SOLD - 1966 Buick Riviera GS SOLD I've seen ads where people claim a car is problem free when it isn't, so I am going to try to be as thorough as possible with this. I have no intentions of listing this on Craigslist as that would be a waste of time dealing with all of the tire kickers there. If you have any questions, need more info, or want particular pictures of a certain area, please feel free to ask. The car is located in League City, Texas. We pulled this car out of a barn in 2004 in Kirbyville, Tx. It had sat in the barn since the mid 1980's. When we found it, the barn was falling apart and one of the rafters were laying against the windshield. The guy we got it from said that he bought it for his wife and she used it to go to church. He said she always hated the car and preferred to drive his car. When she got a new car in the 1980's, they parked this one in the barn and let it sit there until we came along and asked about it. We used his tractor to drag it out of the barn. We then put in a new battery and poured gas down the carburetor. It fired up on the 2nd try and ran as long as you kept gas going to it. Once we seen that it ran, we purchased it right there, trailered it back home, and have been slowly restoring it since. This includes rebuilding the transmission, suspension, etc.. It is currently in a safe and reliable road legal condition. It just needs body work and a good cleaning up to be completed. I drive it once a week and it runs great every time. This is the same car that in Popular Hotrodding as the 2nd place winner for the contest they had. http://www.popularhotrodding.com/features/1001phr_178_real_world_rides/viewall.html It was also in the magazine as well. I've won a couple car show trophies as well for best in class. Each time that it won, they told me that it was the most original car at the show compared to everyone else's Mustangs and Camaros. I do believe that the carburetor could use a rebuild though. I got this carburetor used from someone else on this website a few years ago. It is the correct carb that came on 1966 Riviera's. Sometimes when accellerating at about half-throttle, the car acts a little hesitant and back fires through the carb. Then runs fine after that. I've done a compression test on the motor and everything is good. Timing and points are also set correctly. I have a semi-new Holley square-bore carb, and a square bore manifold for it that go with the car. I've just never had the time to clean up and paint the manifold and put it all on the car. The power steering pump drips where the hose enters the pump. Other than that, the car has no other leaks. The engine bay has never been cleaned and needs it. Since I have owned the car, I have rarely driven it. I drive it to the weekly car meet sometimes, or down the street to the grocery store, and the occasional car show. That's about it. The speedometer shows 27,000 miles on it. It had 23,000 on it when we found it. In the glove box, there were service records showing the mileage from the 1980's that listed the mileage on the last tune up done to the car, which matched up with the mileage on the car. This leads me to believe that the mileage is correct. These records were deteriorated pretty bad and have fallen apart over the years, so for the sake of not trying to sound like I am bluffing about the mileage, we will just say that it has 127,000 miles to keep arguments or discrepancies from happening. Currently, the entire car is in white primer except for the hood and passenger door. This picture was taken to show how the car looks as of now. The car is not glossy at all. This picture was taken just after rinsing the car off after the rain we recently had. The paint is flat, as you would expect from a car being covered in primer. The paint on the hood is the original paint. It is peeling and showing the brown primer underneath. There are small dots of surface rust showing as well. The underside of the hood has surface rust, and the very edges of the hood, where the underside meets the fenders are showing bad pits of rust. The car had rust at the bottoms of the front fenders. The passenger fender was replaced with a rust free fender from another car, stripped down, and coated in white primer. I cut out the rust and welded in new metal on the drivers side fender. You can't even tell anything was ever done to it now. There is still some rust at the bottoms of the rear quarter panels and at the bottom corners of the doors. The metal for the trunk seal is pretty rusted and will need new metal welded in to fix it. The trunk pan has surface rust and could use a good coat of POR-15. The floorboards to the car are fine, with the exception of one spot on the drivers side had a rust hole. I patched in sheet metal over the hole and the floors are solid. The weather stripping around the doors is all dry rotted. I have removed the back window and resealed it. There were no rust issues there. I also have an extra rear window that someone gave me at a car show. This will also go with the car. The doors open and close with ease, and all windows roll up and down as they should. The front windshield is busted at the top passenger side because the barn that the car was sitting in, was falling apart on top of it as I mentioned above. There is surface rust in some places around the windshield. I had removed the trim at one time and pushed the seal back and have verified that it is only surface rust and nothing more. The stainless trim that goes along the doors and wheel wells have been removed. I never put it back on because I preferred the look of the car without it. Both bumpers need to be straightened. The front bumper is rusting through the chrome where the mounts are welded onto the backside. The interior is in excellent shape except for 2 area's. The seam at the top corner of the drivers seat has popped the stitching in a small 4 inch long strip. The headliner needs to be replaced. I had purchased a headliner online, and it was cut way too short. It is installed, but quality of it shows wrinkles from being stretched too much to try to make it fit. The A/C compressor comes on when you turn it on. The blower motor is bad and I have never looked any further into it than that. With the heater on, you can barely feel heat coming out of the floor vent after a while. The car starts when you turn the key and runs great. Switch Pitch works well also. All lights work, and the headlight are functional. They do go up and down as they are supposed to. The factory AM radio works, but needs a new speaker. I have 3 of the 4 center caps for the wheels. In May of 2011, I started stripping the car down to fix rust and other details. I would have continued on with the entire car, but that very day was the day that my father came outside and said he needed to go to the hospital. He was having really bad pains in his stomach that wouldn't stop. I had just gotten ready to fix some of the rust on the lower rear quarter panel when my father came outside. My girlfriend took him, and in a hurry, I sprayed the car in a coat of etching primer (by mistake, I was in a hurry and thought I loaded up epoxy primer.) Later, I then layed a coat of white primer right on top of it parked it in the garage to dry. Later, I went back and wet sanded the primer. A few days later, my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 gastric cancer. Not long after that, he moved to PA with his sisters for care, and I lost access to his garage I was using. I haven't done anything else to the car in over a 1.5yrs except drive it once a week. My father lost his battle with cancer on June 27th of 2012. Now that my father is gone, I've lost interest in finishing the car and have decided to sell it. This would make a great father/son project for someone else to finish. All of the hard work is done, and all that is left is body work. Here's a list of everything not mentioned above that I have replaced on it so far since day one. Spark plugs, wires, points, cap, rotor, etc.. Oil change every 3 - 5 months because I do not drive it often. I always use AC Delco oil filters. Front upper and lower ball joints Tie rods + ends Sway bar end links Upper and lower front control arm bushings. Rear control arm bushings Rear Springs All 4 shocks (rear shocks are functional air shocks, fronts are sensatracks) All 4 brakes have been rebuilt at each wheel with new hardware, along with the rubber lines and 90% new metal brake lines. Alternator and Starter were rebuilt by a local shop here a couple years ago. Voltage regulator. Horn relay. Waterpump, fan clutch, thermostat, radiator, belts, and hoses. Transmission was rebuilt by a shop in Houston about 4yrs ago. I have not put many miles on it since then. The two rear tires are brand new with less than 100 miles on them. The front tires are 4yrs old, have tread, but are worn on the insides from before I rebuilt the front steering and suspension. The car still needs a front end alignment. I have it close enough to drive for now. The car has a cheap set of headers, but the finish turned into surface rust. The exhaust pipes are all new, and it has Cherry Bomb glass packs on it that are dumped behind the rear axles. I have a new fuel pump for the car. There is nothing wrong with the fuel pump on the car. I just have an extra as a backup. I am sure that I have a couple other misc. parts like this as well that I got as a backup. I'll have to look in my storage to see what I have. I've done alot to the car considering where it started from. All it really needs now is to finish the body work, clean up the engine bay, and paint it. As I said, I have just lost interest in it. I know it's not worth a whole lot in this condition, so I will just start with $3,500 or best offer. The worst I can do is decline it. Thank you, Brian
Brian Thanks for lising it here but you cannot list a car "for offers" here. You must list an asking price. Just pick a figure.
Brian, I've always loved your car, and your awesome photography that showcased it. I'm very sorry to hear about your father. Best of luck with the sale and any future car endeavors.
Sorry to hear about your Dad ... going through that was the suckiest thing I've been through in my 50 years.
Sorry, I have no interest in parting the car out. All it needs is body work and to be cleaned up. Everything else is pretty much done.
Could you please send me some more pics of the car? Interior, undercarriage etc... Also, how are the floor and trunk pans? Please send any shots of problem areas on the car. Thanks, Nick
