After adding the name Riviera to various cars during the 1950sBuick finally made the Riviera a model in its own right for the 1963 model year. Seven more generations of Buick’s jaunty personal luxury coupe following Above THE Next 36 years, but only one has ever had a petroleum engine available from the factory. Of today Gem of the junkyard It’s one of those cars, a vivid purple ’82 Riviera with 105 horsepower Oldsmobile diesel power under its hood, found in a Denver-area self-service cemetery recently.
Starting with the 1966 model year, the Riviera had lived on the same platform as Cadillac El Dorado AND Oldsmobile Toronadoboth featuring radical front-wheel drive powertrains using longitudinal V8s powering the front wheels via sturdy chains. However, despite the common platform, the Riviera alone retained the then-traditional front-engine/rear-wheel drive configuration, making it something of a corporate extravaganza for the next 12 years.
So General Motors decided to downsize the Eldorado/Toronado platform for the 1979 model year, and the Riviera got those cars’ front-wheel drive system at the same time.
Sales of the smaller Rivvy have been strong, no doubt due in large part to some geopolitical events That it drove gas prices through the roof and caused fuel rationing and gas lines.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, diesel was much cheaper than gasoline in the United States. Mercedes Benz AND Peugeot it had done reasonably well selling diesel-engined cars here during the 1970s, and so General Motors developed a diesel-burning version of Oldsmobile’s 350-cubic-inch (5.7-liter) V8 engine. As was typical with naturally aspirated automotive diesels of the time (the diesel engine in every modern car is turbocharged), power was paltry but torque was strong; This car’s engine was rated at 105 horsepower and 205 pound-feet.
First the 5.7 diesel showed up on the Riviera for the 1981 model year. The base engine was a 4.1-liter version of the Buick V6, while the petroleum-powered Olds cost $924 more (about $3,206 in 2023 dollars). A comfortable, smooth-running Riviera with diesel’s cheap fuel price and long range sounded great, even if you had to queue with Freightliners and Peterbilts to get to a pump, but there were problems. OH, so many problems!
Oldsmobile’s 350 V8 had been around since 1968 and had proved reliable and powerful. Oldsmobile engineers beefed up the 350’s block for diesel service, but opted to save on production costs by retaining the quantity and locations of the gasoline engine’s cylinder head bolts. Because diesels work much higher compression ratios than the petrol burners (in this case, the Olds 350 diesel had a compression ratio of 21.6:1 while its petrol counterparts had more than 8:1), the stresses on the cylinder head bolts were correspondingly higher. Stretched and broken head bolts followed, with destructive results to the engine.
Also, diesel fuel of the time was of uneven quality, and GM saved more money by omitting a water separator from the fuel system; this has caused GM diesel-powered cars to stall with depressing regularity. Oldsmobile diesels quickly gained a bad reputation and a tsunami of lawsuits overwhelmed the company. In the meantime, Cadillac’s variable displacement V8-6-4 engine was having widely publicized problems of its ownAND the new Chevrolet Citation was in the headlines for call after call. It was not a happy time for The General.
When GM developed a V6 version of the 350, the 4.3 Diesel, did not suffer from most of the flaws seen in his older brother. However, the damage had been done and the last year for Olds diesel engines was 1985 (not surprisingly, Gasoline prices plummeted during that time).
This car had some interesting futuristic bits and pieces that made up for the annoying engine somewhat. These emblems on the Landau padded top used electroluminescent lightingwhich looked interesting (I couldn’t find one of these lamps in working condition on my trips to the junkyard, but I’m not giving up).
These above-grid warning lights used fiber optic cables for illumination. Later in the 80’s, Buick would install touchscreen displays (sourced from an ATM hardware supplier) in Rivieras.
The Landau’s soft top was roasted in the Colorado sun, but otherwise this car is in pretty decent shape. Inside I found registration papers showing that it was only operational ten years ago, so its owner has managed to keep the 350 diesel running for many years.
The purple paint does not appear to have been a factory colour, but the high quality paintwork of the door jambs and engine compartment indicates that a good paint shop did the repaint.
MSRP on this diesel V8-powered car was $15,196, or about $52,721 in today’s money. Air conditioning, power windows, and an AM/FM stereo radio were all standard equipment.
The original owner’s manual was still with the car.
Now with 10.9% APR financing!
In retrospect, the optional 3.8-litre turbocharged V6 engine seems like the better choice over the diesel.
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