1978 Buick Riviera for sale on BaT Auctions - ending July 29 (Lot #114,999) | Bring a Trailer By 78, to me, the Riviera didn't look much different than a LeSabre Coupe. This is a nice one
For 1978 only, Buick sold the (Not a) Riviera. And yes, it was actually a 'redecorated' LeSabre coupe. The next generation of Riviera / Toronado / Eldorado (whatever GM called them) were supposed to be ready for the '78 model year, but got delayed in development by 1 year. Oldsmobile just kept building the same Toronado they had built for '77, and same with Cadillac for the Eldorado. Don't know why Buick chose a different route.
I think GM was in full swing "each division is downsizing, here's your last chance to make cars and see if they sell big and swing the bean counter's opinion with sales numbers" at this time. I know each division was losing their engine families and what made them "distinct" to a wide group of buyers who had been loyal since the 1940s and 1950s so there was a scramble to come up with something that was "a hit" with them. This lead to some weird decisions like the big cars for 1977 being smaller than the 1977 intermediate size cars and delays in things like the Toronado and Eldorado. Not to mention fuel economy and cost savings were the name of the game. I've read interviews of folks who were engineers at Pontiac at the time and it was just a stressful weird time to be in the car business.
It’s interesting you bring this up. As Mitchell was winding down, and fully retired by 1977 they replaced him with Irv Rybicki. I read an interesting piece that have the reason they went with him was the board, and many responsible for production thought design was taking a huge hand, and Rybicki was more or less a yes man, and fit in with Roger Smith who was more concerned with ROI, and Rybicki was responsive to letting the designers be a bit more cognizant of cost. Obviously Earl and Mitchell were all about design over costs. Rybicki’s first project was the 1982 Camaro and Firebird, and later was credited with the new mid ‘80’s FWD big GMs.
While the 3rd Gen F-Bodies were not a disaster, but they did personally turn me off of buying new GM cars until 1999. I think of the full size FWD GM products of the mid 1980's as a big step in GM's downfall. That and the GM interiors of the era (with some exceptions) were terrible. The RWD full size cars having been designed in the mid 1970's were and exception. In the Mid 1980's is seemed like most GM cars came with light grey cloth interiors, that seemed to stain and discolor if you looked at them to long. It was a dark time.
That and people like Roger Smith, and Jose Lopez who absolutely berated his suppliers into submission I think really caused a lot of quality issues at GM. I think the quality of paints, fabrics and materials suffered as suppliers made constant concessions to GM. Even though Smith was responsible for Saturn I think the potential profit down turn at GM from ‘91-‘93 also put pressure on the UAW, and I’m sure that too directly impacted quality on the line. Plus I had also read that body panel materials, and changes in fiberglass applications also effected areas of paint and adhesive controls. Lots of bad stars aligned to create quality issues.
