Working on the 1963-65 Buick Riviera story got me curious about the long-term trajectory of the brand’s high-end family cars.
A low point was the 1958 recession, when the Roadmaster and Limited together garnered under 22,000 units — which represented only 9 percent of Buick’s depressed total output. This was in keeping with a major decline in sales of premium-priced brands, but the U.S. auto industry experienced one unexpected bright spot: Ford’s new four-seater Thunderbird almost hit 38,000 units.
Buick hits reset button but was slow to catch T-Bird
In desperation, Buick gave its entire lineup name changes for 1959. High-end models were now called the Electra. Perhaps partly because of a price cut, output tripled. Even so, the T-Bird would continue to outsell the Electra through 1964. In contrast, the Riviera — which was introduced in 1963 — would always operate in the shadow of the Electra.
Even in the relatively bad years of 1959-61 the Electra took up around 20 percent of Buick’s total output. Electra production bottomed out at under 48,000 units in 1961 but in eight years would more than triple to almost 159,000 units. In 1969 the Electra made up almost 24 percent of the brand’s total output. That was despite Buick expanding its lineup with the smaller Special/Skylark as well as the Riviera personal coupe.
In the first half of the 1960s, the Electra’s output tracked fairly closely with that of Oldsmobile’s Ninety-Eight. However, from 1966 onward the Buick became the clear sales leader among high-end, premium-priced nameplates.
During the same time period when Electra sales were soaring, the Riviera only inched up to a peak of roughly 53,000 units in 1969.
GM had less motivation to invest in personal coupes
The Thunderbird did a far better job of challenging General Motors’ dominance of the top-end of the premium-priced class than launching the Edsel or moving Mercury upmarket. But even though the T-Bird outsold the Electra for a few years, it was still eclipsed by the Electra and the Ninety-Eight together.
This may go a ways toward explaining why GM was slow to come out with a T-Bird competitor — and was half-hearted when it did (go here for further discussion). I could see the bean counters resist spending extra money on a niche product when GM was already generating enviable profits from the Electra and Ninety-Eight. After all, unlike the T-Bird they shared most of their sheetmetal with high-volume family cars.
A similar situation played out in the luxury personal coupe field in the 1970s. Ford may have been more inclined to regularly update its Continental Mark series because it was far more competitive against the Cadillac Eldorado than the Lincoln Continental was against regular Cadillacs (go here for further discussion).
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Auto editors of Consumer Guide;  2006. Encyclopedia of American Cars. Publications International, Lincolnwood, Ill.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcaradvertising.com: Buick (1967)
- oldcarbrochures.org:Â Buick (1958, 1969)
Steve, as I’m sure you know, one of the major reasons for the Lincoln Mark III’s success was because it was made in the Wixom, MI plant, on the same assembly line as the T-Bird and the 4 door variants of the Lincoln & T-Bird, keeping build costs down. I don’t think GM had that economy of scale for the Eldorado/Toronado/Riviera.
Bill, the paragraph in question includes a link to a story about the 1971-78 Cadillac Eldorado. To reduce costs, for 1971 GM shifted its triumvirate of luxury personal coupes to a modified version of GM’s big car body. In addition, the Eldorado received far fewer updates than the Mark series during that time period.
GM wasn’t willing to invest the resources that Ford was in that market. My guess is that this was at least partly because the regular Cadillac sold so well — quite the opposite of the regular Lincoln.
I am struggling to see how the Electra sales volume would have a correlation to the Riviera. I see the two model lines as very different and appealing to different customers.
As for Buick and Oldsmobile versus Cadillac, there was a stigma with a Cadillac while the others were not as uppity. Story on the creation of Home Depot had one of the founders meeting with Perot for backing. Founding denied because he was driving a Cadillac, his company car from prior company. Perot took issue with that and made a point of his EDS people drove Buicks.
I’m not understanding your use of the word “correlation.” My basic premise, which shows up in this and other stories, is that Ford spent an enormous amount of money in the late-50s trying to break GM’s dominance of the upper premium-price bracket with the Edsel and Mercury — and failed spectacularly. Meanwhile, a parenthetical effort — the four-seater Thunderbird — was wildly successful. This challenged the groupthink that playing follow the leader was the best strategy.
GM’s lineup had been built around a hierarchy of brands, whereby it could generate strong profits by offering an Electra and Ninety-Eight that used lots of the same components as lower-priced GM cars. The Thunderbird undercut that strategy in a variety of ways, such as by sporting a fairly unique body and challenging the assumption that more expensive cars were supposed to be bigger.
The first-generation Riviera was GM’s half-hearted attempt to respond to the Thunderbird without spending nearly as much to do so, e.g., by heavily basing the car on the big Buick. That the Riviera wasn’t nearly as successful as the T-Bird may have been intentional. GM’s bean counters may not have wanted to go whole hog with personal coupes when the automaker was already dominating the upper-premium price bracket with much better economies of scale than the Thunderbird could achieve.
As the 1960s progressed, the US automotive market balkanized as automakers were increasingly inclined to engage in product proliferation. So, yes, a late-60s Electra appealed to a somewhat different buyer than a Riviera even though they were similarly priced. However, there was some overlap. Ford marketed the four-door Thunderbird as a more reasonably sized alternative to an Electra and Ninety-Eight.
By now, most of us know that Ford and General Motors have long competed side by side. The idea here is to produce a product that everyone will want to own. Designing a new car model is not only expensive, but also a gamble as they don’t always know the outcome or whether sales are going to exceed their expectations. Take for example, the Ford Edsel: They were introduced in 1958 but only lasted three years! Sales were so poor that Ford Motor Company ended production in 1960. But with the Ford Mustang, it was a different story. The new Mustang set sales records and was one of Fords most popular cars. That’s the way it is in the automobile industry! Happy Motoring