Part 25: Buick Riviera


Riviera.  A name that evokes images of white-sand beaches, Mediterranean breezes, opulent resorts, and members of the rich and famous jet-set.  The name is usually associated with the southeastern coast of France and the Northwestern coast of Italy.  Other regions around the world have tried to lay claim the Riviera name.  The coasts of Spain, Portugal, and even Lake Geneva in Switzerland have all tired to co-opt the Riviera name to boost the allure of their own beaches.  Some pretty unlikely locales have even tried to bask in the glow of the Riviera mystique by borrowing the name for their own stretch of coastal real estate.  The Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, the South coast of England, and the Baltic Sea shoreline of Latvia have all at one time or another rebranded their respective stretches of seaside tourist traps as a "Riviera."  Let's not forget America's very own "Redneck Riviera" on the Gulf of Mexico.

For the purposes of this thread, however, I'm going to stick to the "original" Rivieras of France and Italy.

Buick certainly found the name Riviera quite appealing, too.  Before it became a model in its own right, Buick applied the Riviera moniker to luxury-edition, pillarless hardtop versions of various Buick models from 1949 through 1962.  The Riviera finally came into its own in 1963 as a large two-door "Personal Luxury" car.  This theme continued throughout eight generations of car models through 1999, with the exception of a one-year gap in 1994, between the seventh and final eighth generation model.

I won't go through all the changes and redesigns of the Riviera over the course of its production.  Suffice to say that any iteration of the Buick Riviera would look ridiculously out of place on the French or Italian coasts.  Almost as ridiculous as a morbidly obese European man wearing a Speedo would look on any American beach!  Proof that not everything that looks appropriate on one side of the Atlantic can blend-in on the other side.

When I was shopping for replacement wheels for my truck I saw a lot of ads for wheels with old cracking tires stating plenty of tread left. The tread is useless if the sidewalls split open going down the road.

Quote from: MrH on April 11, 2024, 12:17:33 PM"The tires are fine" and they're almost 10 years old are incompatible.

   definitely.

Whatever happened with the fenderz???

Ford had 144k trucks built but waiting to ship because there was some kind of issue with hardware so they did a software update then shipped them out.

They spent $4.8 billion last year on warranty work (including picking our Maverick up from the house and dropping it back off TWICE because they ordered the wrong rear strut the first time).

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ford-to-send-144-000-trucks-to-north-american-dealers/ar-BB1ltcrW?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=HCTS&cvid=deb9ffde719c41799285c43b4bd681a4&ei=16

"The tires are fine" and they're almost 10 years old are incompatible.

hah, Half those buttons were for the keypad for the built-in phone thing. Technology! I've got a Mercedes ML that I detail once a year, it's like a 2010 and still has all the chiclet buttons. I imagine they moved past that with their next generations shortly after that...smartphones were already a thing. The keypad phone buttons right on the dash just look oddly ancient now.

Quote from: MrH on April 10, 2024, 08:15:13 AMOccam's Razor is outlawed in Germany.

 We had a late-aughts Mercedes CLK at one stage. It was wall-to-wall indecipherable chiclet buttons, dozens and dozens of them. Completely unusable. They've carried that tradition into the touchscreen era. 

Part 24: Venturi America


Anyone remember Venturi?  Anyone?  Hello?

You can be forgiven if you don't.  The French company was founded in 1984 by Claude Poiraud and Gérard Godfroy, two former engineers for Heuliez.  Heuliez was a engineering company and coachbuilder who did special projects and contract production builds for a number of European manufacturers.  Poiraud and Godfroy set out to use their expertise to create a French rival to established sports and supercar companies.

For enthusiasts, their most well-known product was the Venturi Atlantique, a mid-engine sports/supercar powered by the PRV (Peugeot-Renault-Volvo) V6 engine and fitted with a five speed Renault gearbox.  The Atlantique had a fibreglass body and production ran from 1991 through 2000.  Jeremy Clarkson reviewed the car in a 1992 episode of Top Gear and declared it to be better than a Lotus Esprit.

However, as is almost always the case with small supercar start-ups, the money ran out and Venturi filed for bankruptcy in 2000.  Financial salvation came in the form of real estate developer Gildo Pallanca Pastor.
 Pastor bought the company out of bankruptcy, moved its headquarters to Monaco and decided to focus on electric vehicles.  This resulted in the electric Venturi Fétish sports car.  However, Verturi's most popular car to date is the Citroën Berlingo électrique, a Citroën Berlingo van converted to run on electric power.

in 2010, Venturi unveiled the car you see above.  Venturi described the America as a "high riding sports car" using a 300 horsepower electric motor to send power to the rear wheels.  This two-seat EV looks to be a cross between a Mazda Miata and a dune buggy and allegedly had a driving range of 186 miles per charge.  Venturi promised to build 100 of these cars but production never got off the ground.  In 2015, the company announced it was ending series production and sales.  Only around 750 cars in total had been built by the company since 1984.

Even if the America had gone into its very limited production run, none of them would have come over here to the Land Of The Free and the Home Of The Whopper.  Alas, you'll never be able to pay tribute to America by driving an America.

As a postscript, However, Venturi does still exist as a racing team in the Formula E series for electric race cars.  So that's something, I guess?

Every enthusiast needs to own an Alfa at least once