1. That is a 1971. I have close to 0 interest in anything other than a 1970. 2. The seller is asking $50K for the car, which is a fair price, but not close to the $30K that you said you could find me a car for. I will make you a deal. If you kick in the extra $20K over the price you quoted, I will buy that car.
It’s 45 . I’m sure if I went out and wrapped it around the guard rail that I could get it for less , like the car you want so bad, and we can even clone it to a 70 . Like the re body car .
Whatever you want to do to the car while you have it is up to you. My offer still stands. Find me a restored 1970 GS Stage 1 for $30K and I will buy it from you.
She is & definitely unique. The color/option load was very appealing. It's certainly possible there were multiple sets of stamps at the engine plant. It's possible the partial VIN was hand stamped at the assembly plant. But in the future one might have a difficult time convincing a prospective buyer that it's the original block & whether or not we like it, the market dictates that those orig. stamps are worth some significant coin. The Muncie trans stamp on my Stage 1 looks odd & I questioned it but as luck would have it, someone who had the same doubts about their their original M-21 sent me a picture & not only did their stamping look identical to mine but the transmissions were built on the same day. I also have to wonder if the pictures weren't strategically taken to hide the hood/fender gaps regardless of whether the seller though he was telling the truth when claiming that much pain had been taken to source date code correct sheetmetal (I tend to believe him but I'm much less cynical than Chris). Whether buying a business or a car, it's up to the buyer to do their due diligence. The seller is always going to have the information upper hand but that info. was also here for taking & while I don't think BAT would've deleted links to this & the other thread, everyone chose not to post them. I'll ammend my earlier statement. There were two bidders ea. on BAT & @ Mecum willing to spend ± $90k for the car w/fees & w/ or w/o the information disclosed on here. Sometimes a car just has the right mojo & this one does &/or the seller got lucky...twice.
Not in the foreseeable future. As a fellow Stage 1 4-sp. owner texted me yesterday, "glad we got ours when we did..." It's good to see Buicks getting the respect they deserve via bids/sales. It also prices people out of the market but that's already been the case for a long time w/the other makes.
All the Buick documentation I have unearthed refers to the digits after the HP code as a "production number" and refers to the shift # at the engine plant, but no explanation of the interpretation of the production number. In my experience with Nailheads the number climbs as the model year progresses so acts very loosely as a date code. Those of us in the Buick full size community have been batting around different interpretations but nothing so far seems to fit well...partly because we can only ballpark/ guess how many shifts the engine plant actually worked on a regular basis or in response to work load at any given time...then add in work stoppages, holidays, etc and things get complicated. Back in the day the engine plant would have exact data but now decades later we do not. I have never obsessed over the exact production number interpretation because there are so many variables from engine build to final assembly that the engine production number could never EXACTLY document/date the car...it can just get CLOSE. Yes, obviously quite a few engines would have been produced per shift...and who knows, it would make sense from a production standpoint that certain engine combinations might have been produced in batches? I have a friend that owns a car which is identical to mine with the same engine production number. Both cars are the very rare 179 Super Wildcat `66 Rivieras and are very early cars in that the Super Wildcat was a mid year option addition supposedly available March 1st, both cars have late Feb body builds; they are even the same color combinations! Here`s the interesting part...his engine plant stamps are definitely hand stamped and are a different font than expected... whereas my engine stamps are via a fixture (all characters aligned perfectly) and the expected font!! We have speculated that his car (which is correct and found upon engine disassembly to have the correct Super Wildcat camshaft) may have been the "pilot car" as the first to run through the production process and may have been the first engine build of this type at the engine plant in `66. We just dont know...but stuff like this happened much more frequently than collectors today are comfortable with. I wont even mention the POP mistakes I have witnessed over the 4 plus decades I have been involved with mostly Flint built Buicks... Regarding engine production codes and final vehicle assembly....I have made a passion of collecting `65 Riv Gran Sport cars for over 4 decades. I have owned many and am very, very familiar with those cars so am also familiar with correct stamps, fonts, etc. I currently own two examples, complete with POP`s, whose engine production codes are out of sequence. In other words, the earlier production code or shift number stamped into the engine block is in the later VIN numbered car and vice versa! See my above point regarding engine production codes and variables. I can imagine complete engine builds being delivered to the assembly line and stored in a random arrangement and hence installed in what was not necessarily a chronological order. This was mass production/producing profits and not intended to cater to the formulas that current collectors would like to apply so that everything is "perfect". Regarding the engine plant versus assembly line stamps I completely agree. I only saw the HP and production code stamps on the engine in question and didnt realize the VIN stamp in the block was also questionable...and to my original point in another post, that wouldnt have bothered me much in this example anyway. Beautiful car, congrats if you are the new owner! Tom Mooney
Funny you didn’t have a check waiting for Sobotka‘s rust free $10,000 car numbers matching. But now for a tag job re stamp you have 30,000 ? Weird .
Instead of moving the fence post , refer to the original statement I spent the time to do all the research for you in the archives at the auction. There was no automatic hardtop selling for $90,000. then : I found you a beautiful survivor car but that wasn’t good enough. Then : I found you the rust free no excuses no hit numbers matching brown car that you asked for but you ALL . passed on it TWICE Sir , so, before I waste more of my time what car do you actually want?
actually the guy that was the bidder at Mecum was also the guy at bringing a trailer so there were only two out of the 50,000 people at Mecum Indy that saw the car in person wanted it . The winner previously owned a Titusn red car so he was bidding out of emotion not out of common sense.
On a different note, what makes a '66 Riviera a "Super Wildcat?" Of all the Buicks I've owned, & I probably wish I could've kept 'em all, my '66 Riviera GS is one I really wish I'd hung onto. Bought it when I was 19 or 20 maybe & sold it a few years later along w/a parts car to a guy in Detroit. It was loaded w/I believe every available option (incl. Stereo, wood wheel, cornering lights, etc.) exc. the dual quad "MZ" & vinyl top. Had a Quadrajet too which based on my very limited knowledge of the cars I think they all didn't get that year but I don't know how that worked. Mine also had the auto dimming high beams but I assume that was a dealer installed option? Also had the chrome air cleaner & finned valve covers but I assumed all Riv. GS came w/them?
There seems to be a communication problem here. Below is exactly what I outline in my first post on the subject: To recap, here are the requirements I outlined (all of which, except color, match the car being discussed): 1. 1970 Buick GS Stage 1 2. Restored (will accept a well maintained original car) 3. Will accept previously wrecked vehicles 4. Will accept replacement motors 5. Will accept any mileage 6. Will accept any color (though you suggested brown, and I agreed) 7. $30K purchase price Please let me know when you have 5 cars lined up and available for purchase. If you are unable to find 5, I will accept single vehicles up to a quantity of 5.
Thank you for the additional details. It helps me and Buick community as a whole to spread the knowledge as widely as possible. Hopefully, before it is too late, someone that was employed by Buick back in the day, who knew how it all worked, will stumble onto one of these posts and share their knowledge on the subject. Regarding hand stamping versus gang holder stamping, I would surmise that it could be as simple an explanation as multiple employees were building engines on any given shift. If one employee's stamping tool broke, that employee started hand stamping individual characters so as not to fall behind the other builders who were still using their gang holder tool. Regarding the subject car, I was an early bidder but dropped out as the bidding surpassed my comfort level.
Not one person asked for the casting date that is fairly easily seen on a 70 block. That would be a little help. If someone wants a good idea if the stamping is original you could pull the drivers side head to see if other numbers are there. You could acid the deck and also you could measure the deck height. To cut the numbers deep enough to not recover anything with acid you would be able to know if the deck was cut. A lot to go through but if you are determined I believe you could tell if the deck was cut.
i have seen/read on other muscle car forums about a guy/guys. that worked at the factory and would say and swear this is how it was done at the factory and down the assembly line PERIOD! i would just shake my head and laugh. lets face it, these guys that were there are pretty damn old. its just plain nonsense that some guy is going to remember what stickers, chalk marks, stampings and procedures were used some FIFTY YEARS ago, as things changed every single model year with multiple models. it has to be less than 1% of people that have a complete history packet of oil changes, bulb replacements, or how many times you had to adjust your air pressure in your tires. charlie,
