Rare Rides: The 1983 Buick Riviera Twentieth Anniversary

by Corey Lewis

Published: December 17th, 2019

rare rides the 1983 buick riviera twentieth anniversary

Not long ago, Rare Rides presented Buick’s very special celebration of the company’s 75th anniversary via the 1978 Buick Riviera. Today we’ll fast forward five years and have a look at another anniversary Riviera.

It’s the Riviera “XX,” from 1983.

Our story starts in 1979 — a rough time all across the passenger car landscape. By and large, quality control was laissez-faire, engines were strangled by emissions requirements, and consumer tastes were at the low point best summarized as Brougham. But General Motors had a trio of new personal luxury coupes to offer. Making the swap to front-drive-only and accompanied by a downsizing, the new E-bodies came in Buick Riviera, Oldsmobile Toronado, and Cadillac Eldorado guises.

Buick’s Riviera was in its sixth generation for 1979, and all examples rolled out of Linden Assembly (d. 2005). It was the first-ever front-drive production Buick, paving the way for the rest of the brand’s history to date. Most Rivieras were of the traditional coupe style, but by 1982 there were ASC-sourced convertibles as well. Engines on offer ranged from 3.8 to 5.7 liters of displacement (the former being turbocharged), with either six or eight cylinders. Special mention of the 350 Oldsmobile V8 here, as it was available in gasoline or ill-fated diesel guises. All Rivieras were motivated by a three-speed or four-speed automatic, dependent on model year.

Upon introduction the Riviera was blessed with a Motor Trend COTY award, and sales of the big coupe doubled over the prior year. Buick shifted over 52,000 in 1979, and a similar number in 1980. In 1981 the V6 Turbo model was renamed T-Type, as Buick started a new sports trim line. The same year saw the 350 (5.7L) disappear, which made the Olds 307 (5.0L) the largest engine on offer. Its 140 horses were bested by the turbocharged model’s figure of 185. Base model customers were relegated to a naturally aspirated 4.1-liter V6. With a four-barrel carb, it made 125 horsepower. Most customers chose the V8.

That brings us to today’s special Riviera XX. For 1983, Buick created a limited run of 500 coupes to celebrate two decades of Riviera’s existence. All examples featured a two-tone cream and tan paint job, upgraded leather and velour upholstery, walnut wood, badges of 24-karat gold, and actual wire wheels. Door trims were unique to the model, featuring a single slab of walnut. Previewing the ’84 model year, the XX had a slightly revised grille design not seen on other trims.

Refreshed with the aforementioned grille for 1984, the Riviera’s sales continued to climb. Personal luxury showed no signs of stopping, as sales reached the 65,000 mark for the sixth gen’s final year in 1985. But a new E-body arrived in ’86 that was 19 inches shorter and featured a singular V6 engine. The demise of the PLC was underway, and GM bowed out early.

Today’s superb condition Rare Ride goes up for auction in Florida on January 12, 2020. You can drive it home on some vintage Uniroyals.

[Images: seller]

#1970s #1980s #Anniversary #Buick #BuickRiviera #CadillacEldorado #Coupes #GeneralMotors #GM #NewsBlog #UsedCars #OldsmobileToronado #SpecialEditions #Riviera #RareRides #PLC #PersonalLuxuryCars

Corey Lewis

Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.

More by Corey Lewis

Comments

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4 of 67 comments

Jeff S on Dec 17, 2019

Electra would be a good name to resurrect for an EV version of a Buick crossover.

Like Reply
- Superdessucke on Dec 17, 2019
  
  Yes, with a range of 225 miles, no more, no less.
  
  Like
Art Vandelay on Dec 17, 2019

Man one of these with a well built later supercharged 3800 would be an amazing daily driver.

Like Reply
- FreedMike on Dec 18, 2019
  
  That's actually a great idea.
  
  Like

Recent Comments

Varezhka I have still yet to see a Malibu on the road that didn't have a rental sticker. So yeah, GM probably lost money on every one they sold but kept it to boost their CAFE numbers.I'm personally happy that I no longer have to dread being "upgraded" to a Maxima or a Malibu anymore. And thankfully Altima is also on its way out.
Tassos Under incompetent, affirmative action hire Mary Barra, GM has been shooting itself in the foot on a daily basis.Whether the Malibu cancellation has been one of these shootings is NOT obvious at all.GM should be run as a PROFITABLE BUSINESS and NOT as an outfit that satisfies everybody and his mother in law's pet preferences.IF the Malibu was UNPROFITABLE, it SHOULD be canceled.More generally, if its SEGMENT is Unprofitable, and HALF the makers cancel their midsize sedans, not only will it lead to the SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST ones, but the survivors will obviously be more profitable if the LOSERS were kept being produced and the SMALL PIE of midsize sedans would yield slim pickings for every participant.SO NO, I APPROVE of the demise of the unprofitable Malibu, and hope Nissan does the same to the Altima, Hyundai with the SOnata, Mazda with the Mazda 6, and as many others as it takes to make the REMAINING players, like the Excellent, sporty Accord and the Bulletproof Reliable, cheap to maintain CAMRY, more profitable and affordable.
GregLocock Car companies can only really sell cars that people who are new car buyers will pay a profitable price for. As it turns out fewer and fewer new car buyers want sedans. Large sedans can be nice to drive, certainly, but the number of new car buyers (the only ones that matter in this discussion) are prepared to sacrifice steering and handling for more obvious things like passenger and cargo space, or even some attempt at off roading. We know US new car buyers don't really care about handling because they fell for FWD in large cars.
Slavuta Why is everybody sweating? Like sedans? - go buy one. Better - 2. Let CRV/RAV rust on the dealer lot. I have 3 sedans on the driveway. My neighbor - 2. Neighbors on each of our other side - 8 SUVs.
Theflyersfan With sedans, especially, I wonder how many of those sales are to rental fleets. With the exception of the Civic and Accord, there are still rows of sedans mixed in with the RAV4s at every airport rental lot. I doubt the breakdown in sales is publicly published, so who knows... GM isn't out of the sedan business - Cadillac exists and I can't believe I'm typing this but they are actually decent - and I think they are making a huge mistake, especially if there's an extended oil price hike (cough...Iran...cough) and people want smaller and hybrids. But if one is only tied to the quarterly shareholder reports and not trends and the big picture, bad decisions like this get made.