XP715

Congratulations, meng!

Yeah! You said mid-December, pal! Where's the layout?!

1984 Pontiac Fiero Indy Pace Car, driven by a woman old enough to be my grandmother, of all people; it was awesome!

In Communist Russia, website visit YOU! Definitely you can see the Riviera's roofline and rear beginning to take shape here, and I can see a little of the Aurora's nose, I guess.

The answer to this question, why it's so ugly and awkward, and why I hated it is so incredibly easy that I can't believe you don't know the answer: BECAUSE IT'S f@#kING FRENCH!!

All I see is another failed attempt at a European-style sports car. As if the Cadillac Allante wasn't bad enough by itself, GM felt the need to toss the Reatta out there the following year to REALLY hedge their bets. Maybe if they didn't make them both wrong wheel drive and offered an optional manual transmission, two key necessary features found in EVERY SINGLE f@#kING ONE ( ) of the European cars they failed so dismally at emulating and competing with, they'd have been in business and actually sold more than a handful of them. Also, for the amount of money a person spent on a Reatta when new, you'd think the General could have done a little bit more for them on the inside than giving them the front half of a Riviera interior with two ugly-ass uncomfortable seats; at least the Allante's interior was unique (although horrid looking!). However, in defense of the Reatta, I, too would probably own one if I had the capacity to have a large fleet; I would NEVER own an Allante unless it was given to me, or could be bought for under $1000. But still, the Reatta would have to be a 1988 or 1990 Select Sixty model to justify spending any kind of real money on one or taking care of it once I owned it. Every now and then I see one in the local Want-Ad for under a thousand bucks and think of how fun it'd be to daily-drive the little guy into the ground.

I've often wondered if there was any way to make the Reatta uglier than it already is..... at least MY question got answered

Still plenty of time; I got a semester and a half left

It really does just fly off when he pries on it, too; what the hell is this friggen thing made out of?!

It's cooler than the factory one, I guess, but I'm still not a fan. I'd much rather have one of the first series ('47-'55) Chevrolet pickups they draw their styling from. Maybe I'm biased because my father had a '52 when I was younger and I spent a good portion of my childhood riding in it, but the SSR just never did anything for me. If I had that much money to blow on a modern toy from the General that had no practical use or purpose, I'd just go for the 'Vette. Or if I was really a big swinging dick I'd go for an XLR.

Definitely good to hold onto an Italian car from the mid-80's that looks like a Toyota Corolla from the early 80's and a dolled-up late 70's British Ford in 800 million labeled in Cyrillic pieces. Meanwhile you're putting most of your energy into sending the two most significant Firehawks ever made down the road and can't see that it's a blessing in disguise that nobody's biting. Keep the Hawks and sell the rest. I'd be willing to bet they'd be worth much more than another lame-ass C4 with a fancy engine will in a couple decades. Why not keep what's really special and unique (with so much documentation and unique extras!) instead of going after the really expensive version of the official vehicle of the midlife crisis? No offense, dude, but I wouldn't even talk about a ZR1 unless it was gonna be sharing garage space with a certain pair of Pontiacs you're so incredibly lucky to own.

Any possible way you could find an original ad or piece of sales literature that has this car in it? Reason I ask is it sounds a lot like what I'm doing for my father for Christmas. He has a 1937 Packard Super Eight model 1500 touring sedan. On eBay a couple months ago I found an original five-page ad that ran in a magazine when the car was new of the entire 1937 Packard lineup (Twelve, Super Eight, 120, and Six) and I had each of the pages reproduced and am having them framed as a set. Couldn't have worked out more perfectly, really; the ad has every single color that can be found in his office, which is where it will hang when done. He's got a seven foot wall with absolutely nothing on it, so this giant piece (five 11 x 14 pages plus the size of the mat and frame) should do a nice job of filling it up. Maybe if you were to find a '65 general Chevrolet brochure or a specifically Corvette one, the type of car you need would be in there and you could go from there? I've always been a fan of period-correct artwork versus just a giant photograph, but that's just personal preference. Just a suggestion

You're absolutely right, and you can't tell me you wouldn't have done the exact same thing in my position! Especially since I found out recently that the very first ride the '71 Coupe took under new ownership ended in the tail shaft in the transmission breaking! However, the Eldorado really IS gonna be the one to stay in the permanent collection unless it can somehow be rolled into getting the '32 Packard Light Eight coupe-roadster or 1907/1908 American Underslung Gentleman's Roadster I've always wanted. Maybe even the big orange Brewster-bodied 1915 Crane-Simplex roadster that's been keeping me up nights since I saw it when I was twelve

Hah! I dunno if you noticed, Sixty8, but the Elky in question is located in a very depressing town by the name of Caldwell, Idaho. But he's absolutely right; buy something cool like this and restore it!

Awesome 'Burban; I'm very jealous. I've had eight cars so far and they're beginning to bore me. I'd love to put my car on ice and find a nice 2500 Pickup or Suburban to drive daily. A '96 Riviera can only be used as so much of a truck before you actually need to bite the bullet and buy a truck. Great buy and I wish you lots of luck with it! 93,000 on a 454 'Burban is barely broken in!

'96 Buick Riviera since August of 2004 '67 Cadillac Eldorado since October 26th, 2006 '74 Lincoln Continental Limousine "adopted" on November 6th, 2006

K-Car?! Yeah, okay. Obviously, the car in question is a 1983 Cadillac Seville DIESEL! What did I win?

I think someone would have to pay me 35K to own an Allante; to this day I don't know why their owners think they're worth so much money. My guess is that they expect us to try and compensate as much as possible for the mistake they made in buying them for $65,000 when new. I found it laughable that they advertised it to be an SL500 killer, when in reality it's just an Eldorado with a body stamped in Italy. I'm willing to bet most of the purchase price went to offset the fact that they had two commercial airliners retrofitted with special racks to fly the bodies over. As for the Buick Reatta, they're not worth a whole lot unless it's an '88 or '90 Select Sixty, one of which I wouldn't mind owning myself.

Maybe it's because I'm just totally gay for these cars, but I'd take a '99 Buick Riviera Silver Arrow too; only 199 of 'em to go around (GM kept #200). One went on eBay last year for about 35K and it had seven miles on it, never driven, never titled, never even had any of the check stickers it leaves the factory with peeled off or anything. Came with every little piece of paperwork, its special cover still in the box, a bunch of promo stuff, etc. A former Buick dealership owner bought it for himself and had it trucked straight from the factory to his house where it lived in a heated garage until he died. His son was the one auctioning it off.

Whoever mentioned a turbo Buick had the right idea; you could get two pristine Grand Nationals for 35K. Another Buick I wouldn't mind having if I had 35K to burn on a toy would be a '49 Roadmaster convertible. There's plenty of stuff out there to be had with that large of a budget; all depends on what you like. If it were me and you said it didn't have to be in pristine condition, 35K would just about get me the rough but complete '32 Packard Light Eight coupe-roadster i've always wanted

CTS all the way!

Vega all the way, unless the Gremlin happens to be a Gremlin X with the V8...... or one of those snazzy Levi's models with the denim seats

Chapman has died of typhoid.

At $150, why is this even still an issue? It's a hundred and fifty f@#king dollars; it should already be in your driveway! It's not like you couldn't sell it for what you paid for it if you later didn't want it.

Thanks, asshole; I just threw up a little bit in the back of my mouth when I read that