elegant new sheetmetal from bumper to bumper on the already beautiful 66 profile. Frankly Buick should have kept this in production instead of the boat tail generation.
The 70 Buick 455 is one of the best GM V8s ever. Hard to find fault all the way around, except for that steering wheel!
XR7Matt—Agree, the ‘68 bumper treatment is not my favorite either. Not crazy about the headlight placement — I always thought the re-do was so the Riviera and ‘68 Toronado could share related hidden headlight parts during production.
I think the Buick 455 is an underrated engine. It had a lot of power but was smooth as butter at idle. Easy to live with everyday. The Q-jet and cruise control allowed us to squeak out 17-18 mpg highway, which I thought was very reasonable given there is nothing on that car that encourages economy.
The boattail seems to have come into its own over the last 15-20 years or so. For a long time, it was a polarizing design — people either loved it or hated it. My father was not a fan. As a child, I would not have traded our ‘70 for one. I thought it seemed big for big’s sake. It wasn’t until much later that I heard about it being designed for the A-body special/1969 Grand Prix frame.I would have liked to see the design applied to those dimensions.
I don’t dislike the boat tail either, funny enough I actually liked it more when I was young first discovering cars, as I’ve gotten older it’s awkward aspects stand out to me as much as the interesting aspects. Really the boat tail aspect is still something I find interesting to look at, but unlike any Riviera before it the Electra roots are more obvious than previous two generations, which looked truly special. It’s kind of like the 66 Dodge Charger with it’s obvious coronet roots below it’s fastback roofline, the boat tail seems a step backwards, not that it’s a bad car it just doesn’t present itself as something as special.
I never heard that theory on the Toro/Riv grille resemblance but it makes a lot of sense if that was a shared component cost saving measure. Unfortunately it wasn’t any prettier on the Toronado, both cars have an odd puckered expression
IIRC, the ’70 Riv still came with 4-wheel drum brakes…and they were good, according to a Popular Science road test! I only learned in recent years of the two different rear wheel skirt options….or was there one with no skirt at all?
Great article! Keep ’em comin’.
Paul—Yes, I have seen several for sale recently with four-wheel drums and it was an eye opener for me. Not a car I’d want with drums all around — too much vehicle mass and too much motor. Our car had discs in front.
And there were two skirt options — the full fender skirt and later, the short skirt that Buick called “High Profile wheel opening covers” which seems like a mouthful. I think the short skirt is the one you might think was “no skirt at all.”
I always thought these looked cheap, especially from the front, which is almost indistinguishable from the much cheaper Skylark. They definitely IMHO don’t project the upscale image of the ’69, much less the ”66.
Great story and a beautiful under appreciated Riviera. My South Carolina aunt & uncle drove only Buicks as far back as I can remember starting in the 1950s. Uncle preferred the larger luxury models, aunt preferred convertibles just like her sister (Mom). It was 1976 when I came for a visit driving my then new white Eldorado conv. with red interior. After that aunt bought her first white Riviera. Thus began decades of her only buying white Riviera’s. It became a tradition that every time she decided to buy a new car I had my marching orders to show up in SC and go car shopping, regardless of which state I was living in. Not sure if she valued my auto input or just wanted to see me. We would test drive many makes & models but she always special ordered a white Riviera, never something in the dealers inventory. I have so many wonderful memories of just my aunt & I cruising at high speed the back roads of SC visiting old family cemeteries (Black Swamp Baptist Church) and she would tell me stories of long departed relatives going back hundreds of years. She new the history of every long departed relative. Aunt Gwen departed in 2004, just two days after her weekly visit to the beauty salon for hair & nails (nails being red). In her will she left me her latest pearl white 1998 Riviera that I helped her pick out. I exported her Riviera to Canada where I was living at the time and kept it snow free & pristine until 2014 when I sold it to an elderly couple who where going to ship it to their winter home in Phoenix. It was the couples third 1998 Riviera so I knew it was going to a good warm weather home. As far back as I remember aunt always kept a red umbrella in her Riviera’s. I sold her last white Riviera to a good caretaker but kept her red umbrella which I still have.
On another note, we also had a cat named Smokey in the 1950s. I grew up in an Air Force family and we moved almost every year, East Coast to West Coast, back again the following year. Typically the Air Force would ship Dads 1955 2-door ’98’ Holiday hardtop and we drove Mom’s 1955 Starfire convertible. Smokey traveled with us coast-to-coast many times and enjoyed cat-napping in the recessed conv. top well behind the rear seat. Smokey never complained about the family adventures touring the USA in the back boot of a 1955 Old’s Starfire convertible.
Alfred—Love your comment. Anytime I hear stories about people growing up with relatives that were fun-loving and they made great memories with them, it makes me feel good. I certainly had and still have relatives like that — I enjoyed the time we spent together. Also love your aunt’s willingness to consider other models, just to go for the white Riviera.
It’s awesome that you had a cat named Smokey. I tell my wife that I’m amazed that after all the times we moved, and Smokey was an indoor/outdoor cat, that we never lost her and she didn’t meet an unpleasant end. She lived to be 17; when we euthanized her it was like we euthanized a sibling. She joined us when I was eight and died when I was 22–a lot went on in the years in between and she was there for all of it. I’m glad your Smokey took to the open road more comfortably.
Excellent article! Makes me really want a 70 Riviera, but then it doesn’t take much for me to want pretty much any Buick.
Thanks, Jon.
Buick certainly had it going on for a long time, at least to my taste. There are days I’d like to run one around the block, just to see how close it is to my recollection.
I am late getting here but had to add a comment – I remember when some relatives traveled in from Minnesota to visit local family, and came over to see my mother. They were an older couple and parked one of these in our driveway. I was not much of a GM guy, but was enthralled by this car, and remember walking around and around it, taking in all of the styling details. It looked great in navy blue, and I remember thinking that the sweepspear side molding looed very retro. Theirs probably had the bench seat, because I would definitely have noticed that shifter!
It sounds like your dad got out of the job at Ansco just in time! I am loving this series!
JP Cavanaugh! Glad you’ve enjoyed the COALs. I’ve very much enjoyed and learned from your numerous CC submissions over the years.
Re:Ansco — Yeah, I think it was coincidence that we departed right before things fell apart there. I asked my mother the other day if he was aware that “the end” was that close when we left for Rochester and she didn’t think he was.
“I half expected to see the lights dim throughout Broome County when I pushed the button.”
As an old-ordinary-car fan and Southern Tier resident who’s just finding this author’s COAL series, this little bit put a big goofy smile on my face along with all the other regional familiars in the sub series’ other articles- trips along Route 17, or the big ex-camera plant I’ve seen enough times from the Square Deal arch but never really thought about before. Like watching Twilight Zone and catching an off-hand reference to a certain college town or park, a little wink-nod from the forgotten part of a state. Great stuff.