63 Riviera
The 63 Riviera would prove to be a very unique car which would not have its body shell shared with any other car model, which would most certainly be something very strange when it came to General Motors, who always had things shared. The frame of the 1963 Riviera would be similar to that of the standard Buick one (the only difference was that it would be narrower and also shorter) and it featured a 51 mm track which was narrower than before.
When it came to size, this model was 5300 mm long and had a wheelbase of 3000 mm and it was 200 mm and 150 mm shorter respectively than that of the Buick LeSabre. Still, when compared to a contemporary Thunderbird it would be most certainly a little longer.
The weight of the 1963 Riviera would also be noticed around at 1813 KG. The engine this unique model was sharing was that of the Buick’s V8 and the displacement of this engine would be of 401 cubic inches (6.75 litters) or 425 cubic inches (6.96 litters). When it comes to the brakes, they were the standards you could find in the Buick Al Fin (aluminum fins) drums which stacked 300 mm long, and the transmission of this little beast would be the twin turbine automatic transmission. Another thing that would come as a standard on this car was the power steering which had a steering ration of 20.5:1.
The coil springs of this new model proved to be a little softer when compared to those of other Buicks and the suspension’s design was the same used in all the standard Buicks, featuring double wishbones for the front and a live axle which could be found by a lateral track bar and trailing arms, meanwhile the roll centers had to be raised in order to have the body lean reduced.
Even though the Riviera would be biased towards under-steer, many people have considered this car to be a great model which regardless of the weather, would perform great and handling would not be a problem with it.
The date the car was released to the public was the 4th of October 1962 and the only engine you would be able to buy was the 325 HP one, the transmission would also be single (the Turbine Drive) and you had to shell out $4333 in order to drive this little beast.
