Aesthetic Perfection - 1967 Buick Riviera Walkaround and Drive

Hi , my name's Adam .

This is my classic car channel where you can see some vintage original rare cars today .

I'm gonna be spotlighting my 67 Riviera .

This is a factory black car with white bucket seat interior , so very rare combination , no vinyl roof either .

Um , the car still wears its original paint , original interior has about 45,000 miles on it .

And when a lot of people think of the Riviera , they often think of the first generation from 63 to 65 which is also a beautiful vehicle or the boat tail years from 71 to 73 .

And I think this second generation Riviera gets forgotten in the mix .

And yet to me , it's one of the most beautiful looking cars ever designed .

Um , you know , maybe worldwide , certainly in terms of American vehicles , I walk around , you can see the light just breaking on these various crease lines and just has some great lines on this car .

This vehicle was styled like this really for two years , 66 67 68 they redid the styling had a big front loop bumper really to kind of portray the air of safety from what I understand you had a big bumper made it look like it was very well protected .

But 66 67 Rivieras are generally quite similar .

Aside from a few details , the 67 has this horizontal theme with a thick bar in the middle of the grill that you can see here .

The 66 does not .

67 introduced this really nice Riviera script denoting the name plate and the 66 has block lettering that spells Riviera and block letters across the front .

And from a power train perspective , the 66 has the Buick nail head 4 , 25 cubic inch V eight .

This is the first year of Buick's then new 430 cubic inch V 84 barrel engine with a quadrajet carburetor .

So some power train differences , some badging differences , minor styling differences , but for all intents and purposes , the 66 7 are quite similar .

So here's the fucking seats , the interior will spend a bit more time on as the video goes on .

Yeah , this car has the standard wheel disk .

I do have a set of the turban veins , wheel disks which are actually interchangeable between the Riviera and the Corvette .

So if you've seen the Corvette , but those turban vein wheel disks , the Riviera used the exact same ones , just the centers would change out to have an R for Riviera as opposed to the Corvette checkered flags .

So this is a bucket seat car .

It also has the optional headrest .

The car doesn't have too many options .

It does have an AM radio .

It has a special order 2.73 to 1 rear end which is a taller rear end more for freeway gearing .

I think the standard was a 3.8 .

Yeah , has air conditioning and that's about it .

These cars came standard and the bucket seats , but the cars came standard with power steering , power brakes .

These are Buicks aluminum fin brakes on here , which are pretty remarkable .

So the outer brake drum is aluminum and it's got a cast iron liner on it , uh , where the shoes wear and this car stops fast .

These , these were really good brakes for the time .

Um , I never feel like in a panic stop situation that I have to worry .

Even most of the old drum brakes were just fine if you panic stopped once and they faded after two or three rapid applications .

This vehicle really just doesn't have any fade because aluminum dissipates the heat quickly .

So turning to the inside of the vehicle , by the way , this is before the era where G M made doors that sagged and , um , kind of rattled when you close them .

This is a nice solid feel when you close it as opposed to the doors that came out starting in the early seventies on the full size cars in particular , but also the intermediates .

Yes .

A unique gauge cluster with this rolling drum speedometer similar to what the tornado had , but the tornado had a different IP different interior .

This is unique .

It's a little courtesy lamp there that you can see the H VAC controls .

This is interesting if you want the defrost , there's not really a position for defrost .

You just move this bottom lever to the right , this top one is the temperature and you can see recirculation , normal vent and heater .

There are three outlets , this big center outlet and then one on either side , a very large ashtray in keeping with the time and some wiper controls and pretty full gauge pod for the era .

Most of these cars had idiot lights of this era and this one has a temperature gauge , oil pressure , a meter .

So overall nice gauge pod , interesting turn signals too .

I'll turn the key on here and you can see right and the left , here's the center council so nicely trimmed inside latch is closed has the insignia with these little , I think the Reindeer , the Buick logo got a little less detailed in the latter years than what it was in these as kind of a perforated vinyl headliner , nice texture , no passenger rear view mirror you .

This is not the deluxe interior car .

So these door panels are the standard door panels .

The deluxe interior had more of a chrome theme and you'll see that on some Rivieras , but this is the standard interior it's quite nice , all vinyl seeds , some lights in the sea pillar back there and a speaker in the middle .

If the car is so equipped , let's take a look under the hood for a moment .

So all original engine bay aside from somebody a long time ago added the seventies era spark control , whatever it is , capacitive discharge ignition system supposedly to make , I think your points more effective .

I've disconnected it .

I didn't notice any difference , but I thought the box was pretty humorous there .

I do run all in my vehicle .

Somebody was asking , do I run stock points or electronic ignition ?

I run just the stock point set up in all my cars that have it .

I find that it's reliable .

I don't have any issues with it .

If I do start to have some issues , the car starts running bad as opposed to just dying and leaving me on the side of the road .

So I've had far more issues with electronic ignition over my lifetime than I have with points .

I've never been stranded by an ignition system with points .

I've been stranded three or four times by electronic ignition .

So my personal preference , this car does have what's called a switch pitch Turbo Hydrotic 400 transmission , which was made from 65 to 67 only .

And for those who aren't familiar , that's what this switch is here .

This is a kick down as well as a switch that activates the A variable speed , variable stall speed in the torque converter .

So if you're at a stop light , or if you step on the pedal more than about two thirds of the way , the stall speed and the transmission changes to a higher stall speed .

So you don't get idle creep when you're sitting at the stoplight and you get more power as the stall speed elevates .

So when you step in the car and you push the pal down about two thirds of the way .

It seems like it's a downshift , but it's actually not , it's a , it's just increasing the stall speed of the torque converter .

And then if you step further , it will kick down .

So only 65 to 7 only Turbo Hydrotic four hundreds and 425 S which is the front wheel drive transmission had that feature , which I think is stellar .

So very popular among racers .

After that , they just went to a , I'll say an in between stall speed .

That was optimal .

Uh you know , across all ranges of throttles opposed to this two speed , uh variable pitch converter .

Yeah , Buick V eight s are for those who don't know in this era until about the mid to late seventies , every GM division engineered its own V eight .

So you could have a Chevrolet 350 Pontiac 350 Olds , 350 Buick 350 there was no Cadillac 350 but each of those divisions , their motors were 100% different .

Now , there were some shared components like distributors and carburetors and things like that .

But the physical design of the motor was different .

So that , to me is a special thing about the GM cars of this era is you get a totally different engine depending upon the vehicle that you're in .

So this was Buick's first year of the 434 barrel carburetor motor .

And in 67 68 this motor doesn't have hollow push rods , which means that most V eights and most , I guess most push rod engines , if hollow push rods and the oil circulates up through the push rod to lubricate the Rocker arms .

This motor for the first two years does not have that .

So you want to make sure that when you start the vehicle that it runs quietly , there's no ticks or knocks because if the person who owned it didn't change the oil , the galley that would lubricate the upper portion of the valve train could clog and create some issues .

This motor is perfectly silent , thankfully , but I just thought that was an interesting piece of trivia .

These Buick V eights also have an aluminum timing cover and if you have to replace the water pump , they're known for the bolts breaking off .

I highly recommend if you're going to have the water pump replaced , to go to a shop that has an induction heating tool that can heat the bolts up , which are ferris metal and it won't heat up the surrounding aluminum and risk warping it .

There's a tool that I have called the Venom mini ductor .

It's somewhat expensive but pretty valuable in cases like this .

If you want to change a water pump , you can't get a torch out here and heat the aluminum and everything else that's around it , that just provides a very localized heat on the bolts and allows you to get them out without breaking off .

So I found that very helpful .

This car still runs R 12 .

It is still frigidly cold .

And as the name would say , frigid air back when General Motors used to own frigid air , this is a six piston GM compressor , an excellent system that was used up until the late seventies when they went to a radio style compressor , but there are six little pistons in here .

Three pointing this way , three , pointing that way that pump the refrigerant around .

And you can see that the charge here is for Riviera four and £4 of refrigerant .

If he had a Ford of this era that had the York two piston compressor , they run about two and three quarter pounds , 2.5 , 2 and three quarter pounds .

So I love my Fords .

Don't get me wrong .

All my Ford friends , but in my opinion , the GM air conditioning systems of this era were better .

They had way more cooling capacity .

I mean , this thing is a six piston compared to a two piston .

It's running four and £4 of refrigerant compared to 2.5 , 2.75 .

That's not to say that the Fords didn't cool .

They did .

You just were operating the air conditioning on high more than this does .

I mean , this car will freeze you out .

It was 90 degrees here today .

I was running around with the air conditioning on and I had it on just the medium fan setting .

It's a four speed fan and I had it on the second speed and I was just comfortable inside of a black car .

Whereas my Fords , I would have probably on high the whole time I was driving around .

This is the second year for the quadrajet four barrel excellent carburetor .

The only thing that I'm noticing is the ethanol fuel gets into a lot of the gasoline .

Now , the accelerator pumps tend to go bad and the trophy floats may get stuck and flood out and you can have some typical needle problems .

But generally these are very , very reliable , great power from the car operators too .

You can see how the headlight system on this car operates .

They rotate downward when you turn the headlights on and it's an electric motor .

So I'll show you turn it on here and you can watch so they rotate downward and they actually look really good down as well .

As up .

So a lot of the non GM cars of the era , the headlights .

So when you turn the lights off and keep the doors down , so you can see these headlights look pretty unfinished , but this has a nice look to it even when the headlights are down .

Yeah .

Yeah .

This little spear went away in 68 for safety .

I would hate to hate to be bumped by this car .

There's a passerby , uh , that would , this is not dull .

So the tip of that spear went away for safety in later years , but it sure looks good .

Let's go take a look at the trunk .

Yes .

Car doesn't have a really large trunk does have the ventilation that flow through ventilation there that you'll see some rubber hoses , the water collects and then runs down inside the rear fender wells .

General jack , a decent amount of space .

I mean , you could fit several sets of golf clubs in here .

It's just not very tall overall .

I but not huge , not small .

This is the spare tire .

Well , so you can see spare tire in here .

Double striped bias belted tire .

So the Riviera was one of three kind of a trio of vehicles .

The El Dorado , the tornado and the Riviera were similar vehicles .

The tornado and the El Dorado were front wheel drive .

The Riviera was rear wheel drive and the tornado and El Dorado both had three quarter frames , a stop really ahead of the rear wheel and the rear wheel , the suspension is a mono leaf spring on either side .

The Riviera has full coils on all four corners and it has a full X frame .

So I own an El Dorado .

I've driven a tornado .

I will just say the Riviera rides much , much better than the Toro and the Eldo , which really don't have a great ride and it's pretty boom inside that mono leaf for your spring is not something that really to brag about .

I think it degrades the riding characteristics of the car .

Certainly compared to this car , like I said , that has full coils .

They sold around 40,000 of these Rivieras in 1967 .

So it was a popular car and you could see why , I mean , it's hard to understand if somebody went to the showroom and test drove this car in 1967 what they would pick at if you were looking for a personal luxury car , the car is smooth .

It's quiet .

It's good looking .

I can't imagine somebody saying , gosh , this car is too smooth , too quiet , too good looking .

I don't want it and just really nicely detailed all around .

So let's take it for a brief drive here , I'll start it up and you can hear the exhaust .

I've got factory style dual exhaust with resonators on this , which is what would have come on it .

That noise is just the headlight doors closing .

All right , let's take it for a spin .

Mm .

So this motor was 360 or 65 horsepower .

I'm not quite remembering how much , to be honest .

One of the two , but it's very powerful .

Very peppy , no lack of power .

I mean , this thing just pulls like a freight train and it's got quite a bit of top end power too .

For a big motor .

It revs , it likes to rev , I had a 70 Electra with a 455 .

And surprisingly that one liked to rev too that came , stuck with a 256 gear end .

And I remember that thing would kick down to second gear at 70 miles an hour and hold second gear to 90 .

I think first gear went to 50 .

So pretty amazing .

You can see this rolling drum speedometer here , but just the joy to drive .

Everything that I featured so far has been a Ford vehicle which I loved my Fords .

Late sixties , early seventies .

I do love the G MS as well .

I have a few more powers but some of the GM SS to me before 71 kind of in that 65 to 70 range are really special , especially 65 6 and 7 , 68 9 70 .

They started decon the interiors and thinking them look not as nice so they're not , not as nice as these earlier ones , but the motors and the transmissions are just beautifully smooth .

The C six S and the Fords are great transmissions .

They don't shift as smoothly as these turbo hydro matics do .

Or the 7 27 Chryslers , you feel the shifts in any Ford transmission I've had in the air with , it's AC six C four FM .

I've had many versions of all of them and you definitely feel the shifts in them .

It's hard to detect sometimes when it's shifted and it just buttery smooth .

Here we go .

That was about two thirds throttle .

This car really could get up and move quite well .

Again , compared to the El Dorado and tornado counterparts , the Riviera , I think has a lot better ride the engines across all three are different , but I would say all excellent .

The transmissions are similar .

The Turbo Hydrotic 425 is effectively a 400 that was split in half after the torque converter and has about an inch thick chain drive that drives the transmission and a final drive to drive the front wheels .

Which interestingly was that , that system , the Oldsmobile V eight with that transmission was used almost unaltered in the GMC motor homes in the 70 S .

So it was super over engineered for passenger car application but very , very durable in any case .

Hope you enjoy this video of my 67 Riviera .

You like the video , please subscribe to my youtube channel and I'll continue making more .

Hope you enjoyed it .

One last look around the interior .

Here's a little light switch to turn the light on if you want .

That's it , it's along everybody .