Buick Riviera

The Buick Riviera is a personal luxury car produced by Buick from 1963 to 1999. GM's first entry into that prestige niche, the Riviera was highly praised by automotive journalists upon its high-profile debut. While early models stayed close to the original form, subsequent generations varied substantially over the Riviera's thirty-year lifespan. In all, 1,127,261 were produced.

Unlike its contemporary GM E platform stablemates, the Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado, the Riviera was only front wheel drive from 1979 to 1999.

The Riviera name has been given to concept cars displayed at auto shows in 2007 and 2013 in hopes of resurrecting the marque, but no plans to do so are currently in place.

Origins

The Riviera name

The name Riviera, Latin for coastline, was chosen to evoke the allure and affluence of the French Riviera. It first entered the Buick line in 1949, as the designation for the new two-door pillarless hardtop, described in advertising as "stunningly smart". The Buick Roadmaster Riviera coupe (along with the Cadillac Coupe de Ville and Oldsmobile 98 Holiday coupe) constituted the first mass production use of this body style, which was to become extremely popular over the next 30 years. Buick added a two-door Riviera hardtop to the Super the following year, the Special in 1951 and the Century upon its return, after a 12-year absence, in 1954.

Buick Riviera (film)

Buick Riviera is a 2008 drama film by director Goran Rušinović, based on the novel Buick Rivera by Miljenko Jergović. It was awarded the "Heart of Sarajevo" award as the Best Film at the 2008 Sarajevo Film Festival.

Plot

Hasan Hujdur is a 42-year-old Muslim from Bosnia living in North Dakota, who finds refuge and contentment behind the wheel of his 1963 Buick Riviera. Surrounding everything that Hasan loves is a prejudiced world afraid of a culture they cannot understand and a religion they cannot comprehend. Hasan is a quiet man who stands distant from his beliefs, however it is these beliefs that inevitably lead to his untimely death.

On the way to pick up his wife from work at the local hospital, he falls asleep at the wheel of his Buick and runs it off the road, getting stuck in the snow. He is discovered by Vuko Salipur, who stops to help him. They both immediately recognise that they are from the same country and both understand the irony of a Bosnian stopping to help another Bosnian in a country full of all different races and colours.