Boat-Tail Riviera

[BIGBARNEYCARS]

I'd thro' ah pic up of the '66 I bought off the show room floor in the summer of '66 if I knew how. That one didn't need any customizin'. The General got it rite right out of the box. Dark metalic green, black interior, Gawd I loved that car. Traded it in on the worst car I ever owned, ah '68 Wildcat because I couldn't afford the $1000 charge for two resonators, two mufflerz plus the plumbing to keep it on the road. I'm sure I'm the only one on the planet that went thru' that "trade 'um 'cuz you can't afford to fix 'um" phase in life

 

[bluefury361]

Impossible but worth a try?

Yeah..... kinda like that.... If you did make it in ... It would be a nice ride.

 

[Ripinator]

I had a '71 Plymouth GTX that I bought new. It needed a new set of Goodyear G-60X15's that I could not afford, so I traded it in for a new '73 Maverick with a 302 V8. . . What a turd that thing turned out to be.

 

[bluefury361]

I'd thro' ah pic up of the '66 I bought off the show room floor in the summer of '66 if I knew how. That one didn't need any customizin'. The General got it rite right out of the box.

Thats how I feel about the 66-72 Rivs Jer. They were so right, you couldn't make them better... even the OEM road wheels are still the best looking wheels on them.

I couldn't afford the $1000 charge for two resonators, two mufflerz plus the plumbing to keep it on the road.

At one time I owned four Riv's..... A 69, 72, and two 76's.... at the same time.... I got to know the muffler shop folks real well.

OHhhhh... Hay Matt.... You need to give Jer a toturial on downloading pictures here.... He's a pretty smart guy... might get it.

 

[Rattle Trap]

This is pretty close to my vision.
Finish the bumpers, get rid of the current tail pipes....
Jury is still out on a House of Kolors paint or 100% Gloss black.

I've thought about using the '72 bumperettes to finish of the ends. What do you think?

I think of the Riviera like a woman. I don't wish to complain too loudly about the creators work, but I'm really only a fan of the one I have in the ways it deals with what I'd call typical deficiencies. I couldn't live with that lowrider for a variety of reasons.

 

[Rattle Trap]

Ill just give one of what I'd call a typical deficiency. That lowrider really makes the case for me. The lid appears entirely too tall. I'm 6-2 and have room for a ten gallon hat in there. Lowering a Rivi makes that canopy look even larger than it is.. We only accept that look because we've never seen it look better. Its like if we had only ever seen stock 49 Merc's and butcher jobs. There are two acceptable approaches to address the issue. My choice is the more technically difficult and yet more modest one in making that side glass appear as being less than half of the cars entire profile. If you also see the problem now that I've described it, I apologize that I would only show you the "fix" as completed in steel and glass. I'm tired of hacks stealing my stuff because I share it with somebody and they read it.

 

[commando1]

Man, you're talking radical surgery that I don't think has ever been done.

 

[Rattle Trap]

Man, you're talking radical surgery that I don't think has ever been done.

EXACTLY!

It took me months to figure out how to do it without wasting the effort on another butcher job too. That rear window throws a bigger wrench into the job than it would first appear. And that's not the half of it...

 

[commando1]

How am I doing...

Lay back the windshield. You get my drift.

 

[azblackhemi]

WOW, Stan's a Photoshop Wizard!

 

[Rattle Trap]

You can't lay the windshield back. Sorry. Even with my car having 6" of combined rubber and spring rake, the windshield is @ 33*. Compare that with the modern max of 30* and the comparitively upright 40* of a C body and you get my drift. Just the same, you hit the side windows even if the profile suffers a quick chop at the qtr window. It's not a job to be taken lightly. Especially when you feed the 'hips' into the equation. Their relation to the compound C-pillar and the windows is a nightmare.

 

[commando1]

Sell the car. Way too complex for even the most capable rod shop.

 

[68Nwprt]

Certainly a tough decision. Always liked the Boat Tail Riv's. Timeless design. Good luck.

 

[detmatt]

OHhhhh... Hay Matt.... You need to give Jer a toturial on downloading pictures here.... He's a pretty smart guy... might get it.

judging by what he's got going on out in his batcave I'm thinking he'd be able to figure out how to post up some pics without my help if he really put his mind to it.

 

[MrMoparCHP]

I have always been a Mopar guy pretty much born that way but that never stopped me from dreaming up customs as I was building scale models of them (that came from my father growing up in Southgate in the shadows of George Barris during the height of his 50's customs.) Anyway I always wanted to take a Pontaic Am or Grand Prix front end and put it on a boat tail Buick Riviera.

 

[commando1]

Now if it was a 71/72, that would be perfect.

 

[commando1]

I have some love for this. Don't know why...

 

[commando1]

Here we go. I'm done.

 

[commando1]

Not really.....

 

[commando1]

This poor guy was captured by the natives before the rescue team was able to get it back to the Sanctuary.