1995 Buick Riviera - Power Drive

Buick's stylish '95-'99 Riviera shared its Cadillac based chassis with the equally fetching Oldsmobile Aurora

Back in 1995 the sales manager of the radio station I was working at back on Long Island drove up in one of these  resplendent in black and a "3800" V-6 sucking extra air forced down its throat from a supercharger. Less than a minute after I asked him to throw me the keys to that company issued vehicle I was hurtling down the Meadowbrook Parkway towards Jones Beach north of 100 miles per hour on a last chance power drive. When you're driving something with almost twice the power of what you're used to you owe it to yourself to have as much fun as possible. Life is short. Exceed the speed limit.

The first Buick to be called a "Riviera" was a 1949 Roadmaster hardtop. In 1963 Buick introduced a Riviera as stylish 2 door sedan that was a stand alone model.

The 1995-1999 Buick Riviera, along with its cousin the Oldsmobile Aurora, are examples of what GM could do in the '90's when they put their best and brightest on a task and let them do what they hired them to do. The cars were bold and stylish and what I'm most enamored of, whimsical. Everything that GM cars in the '50s and '60s where. Only thing was that no one cared and they didn't sell well. What happened?

I had a 1982 Riviera. While it was the worst car I ever owned (that's saying a lot because I've owned some real bombs) I still get weak in the knees when I see this distinctive -R-. 

Big, stylish, statement making two door coupes, a GM mainstay in the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s, had become passe by the mid '90s. The  people who bought them years prior were now buying big stylish statement making sedans and (oh, dear) sport utility vehicles. Vehicles that made the same dramatic impact as Buick Rivieras of yore did but just without the down side of any inconvenience. Getting into the back seat of one, for instance, no matter how comfortable it may be once you get back there, requires a gymnastic maneuver of two. When my son and his friends get out of my Monte Carlo on car pool day they all joke about how its time to get out of the "clown car". Nice, boys. Nice. You can walk from now on.

A super charger is a belt driven compressor that forces additional air into an engine. This differs from a turbocharger than recirculates exhaust back into an engine. The performance gains are significant for both. I prefer super charging although there are many pundits for the turbocharging.

The market for two door cars began drying up in '90s and by 2008 GM stopped making them altogether. While only recently have they began again to make a two door variant of a sedan (Cadillac CTS coupe--I don't count the Camaro or Corvette in this segment) the sad truth is a big two door sedan is as relevant today as a leisure suit.

My teenage sons know what I like in a car and they too appreciate the whimsy that you can only get from a big two door car like these. Will we ever see cars like this again? Doubt it. Whimsy is in the eye of the beholder and what's cool and avant garde to one is compromised and silly to another.