The GM Design team has shared yet another series of sketches from yesteryear on its Instagram page this week – this time featuring early design renderings for the iconic Buick Riviera.
These two Buick Riviera renderings, which were shared on the GM Design Instagram page on Thursday, appear to be original sketches for the second-generation Buick Riviera. The first sketch was completed by GM designer Donald Wood and is dated 1967, while the second is the work of Tony Balthazar and is from 1966. Seeing as the second-gen Buick Riviera was introduced for the 1966 model year, it’s possible these design sketches were completed as GM was deliberating over what styling updates to apply to the vehicle for the 1967/1968 model years.
View this post on Instagram
The second sketch appears to have served as loose inspiration for the 1968 Buick Riviera, which incorporated similar rectangular headlights and a similar two-segment grille design. The first sketch, meanwhile, has a front fascia design that seems to have never reached production, featuring smoothed-over headlamp covers and a pointed nose with a downward-swooping grille. These sketches, therefore, give us a glimpse into the design process within GM at the time, which would often see multiple designers working on one single car design at once.
The Buick Riviera line was discontinued back in 1999, but the style-forward exterior appearance of certain Riviera models has kept the nameplate at the forefront of many GM fans’ minds over the years. That said, it’s unlikely the Riviera will ever make a return. Buick only has crossovers in its lineup at the moment, and considering the waning interest in stylish coupes, it seems near on impossible the automaker will ever revive the Riviera name for a stylish two-door.
Let us know what you think of these classic design sketches in the comments below, readers.
Subscribe to GM Authority as we bring you the latest Buick news, Buick Riviera news and ongoing GM news coverage.
Comments
I think the ’66 Riviera is one of the top GM designs of the post-war era. And there were many outstanding designs especially in the 1960s when GM designs were leading the way. The ’63-65 Riviera is also classic. The 1963 Pontiac Grand Prix. 1965 Corvair. 1967 Cadillac Eldorado. Just to name a few of the best.
When a Buick was a Buick!
The GM Design team of 2021 should be ashamed and embarassed by there lack of skill, passion. Where is your pride?. How did you become car designers?, like Alec Baldwin said in Glen Gary Glen Ross “put that coffee down” coffe in this case is for car designers, you call youself car designers, your not designers. And the GM leadership team should be embarassed by the desings they have been signing off on. Can we go back in time when cars were designed by those with talent, passion, and pride in what they do. Car designs from 1963 to 1974 were awesome, what happened?, and now just souless cars with boring colors, and anemic drivetrains, soon to be replaced by the farce known as electric cars.
MJG,
Exactly right. I think GM’s golden era was from 1961 to 1980; essentially the Bill Mitchell reign and when I say it ended in 1980, I mean all the new designs launched after1981 didn’t have the same beauty but many of Mitchell’s great work was built well into the 80s.
I think cars, and coupes specifically, are by nature more trendsetting and beautiful. Many of the other Buicks, for instance, emulated the looks of the Riviera during the period of great GM design.
In modern times it is said that Lincoln’s design team was really struggling with the MKS update planned for 2017 and to be previewed by a 2016 design concept. Supposedly none of their forms really worked. They tried playing off the design language of the then-new MKZ with its sleek trunkless angularity but they never felt the shapes were working. Then came the edict from on high at The Glass House that the MKS would be rechristened as ‘Continental’ and suddenly magic happens. All the designers were inspired by that iconic name and the many beautiful cars that’d worn it. The result was the gorgeous Continental Concept that appeared in New York in 2016. While the production car lost a bit in translation, the story is still important: The Continental name inspired and then the design they created was later applied to more staid SUVs. As I see it, the Aviator is one of the best looking SUVs out there because of the Continental, because it grew from the design of a beautiful car.
The importance of the Rivera to Buick was much the same. All Buick’s looked better because of the Riviera that inspired their shapes. For instance, the last Riviera launched in 1995 was very much the inspiration for the much more popular and practical Buick Park Avenue that premiered for 1997. Buick’s big sedan was a sort of four-door Riviera and always looked good because of it. Would it have looked so good without the Riv? I suggest not.
It strikes me that without beautiful coupes and sedans to serve as a template, the dreadfully staid SUVs really end up looking especially bad and have the same problem as the MKS replacement story. it’s hard to inspire ever talented designers working on forming a silver box. In my opinion lowercase-gm is today at an all time low stylistically. Everything is bad. Perhaps that’s because there are no beautiful cars to inspire the designers. If Buick were still an American brand and the good people at the Tech Center had a Riviera to pen, maybe everything else they designed for the tri-shield brand would have a lot more inspiring shape.
Right on! I think bean counters took over the design department! My last GM was a 78 Malibu. Bill Mitchell was the last of the outstanding GM designers.
You are officially my absolute favorite car girl! My dad spent 32 years at Pontiac in Pontiac Michigan so I was born into it the car world like most everyone else around the Detroit area and have always followed the car trends and you are so right on all points! Thanks for the very insightful comment 🙂
I can see a ‘70 Riv nose in the first drawing.
Bingo… These were renderings done for the 1970 refresh. 66/67 was already done, and the 68/69 would have been submitted for tooling already. It was also about this time that Buick was told to upscale the Boat-tails from an A-body to the B-body platform. That left a one year only refresh to carry the cars over for one more year so they could work out the details on the ‘tails.
THEY COULD DESIGN THEM- like they did. BUT- they started getting greedy when computerization started to take hold going into the 1980’s. The designers could calculate when certain parts would wear out, and generally the entire car for that matter. No Need to build quality cars when you trade them in every 2-4 years. Technology also had to keep up with the foreign competition, as well as lighter materials for better fuel economy. The whole picture put together resulted in cars that weren’t meant to last. That’s why we are here today, saying that they don’t build cars like they used to.
Well I’ve got a 15 year old Buick Lucerne with the 3800 I’m driving right now with 175,000 miles on it. Drives like new, like a dream. No squeaks, rattles……the fenders are JUST starting to rust a bit. I don’t know what this base model seat cloth is made of but literally still looks like new. I’ll get 300K out of it.
Wanna sell it?
Unfortunately, no. This will be a second car in about a month as I ordered a new vehicle. Having these second cars basically pay YOU with regards to insurance (I’m in Michigan and with the “no fault” deal we have the highest auto insurance rates in the NATION. The new $65,000 vehicle will only cost me another $60/mo – with full coverage of course. You rate the older car (Lucerne) as your daily driver and the new car as “pleasure use”. Without the Lucerne the new car would be $4000/6 months for insurance I’m sure. There is also a multi-car discount involved. Without the Lucerne I couldn’t afford the new car by itself.
The mark of excellence logo in the upper right corner of the GM advertisement says it all. The new logo and the management behind it screams mark of embarrassment!
Had a ’67 Riv, verde green with tan interior. Way out of my economic level at that time, but I liked the design so much that I had to have it.
I remember saving your money for that next car you just HAD to have or dreaming about the one you couldn’t afford. Not so much anymore. I remember in 2000 then again in 2006 saying “I’ll just take one of those, whatever it is….in black though”.
You all can b and whine all you want but the truth is Buick outsells Benz, Honda and BMW in China. You see, fickle American’s decided overnight that Buick was an “old man’s car”.
Not quite!!
… Buick is designed & sold for the Chinese market. The American market is an afterthought for GM/Buick.
Wrong. That new CrossTrack wagon (or whatever it was called) was doing quite well in my market. I see them all over. Cool vehicle too! People here were VERY disappointed in the cancellation of the LaCrosse. The Enclaves are ALL OVER the road here too.
I don’t think you’d see many Enclaves or Envisions in China. Matter of fact my neighbor just bought an Envision.
It’s easy to see that function followed form in car design up through 1976 before rising gas prices and fuel supply shortages changed the rules on Detroit.
Govt. regs killed styling. One of the first was the 5 mph bumpers. Cadillac built some bold looking show cars recently and we get the CT5.
Which is basically a Camaro.
I’m in Lansing, MI right now by coincidence. I noticed last year there were CT5s sitting all over the lots of that Camaro plant down the road. Thought maybe they were using that plant as temporary storage before shipping. The CT5 is built there….I’m sure on the same line as the Camaro.
The new blunt looking front ends, because of pedestrian impact regs, are especially obnoxious.
It is just my opinion but I believe that the 64-65 Riv’s where the best year’s for it. I am a 60’ generation guy and those where the ones that made thr Riv such an iconic car,still to this day if you find one of these it stands out like no other. The Only other car GM put out that stands out today is the GTO. That was back in the day when they had real design teams who knew what people wanted, today all most all sedans from BMW,BENZ,TOYOTA, NISSAN,KIA ALL look alike in one way or another. As much as I hate to say it but the later years of the RIV got really ugly. The early years for it where a fresh style all to there own that is what made it such a great car in the beginning. REST IN PEACE (REVI)
Kia is fine ng a good job with a lil more distinctive looking vehicles believe it or not but I agree with what you’re saying. They’ve stripped the brand identity from most of these vehicles. I was interested in a certain BMW SUV but instead of the traditional BMW separate tail lights it’s one continual horizontal lamp across the entire back end. Could be a Ford for all I knew. Cadillac has done the same thing adding that horizontal bar to each traditional vertical tail light. Took the Cadillac right out of it.
My favorite year for the Riv was the 1970 models. Long, luxurious, and heavy, with a 455, buckets seats, and floor-shifter console.
I know a guy that has a great project, probably still for sale. ’70 Riv GS in Sherwood green, straight but incomplete. Disc brakes & posi rear present. Paired with a complete baby blue non-GS ’70 Riv that’s loaded with a nice black bucket seat interior but has been rolled, still ran and drove afterwords though. Combine the two…? Wow
Honestly, I think those flat front ends look cool. The Cadillac Escalade is a fine example. And I don’t know what they did with the vertical proportions of that vehicle but it gives the illusion an office building is coming your way. Lol. Reminds me of the 69 Coupe DeVille….just something bizarre about the vertical proportions.
I had a 1964 Riviera.
Purchased it in 1980 at the time I was 19 years old.
I was going to trade school and working at a auto parts store making minimum wage $2.35 an hour and living with my parents. The owner of the parts store loaned me the money for all the parts needed to rebuild the motor and transmission. Back then parts were still available. A friend of mine who was a bodyman/painter fixed all the rust and painted the vehicle its original color powder blue. Fixed the floor boards and installed new carpet and a Jensen radio. I drove that vehicle every day for 3 years. Nobody had a car like that let alone a young guy! In 1983 a couple of years after the new Firebird cam out I tried to purchase, but the salesman insulted my Riviera trade in ” to old not worth anything”. So I purchased a Shelby Charger and subsequently 35 new Chrysler product over the next 38 years. I own a Beautiful 1987 Shelby Charger GLHS now as a tribute to my first. I have been blessed by God the Automotive industry has been my life’s work.
My 1964 Riviera was my last GM and the best!
They were all beautiful from ’63-’69. but you can’t beat the original, before they grew and grew. Had a ’69 Wildcat 2 dr, with the 430. What a beast, but I couldn’t afford to pass a gas station.
I had a yellow ‘71 Riviera. My favorite car. Always attracted a crowd when parked on the street.
I have a ’69 Wildcat Coupe with the 430 and floor shifter. Great performing car.
I got a 2013 Buick Regal GS. Love it.
The Regal and Rivera were my favorite
“The second sketch appears to have served as loose inspiration for the 1968 Buick Riviera, which incorporated similar rectangular headlights and a similar two-segment grille design.”
Those are turn signals, not headlights! The headlights in the 1966-69 Buick Riviera models were concealed inside the grill and rotated outward when they were turned on.
Morgan Grafton said it all, gone are the days of stylish cars that i used to wait to see new designs every September, now we have box shaped , non aerodynamic, bad handling, slow ugly things called SUVs. i know every one is knocking the Chinese for their ChinaVirus, but they are way smarter than us, they are still enjoying the American sedans that get major styling updates every year with , wait for it, “AMERICAN CARS”, how dumb are we.
GM needs some real designers like they had back then along with a better management Team. They are also making a big,big mistake in going all Electric âš¡. The Camaro could be saved if they changed the design a little I have owned 4 Camaros and still own a 35 th
Anniversary and hope to buy a new one soon before sales are so bad because of the lack of design appeal like the Mustang and Challenger have.
I had a California edition ’66 Riviera GS. It was my favorite all time car. The style is unmatched in any other year. It had a monster of an engine, wildcat 465.
It was class at a time when class was needed to sell cars
General Motors needs to look back before going forward. Bring back cars and reduce SUV’s they are already to many out there. Do something different. Bring back the Riviera, LeSabre,Park Avenue, build true American cars stop importing cars from China to sell here if your a truly American company prove it. Bring back Oldsmobile and Pontiac line ups to compete against foreign car companies .
General Motors needs to rethink about fully EV by 2035 not going to happen first of all not enough EV plug in by then. Plus many places don’t have power grid systems that can handle extra power demands without rolling blackouts. Build CNG and CPG gas cars first before jumping in with both feet.
Now Buick has had some great designs in the past 25 or so years, I remember the mid 1990s BUICK PARK AVENUES, those were gorgeous, nice roomy, and the superchared3.8, The Mid 1990s Buick Riviera was stunning, and the Le Sabres in that era beofore they trnasitionsed to teh La Crosse were sharp. The most recent Regal with its sport back was very handsome and teh Wagon Buick had the Regal GS Tour X was just plain elegant I would have bought one if I didnt already have my 2010 Cadillac CTS wagon. The 2010 BUICK REGAL was just phenomonal looking in GS Trim. So We cannot also forget the firts 2011 Lacrosse, and the second Lacrosse that was discontinued recently both stunning and great road presence. Sad we will never have a real BUICK again, with GM pushing Electric and the inevitable failure in the market place with there electric vehicles Buick wil end, they Chinese will buy it and it will become a cheap terrible built chinese product. My grandpa had a1959 Wildcat 4 door gold with a burnished gold color roof, and a big I beleive 432 in it, dang that was a great car. Time to bring back time machines atleast to the automotive world.