Vintage MT Comparison: 1971 Buick Riviera Vs. Oldsmobile Toronado Vs. Ford Thunderbird – “Almost A Limousine”

GM’s big personal luxury coupes were all-new for 1971, debuting a bigger, squarer Oldsmobile Toronado and the controversial new “boat tail” Buick Riviera. How did they stack up against the Ford Thunderbird, long the standard-bearer of this upwardly mobile segment? Motor Trend compared the trio in this singularly frustrating December 1970 three-way test.

This comparison test appeared in a particularly rough period for Motor Trend. The magazine had never been noted for cutting-edge journalism, but after Eric Dahlquist moved over from Hot Rod to become editor, Motor Trend‘s quality standards seemed to take a big hit. This article, credited to Jim Brokaw, has the kind of sloppiness more commonly found in Road Test magazine in this era — the editorial equivalent of a car built on the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.

 

One of the lesser oddities of this article is that it doesn’t include any photos of the new Riviera from the front. Obviously, the rear aspect was the most striking, so staging it that way in the lead image made sense, but no photos of the front aspect? An odd choice.

A major goal of Dahlquist’s editorial tenure seems to have been to skew Motor Trend readership younger than before, appealing more to the hot-rodding crowd than the married-with-kids consumer car-buying audience. Past MT coverage of models in this particular class hadn’t always been enthusiastic (they had liked the earlier Rivieras a lot and had been politely critical of the earlier T-Bird generations), but they hadn’t felt the need to reintroduce the basic concept the way Brokaw does here. This smacks as trying to explicate these to a hypothetical 21-year-old reader who has only ever seen them driven by big shots in his dad’s company, and who can’t understand why anyone would ever want a new car that couldn’t do the standing quarter mile in less than 15 seconds while carrying at least three cheerleaders:

These cars are expensive. If you have to check your budget to see whether you can handle the payments, you can’t afford one. They’re totally impractical for many family pursuits, which indicates that there is at least one other means of transportation sharing the garage. … If these creatures seem to have all of the disadvantages of the other classes of cars and few of the advantages, what do they have that keeps them selling? Prestige. In spite of advertising claims labeling the mini-limos as sports-luxury, the thing that brings in the buyer is good old fashioned status. For something under $7,000 the owner can announce to the world that he has arrived, and will shortly move on to bigger things and out of the neighborhood.

I don’t think this is even a particularly good explanation of the genre. The selling point of personal luxury cars like these was that they were more “individual” than a regular Cadillac, Lincoln, or Electra 225 two-door hardtop. Cars like the Thunderbird or Riviera weren’t ultimately that different from a Mustang or a Camaro in concept except that they were marketed to and owned by an older crowd who wanted a plusher ride and more quiet. Furthermore, while a T-bird or Riviera was not as expensive as a Mark III or Eldorado, these were already aspirational cars for many people. I’m sure some Thunderbird owners later bought a Mark, but the average buyer was already in a pretty lofty tax bracket, so the idea that these cars signified that the driver would “shortly move on to bigger things and out of the neighborhood” doesn’t really track.

Buick offered a Riviera GS option in 1971, which added a limited-slip differential, a shorter axle ratio, heavy-duty suspension, and an additional 15 horsepower, but Motor Trend opted for the standard version, “since there are no ‘hot’ versions of the T-bird and Toronado.” Considering that Buick and Oldsmobile had lowered compression ratios for 1971 and Ford hadn’t, the Riviera GS wouldn’t have been an unfair comparison in terms of power, although its 3.42 axle would have probably had an unbalancing effect on its performance. (Oldsmobile no longer offered a hotter engine option for the Toronado in 1971; sales of the earlier W34 engine had been extremely low.)

 

Surprisingly, the Thunderbird and Toronado were both available with heavy-duty suspension for 1971, although I doubt it was frequently ordered. Nonetheless, even with the standard suspension, Motor Trend claimed all three cars had a reasonable degree of handling composure — even the Thunderbird, which in previous generations had been notorious for its wallowing, under-damped road manners:

But our test of this year’s crop of instant envy machines came up with a surprise — handling that was unexpectedly good for luxury vehicles. … Gone is [sic] the mushy ride, and tire-scrubbing noises while you’re turning, gone is the slow sway on the easy corner. Updated suspensions and the phenomenal recent success of Mercedes, have blessed the affluent with a firm but comfortable ride and the ability to hustle around a corner in a level attitude.

This sounded promising, but to find actual driving impressions, readers had to wade through editor Jim Brokaw’s incoherent attempt to explain the suspension layouts of the three cars. Since there was nothing terribly novel about any of these and prospective buyers were unlikely to care, he probably should have saved himself the trouble: Much of his description was either technically inaccurate or misleading enough to leave readers unfamiliar with these cars with a very wrong impression.

 

Maybe the biggest problem was that Brokaw kept suggesting that the Riviera and Toronado chassis were minor variations of the same thing, akin to the minor differences between Buick and Oldsmobile full-sized sedans in this era — and that the same had been true of the previous-generation Riv and Toro, which was completely untrue. The previous-generation Toronado had used a partial frame with a dead axle on leaf springs, with both vertical and horizontal shock absorbers; the previous-generation Riviera was the final user of GM’s self-supporting X-frame, with a live rear axle located by three trailing links and a lateral track bar. For 1971, both cars had new perimeter frames and four-link rear axles and coil springs, but they still differed quite a bit, for the simple reason that the Toronado was FWD and the Riviera RWD.

 

Brokaw’s description of the Toronado’s rear suspension was borderline gibberish, and substantially incorrect. The Toronado did not have a “trailing arm track bar”: It had a fairly light tubular axle carried on lower trailing arms, suspended on coil springs; rather than a track bar, it had two upper control arms angled inward to provide lateral location, as pictured below. (I tinkered with the contrast settings of this photo to make the upper arms more visible, although they’re still hard to see because they’re painted black.)

 

As for the Riviera, Brokaw’s contention that its rear suspension was “slightly different” from the Toro’s because the Riviera “does not have to contend with some rear unsprung weight” was even more nonsensical. A live axle and trailing links capable of transmitting the torque of a 7.5-liter engine have significantly MORE unsprung mass than the dead axle of a FWD car, not less. The 1971 Riviera shared a lot with the B-body Buick LeSabre, so I suspect that the Riviera’s rear suspension (pictured on the following page) was largely the same as a LeSabre’s, but suggesting that it was “basically the same” as the Toronado’s was misleading. (Four-link rear axles were quite common by this point, so the fact that the Riviera and Toronado both used that general layout meant little.)

In and amongst this stew of technical misinformation, Brokaw offered a few salient driving impressions:

• The Toronado “handles the harsh bumps with disdain, [but] … tends to loaf on the more moderately sloped rolling ones,” and was prone to “massive understeer, almost to the point that you would have to start turning at the corner grocery store to make it to the driveway.”
• The Riviera “still tends to understeer and plow a bit, but much less than expected and not at all uncomfortable [sic].” As for its ride, “Small, short amplitude bumpers produce a slight harshness but the larger ones do not generate any unpleasant rebound.

As for the Thunderbird, well …

The net result [of the T-bird suspension] is a slightly firmer ride than the Toro or the Riviera, but much less roll control than either. The T-bird takes a set position going into a corner which can be a bit disturbing if done at too high a rate of speed, but once it takes a tack, it holds what it has all the way through. The Bird requires a bit of attention going into a corner at high speed, but produces no surprises after the initial turn is passed. Small, rough bumps are felt, but not to an uncomfortable degree, and the larger ones are traversed unnoticed.

I would call this “damning with faint praise,” although compared to the supreme floatiness of the mid-’60s “Flair ‘Bird,” it was probably an improvement.

 

His earlier reference to Mercedes-Benz notwithstanding, Brokaw conceded:

The most dominant impression when driving or riding in any of the three cars is the feeling of isolation you get — isolation from the road surface, isolation from any feeling of acceleration or braking. You could go from a concrete road, across a metal bridge grate, to a gravel road and there will be no vibrations coming to tell you that you’re on a different road surface. While this will turn off “feel-of-the-road” buffs, this car-as-a-cocoon philosophy is great if you want to look upon your car as a place to unwind and relax, even while trying to drive 700 miles between sun-up and sun-down.

For better or worse, this was what buyers in this class expected, but it might have been nice if Brokaw had dispensed with the inept technical description to offer a more coherent comparison of how each of these cars rode and handled relative to the others. Motor Trend generally wasn’t one for invidious comparisons, but they’d done that with their “King of the Hill” comparison of the Cadillac Eldorado and Continental Mark III six months earlier, and their subsequent “King of the Hill” installments offered a more cogent assessment of those cars’ relative strengths and weaknesses, so they were capable of it if the urge struck.

 

I’ve never felt the “cockpit-style” dashboard design on the 1971–1973 Riviera worked aesthetically: You can see what they were going for, but it just looks jumbled to me — the angles are too sharp, and the biggest impression is that the dash has suffered some kind of catastrophic collision damage. Also, the M/T photo caption claimed the passenger-side dimensions “are specifically tailored for a lady,” but what lady, exactly? Darling Dagmar (4’2″) or Sue Green (6’1″)?

 

In addition to the plushest interior, the Thunderbird also had full instrumentation, which was more legible than in some of its predecessors.

 

M/T complained that the Toronado dashboard “lacks delicate balance and styling finesse of the dual curved approach favored by Buick.” I struggle to apply the words “delicate” or “finesse” to the Riviera dash — it was just too brutalist for that — but I guess I can see the point. The Toronado’s upholstery was flat enough to make the buttons seem incongruous (and potentially uncomfortable in nylon workout pants or a thin skirt).

 

The rear three-quarter view is certainly the 1971 Riviera’s most striking angle. I couldn’t tell you what Motor Trend meant by “a return to a more substantial styling mode,” unless it was that the body was heavily sculpted rather than just slightly reshaped sheet metal on a familiar shell.

 

Since the Thunderbird would be completely redesigned for 1972, M/T‘s remarks about “durability of design” eliminating planned obsolescence turned out to be premature.

 

The Toronado did look like the previous Eldorado’s bigger kid brother, which was apparently intentional. It was tidier-looking than the 1971 Eldorado, which I’ve never much liked, although no less gigantic.

At the top of the above page, Brokaw remarked:

Interestingly, Thunderbird is the only American car offered with radial ply tires as optional equipment, although our test car had the bias-belted wide ovals, which are more consistent with the cushiony ride concept. But, if you want luxury driving plus feel of the road, order radials.

The Continental and Mark III also had radial tires for 1971, although they were now standard equipment rather than optional. (According to the AMA specs, in 1970, you could still get bias-belted tires on those cars as a credit option; I’m not sure if that was still true for 1971.) Several other automakers, including Oldsmobile and Pontiac, had previously offered radial tires on a limited basis, but they were very rarely ordered, and soon disappeared from the options list.

 

Again obviously anticipating an under-25 reader, Brokaw crowed that “none of the three cars will turn drag strip times that will scare any supercar owners.” However, assessing that performance was made more difficult by the fact that the acceleration times he quoted in the text for the Riviera didn’t match the ones in the data panel on the following page (see below): 0 to 60 mph in 8.8 seconds and the quarter in 16.6 seconds at 88 mph in the text, 0 to 60 in 8.4 seconds and the quarter in 16.9 seconds at 83 mph in the table. (The Thunderbird quarter mile figures didn’t match either.)

 

A 5-mph difference in quarter mile trap speed is a lot, and I’m not sure what to make of this discrepancy. According to the spec panel, the Riviera test car had Max Trac, Buick’s early traction control system, which used electronic wheel speed sensors to detect wheelspin and then cut engine power by retarding the ignition timing; it could be turned on or off with a dashboard switch. Were the different acceleration times a reflection of experiments with Max Trac that the text neglected to describe? That would be plausible, but since Max Trac was not mentioned at all in the text, who knows?

While all three cars had standard front disc brakes, their braking performance was, in two words, not good. In fact, a publication less fearful than M/T of biting the hand that feeds would probably have called the Toronado’s brakes “scary,” with long stopping distances and severe control loss in hard stops.

 

Brokaw explained:

All three cars began to swing sideways when the brakes were applied hard at 60 mph and, while the Riviera and T-bird took only one steering correction from the driver to prevent a spin, the Toronado took two fast lock-to-lock maneuvers to keep the back end from coming around, not at all in keeping with the machine’s generally highly engineered nature.

The Toronado’s braking problems were the same as the first-generation car (or the first-generation Eldorado): With most of the static weight on the nose, a hard stop would unload the rear wheels, whose self-energizing drums would then lock, with a significant chance of sending the tail skidding sideways. Oldsmobile did now offer a partial fix: the RPO JL9 True-Track rear anti-lock braking system, a $194.84 option that was supposed to keep the tail under control in a panic stop so that the driver could focus on the front end. There was no mention of True-Track in the text or specifications, so the M/T test car presumably didn’t have it.

Captions for the illustrations in the center column on this page reiterate the dubious contention that “Riviera and Toronado share the same rear suspension in different dimensions.” I think the two bottom illustrations on the above page are comparing the 1970 and 1971 Riviera front suspensions, although the 1971 Thunderbird also used a lower control arm located by a leading link. (Automakers have gone back and forth between that arrangement and a wider lower wishbone for decades without ever reaching any definite consensus.) The 1971 Toronado also had wide lower wishbones, but it still used torsion bar springs rather than coil springs, to make room for the front driveshafts:

 

Brokaw noted the resemblance between the 1971 Toronado and the outgoing Cadillac Eldorado, remarking that “it is not an accident nor is it a money-saving ploy. … The Oldsmobile customers who couldn’t afford an Eldo but liked them, will now be able to possess the styling they have been hankering after the past.” Given how confidently he made this assertion, I assume that Oldsmobile reps must have admitted this outright at the press introduction. The Toronado would cling to the Eldorado’s stylistic coattails to the bitter end, making a lot of money throughout the ’70s and early ’80s as a cheaper Eldorado alternative and then following the Cadillac off a cliff in 1986.

Rereading this M/T article sometimes left me feeling like either Brokaw or I must have had a lot to drink, and I’m reasonably confident it wasn’t I. See what you can make of this passage:

Riviera is a statement of what’s happening. In spite of the fact that the car is a bold departure from what is current and accepted, it is by no means new. The rear end boat tail treatment bears more than a passing resemblance to a ’63 Corvette, but its ancestry goes much farther back than that. Remember the Cadillac LeSabre in 1951? With the exception of the tail fins and the loop nose, the general body outlines are almost identical. This, reflecting perhaps a return to some of the solid values of earlier times.

I think what Brokaw was trying to say was that the Riviera was a bold advance in the burgeoning trend of neo-classical styling also represented by the Continental Mark III and later, less-happy indulgences like the ’70s Stutz Blackhawk. If so, I’d tend to agree, with reservations. However, try as I might, I can’t see much resemblance to the 1951 LeSabre (which was not badged as a Cadillac, while we’re keeping score). Maybe if someone fixes me a martini, all will become clear.

 

Of the T-Bird, Brokaw remarked:

Thunderbird doesn’t have anything really new to offer other than last year’s Bunkie Knudsen redesign. One gets the impression that T-bird is about to move off in a new direction but is now in a period of transition and hasn’t yet made up its mind as to the intended path.

This much was more or less true, although by the time this article was written, Ford had already locked the design for the all-new 1972 Thunderbird, which would be essentially a cheaper version of the Continental Mark IV with more Fordish styling.

 

As for the interiors:

The Toronado was almost Spartan-looking, with the passenger’s side of the instrument panel bare as a bone (for safety and to accept air bags should they be required) and all the controls hidden away and activated by mysterious electric motors. The Riviera came across with a bit more pomp and circumstance in the interior, with more plumped-up upholstery and a double-dip dash panel which molds itself around both driver and passenger.

The auto industry succeeded in delaying proposed federal airbag requirements for many years, but the Toronado did later become one of the GM cars offered with the optional Air Cushion Restraint System, although by then the Toronado dashboard had been redesigned anyway. Also, the passenger side of the Thunderbird dash was no less empty than the Toronado’s, with just a single vent and a strip of chrome above the glovebox — perhaps also in anticipation of airbags, but a long-standing Thunderbird interior design feature dating back to the Square Bird.

 

There was no question that the Thunderbird had the most lavish interior treatment. Brokaw called it “the Grand Palace of the lot”:

With its button-tufted brocade cloth upholstery, wrap-around rear seat and tunnel-like Cave of Love cockpit, created by the elimination of the rear quarter windows — it looked like something befitting Mae West or maybe even “Broadway” Joe Namath. … One “problem” with the T-bird’s interior was noted by a Swede who was invited to ride in the T-bird. He commented that it was typical of the American puritan ethic that “you have a car that looks like a bedroom but the seats don’t fold down.”

 

 

Finally, we have the obligatory M/T “everyone’s a winner” conclusion:

Overall, we feel that any of these cars fill the bill as far as being good combinations of comfort conveniences, handling quality and performance. You couldn’t be any more comfortable in a Lincoln or Cadillac unless someone else was driving. Their air conditioners wouldn’t make you any cooler nor would their seats be any softer. But the bigger-is-better philosophy still rules at GM and Ford styling and lots of people will still go on thinking that a car the size of a Riviera, Toronado or T-bird couldn’t be as luxurious as a car three feet longer. We would even like to see the luxury approach tried on something three feet shorter than our test cars.

The last line may have come too close to a coherent statement of editorial opinion, so it was followed by this hasty equivocation:

While all the attention paid to the Vega, Pinto, et al would seem to give the impression that the auto-makers have abandoned their Queen Mary-sized cars and taken to the life-boat-sized compacts, there are still thousands of consumers to whom “bigger is better” is a viable concept. You may call them the “establishment” derogatorily but, for establishment cars, the three we tested were cars worth owning, and even saving for.

 

 

1971 Buick Riviera, Ford Thunderbird, and Oldsmobile Toronado Performance

Acceleration	Riviera	Thunderbird	Toronado
0–30 mph	3.3 secs.	3.9 secs.	4.4 secs.
0–45 mph	5.5 secs.	6.4 secs.	7.2 secs.
0–60 mph	8.4 secs.	9.2 secs.	10.7 secs.
0–75 mph	12.6 secs.	13.3 secs.	15.5 secs.
Standing start ¼ mile	16.9 secs. at 83.0 mph	16.4 secs. at 85.6 mph	16.9 secs. at 84.0 mph
Passing, 40–60 mph	5.1 secs.	4.1 secs.	6.4 secs.
Passing, 50–70 mph	5.5 secs.	5.0 secs.	6.5 secs.

 

(Motor Trend didn’t typically measure top speed in this era, so the maximum speeds in third gear were limited by the length of the test track where the acceleration figures were recorded.)

A few observations:

The prices of these cars were remarkably similar. If the Toronado test car had been equipped with the optional Brougham interior package ($157.98) — which would have made it more competitive with the Toronado in interior plushness — it would have listed for $6,615.13, putting all three cars within $53 of each other.

You’ll notice that the spec table doesn’t include any weight figures. I only have the manufacturer base curb weight for the Toronado, but the shipping weights for the three cars were:

• Buick Riviera: 4,325 lb
• Ford Thunderbird Landau: 4,370 lb
• Oldsmobile Toronado: 4,522 lb

(Curb weight with air conditioning and other options would be at least 250 lb more than the above figures.)

Other than Brokaw’s remark on the first page that “Economy really isn’t there in the true sense of gas mileage,” there are no fuel economy figures at all. I assume 10 to 11 mpg was typical, with 12–13 mpg possible on the highway and single digits in city driving with lots of tire-squealing take-offs.

Obviously, when this test was originally published, the M/T editors didn’t know how sales would compare for these cars, but it turned out to be a pretty close race for 1971:

• Thunderbird: 36,055 units
• Riviera: 33,810 units
• Toronado: 28,980 units

As you may have noticed, this M/T article ultimately left me rather disgruntled. I’ve had this issue of Motor Trend for many years, so this wasn’t the first time I’d read it by any means, but the more closely I looked at it, the more irritated I became. These cars aren’t exactly my cup of tea, any more than they were the M/T editors’, but all three were interesting enough to merit a more thoughtful evaluation than this sloppy, tossed-off comparison.

Which one of this trio would I pick? The Riviera’s overgrown pony car vibe is more my speed conceptually, but I don’t like the interior, and over the years, the boat tail Riv has become (through no fault of its own) kind of a music video restomod cliche. (For a long time, if you saw an unrestored ’71–’73 Riviera in Los Angeles, there was about an 85 percent chance it was driven by some aspiring rock musician who looked kind of like Floodland-era Andrew Eldritch, of the Sisters of Mercy.) I actually like the Toronado’s styling the best of these three, but the performance doesn’t match the thirst, the brake situation is alarming, and ultimately I’d rather have a ’68 Eldorado.

 

That leaves the Thunderbird — probably not a Landau, but maybe a regular two-door hardtop with bucket seats, in a more interesting color than root beer brown. It’s not sporty, but it’s clear in its mission, and it’s not trying to be anything it’s not — including a limousine.

Related Reading

Curbside Classic: 1971 Buick Riviera – Bill Mitchell’s Pointy Dead-End (by Paul N)
COAL: Hobby Car of a Lifetime #3 — 1971 Buick Riviera — My Anti Yuppie Statement. (by Jose Delgadillo)
Curbside Classic: 1972 Oldsmobile Toronado – A Brougham For Winter (by Joseph Dennis)
Curbside Classic: 1972 Oldsmobile Toronado – Reading The Tea Leaves Near Stage Left (by Jason Shafer)
Curbside Classic: 1970 Ford Thunderbird Sportsback – What Bunkie Took With Him On The Way Out The Door (by Laurence Jones)
Curbside Classic: 1971 Ford Thunderbird Four Door Landau – Yes, I Said Four Doors (by Tom Klockau)
Vintage Comparison Test: Motor Trend Compares The 1972 Buick Riviera, Ford Thunderbird & Jaguar XJ6 – The Path Diverges For Luxury Specialty Cars (by GN)