Junkyard Find: 1973 Buick Riviera
Just about everybody likes the “Boat-Tail” Riviera, and you’d think that would make even battered examples valuable enough to avoid the cold jaws of The Crusher. Think again!
This car is very rough, with a lot of three-dimensional patina, but it doesn’t seem to have much super-cancerous rust.
When the 1973 oil crisis hit, the value of these big fuel-sucking personal luxury coupes plummeted. That meant that a lot of these cars descended into beater status during the middle and later parts of the 1970s.
This car clearly spent many years sitting outdoors in Colorado, so the interior is pretty much toast.
Still, you can see remnants of the luxury that once was.
Somebody got the intake, but there’s still most of a super-torquey Buick 455 here.
Look, Buick Rally wheels!
Looks like the traditional GM rear-window rust was repaired at some point, with copious quantities of Bondo used to smooth things out.
This glass must be getting hard to find these days.
There it is— America’s dream car!
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Definitely plenty there worth saving...Buick 455s are getting a bit scarce (assuming it's not cracked) and the wheels and glass as Murilee implies, the wheels and glass.
I purchased a 1975 Riviera from the Cars for Causes auction in Santa Paula, CA for the grand sum of $305. It has the 455 and the rare automatic floor shifter. Though definitely not a boat-tail variant it still has the big GM look and cruises "admirably". The Verde Mist (medium green) with the white interior is fantastic.