Pity the poor Boattail Riv. Growing up, so far from the land of Buicks, I always admired it from a distance. To a teenage T87, the 1971-72 Riviera was (and to a great extent remains) extremely pleasant to the eye, if for no other reason that it looks utterly distinctive. But there are other reasons for my appreciation of this design, too. And many folks who will disagree and that’s ok, it’s the kind of the theme I was going for this week…
The year was 1971. Dodge had the Polara, and Buick were out to polarize. An all-new Riviera, the first ground-up redesign since 1966, hit the dealerships and ever since, the world has been divided between people who can’t stand this generation of Rivieras and folks who fell under the spell of the boattail. One thing this Buick didn’t do was leave anyone on the fence.
But some people who criticise the 1971-72 Riviera come to this position from a position of appreciation for the design’s intention. Their main issue has to do with how the car was executed – a pretty accurate word, in many ways.
The boattail Riviera’s development was notoriously convoluted. Despite having Bill Mitchell’s full backing, the Buick studio failed to make a positive case for a smaller Riviera, which is what the boattail originally was, being based on the A-body.
Buick designers were referencing skiff-shaped roadsters of the ‘20s and ‘30s – Delages, Isotta-Fraschinis, Auburns and the like – albeit in fastback coupé form, with more than a hint of C2 Corvette in the roof. Not all clays were necessarily handsome, but striking was certainly a term that could be universally applied.
Alas, the project was headed for financial headwinds. To keep costs in check, the B-body had to be used – including the cowl / windshield, doors and the 122-in. wheelbase. The original design (on the right) was altered to fit the larger chassis, but the operation left Bill Mitchell and the Buick designers deeply dissatisfied.
Fair enough: if you’ve been working on a daring design for months only to be told to scale it up to a size that doesn’t really work, the experience would be most frustrating. But the rest of the world didn’t know or care: all they saw was a striking new Riviera.
It was big. It was bold. It was pointy. It didn’t look like anything else on the road. It didn’t even look like a Buick, from certain angles. Not that this was a necessary condition for Rivieras prior to this one.
For the ‘72s, very few changes were implemented. They quoted the 455.7ci (7.5 litre) V8’s power output in net numbers now, bringing it down to 250hp. The grille was given an eggcrate treatment and the louvres on the trunklid were deleted (good riddance). Oh, and they added a side-swipe trim piece on the sides, which did give the profile some Buick family kinship. It also makes it dead easy to do a two-tone paint job, but that was nowhere near fashionable at the time, so I don’t even think it was an option at the time. Our feature car has it, but it has to be a later modification – not a bad one, either.
You can measure the (internal) success of a GM design by how many other divisions copied it. The boattail Riv’s pointy rear was a little too unique to be aped by anyone, but I feel the front end influenced the 1972-76 Vauxhall FE Ventora and VX4/90, though in a very understated manner, of course. But I digress.
I have a problem with GM interiors of this era. They tried very hard to wrap the dash around the driver, with (usually) pretty disastrous results, at least in terms of esthetics. The Riviera’s dash was very much in this vein as well, but here they made it wrap around both the driver and the passenger, so it’s not nearly as ugly as most other GM cars of the early ‘70s. It does mean though that, in the event that a third passenger sit in the middle, they would not only have to contend with the transmission hump, but also the dash’s central spine. Ugh… Just ride in the back.
And although it’s better than most contemporary GM dashes, this is still by far the worst aspect of the car, in my opinion. Fractioning the instrument panel into three bits like this just makes the whole look like it’s falling apart – nothing is straight, nothing really fits right. Full marks for trying, but a lousy concept cannot be salvaged by indifferent implementation.
Some have levelled the very same criticism at the exterior, but although it’s not exactly perfect, at least the execution was as good as anyone could make it. It was not long for this world, of course. The ‘73’s fat front bumper and toned-down tail ruined the look, but GM ditched the whole boattail concept for 1974 anyway.
Pity. But if the ‘70s could be defined in a four-letter word, it could well be that one. Aside from the 1971-73 boattails, Rivieras of the ‘70s were rather atrocious. The 1970 cars (top left) were bloated and bland, the 1974-76 vintages (top right) almost painfully ugly and the 1977-78s (bottom right) so devoid of character that they could have been marketed under a half dozen marques. And let’s not forget what the downsized Rivieras ended up looking like by 1990 (bottom left)… Surely, even those of you who aren’t boattail aficionados will concede that they look a lot better than this selection of Rivieras.
On the flip side, the 1963-65 cars were, of course, legendary, and their immediate successors (1966-67) were also high points in the Riviera saga. The boattails cannot rival the best Buicks of the mid-‘60s. They are in a category of their own – too wild to be classy, but too interesting to be ignored.
Lastly, the record should be corrected as to the boattail’s market performance, or perceived lack thereof. Riviera sales tended to ebb and flow, really. Sure, Riviera production went down by 10% from 1970 to 1971, but that was a pretty modest change and yearly sales stayed at 33-34k for three years running – about what the much-admired ’65 had tallied. Numbers plummeted to about 20k per year on average for model years 1974-78. The downsized 1979-85 generation was the real hit-maker, averaging over 50k sales per annum – unprecedented in the nameplate’s history. The unfortunate 7th gen Riviera (1986-93) was a complete dud, only averaging 15k a year.
Within this context, the supposedly polarizing boattail did pretty darn well. And it really put the Riviera on the map, at least as much as the 1963-65 generation did. Aside from the AMC Pacer, I would be hard pressed to think of a more iconic design coming out of Detroit in the first half of the ‘70s. Seeing it in the metal is even more astounding, given how low, long and wide the whole car is, and how novel the shape is – even compared to cars of its era. Boattail, you’ll always find a mooring in T87’s fantasy garage.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1971 Buick Riviera – Bill Mitchell’s Pointy Dead-End, by PN
Curbside Saturday Night: 1971 Buick Riviera – Papa Was A Rolling Stone, by Jason Shafer
Curbside Classic: 1972 Buick Riviera Boattail – Swan Song Or Big Ugly Duck?, by PN
Curbside Classic: 1973 Buick Riviera GS – Be Memorable, by Joseph Dennis
CC Capsule: 1973 Buick Riviera – Sunday Night Surprise, by Joseph Dennis
COAL: Hobby Car of a Lifetime #3 — 1971 Buick Riviera — My Anti Yuppie Statement., by Jose Delgadillo
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day: 1971 Buick Riviera – The Boattail Visits Japan, by Rich Baron
Cohort Pic(k) Of The Day: 1973 Buick Riviera – Last Of The Boattails, by Rich Baron
The boot/trunk lid vent slats went after one year as it was another of GM’s not-so-brilliant ideas.
It was intended to provide cabin ventilation but ended up draing exhaust fumes in under some conditions and also allowed water into the luggage compartment.
On the subject of the boat-tail Riviera, Bud Lindemann did a road test of a 1972 Riviera GS.