![1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird 1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird](https://ccmarketplace.azureedge.net/cc-temp/listing/102/5949/9718429-1963-buick-riviera-std.jpg)
![1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird 1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird](https://classiccarsbay.com/media/main/vehicle_photos/8c/76/9d/8c769da7b9b5e6527ae547dfdca5b8bf.jpg)
Only the convertible made it into a fibreglass mock up, with complete interior. With Buick now committed to the XP715, stylists were debating whether to use single or dual headlights embedded in the grille. Early in the XP715’s development, Mitchell had four-door hardtop and convertible versions constructed. They began complaining to GM’s President, John Gordon, that they needed a special car, with unique styling, to match the Thunderbird. By mid-1958, GM’s dealers could see what GM’s planners had not. If you were at GM and reviewed these numbers, you could be forgiven for underestimating the threat of the Thunderbird.īut, as always, the numbers do not always tell all of the story. Let’s pause for a minute: In 1958 GM sold 193,000 Impalas and Bonnevilles compared to Ford’s almost 38,000 Thunderbirds. Cutting the price by $3000 in 1958, Pontiac saw 12,240 Bonnevilles exit dealer showrooms that year. Costing almost as much as a Cadillac, it sold only 630 units that year. Pontiac released their upmarket Bonneville in 1957 as a convertible. More than 181,000 were sold, making it a big success. In 1958 Chevrolet debuted its range-topping luxury/sports Impala. Called the “banker’s hotrod” their large price tag crimped their appeal to only those with a fat wallet. These cars were advertised as luxury sporty cars, for the family: Thunderbird territory.Ĭhrysler’s 300 letter cars were powerful, luxurious and expensive. Since 1953, Studebaker had been selling their Starliner Hardtop coupe, giving it names like Speedster and Golden Hawk. Meanwhile, other car makers were testing this market segment. The 1960 sales alone were twice the entire sales of the two-seater Thunderbird.
![1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird 1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird](https://photos.classiccars.com/cc-temp/listing/166/666/35317117-1951-buick-riviera-thumb.jpg)
During its three years on the market the “Square Bird”, as it became known, went to 197,500 customers. I told McNamara that it would allow us to double or even triple our volume.”Īnd Morsey was absolutely correct. “The four-seater offered a better balance of prestige and profit, because it would appeal to a lot more customers. Morsey recalls telling McNamara not to worry about the financial aspects of upsizing the Thunderbird. In his book The Man Who Saved the V8, Morsey tells of a 1954 memo to Ford’s senior managers in which he stated that the Thunderbird “will be planned as a personal car, not a sports car.” It was he who first used the term “personal car” to describe the original Thunderbird. At age 29 he was the first boss of Ford’s fledgling product planning department. The information had been compiled by Chase Morsey. Both were early adopters of market research and data evaluation techniques to predict consumers’ automotive desires.Īt the time the two-seater Thunderbird made its debut, Crusoe and McNamara were reviewing data which pointed to the much larger sales potential for a four-seater version. The idea of a larger Thunderbird was championed by two of Ford’s most senior executives, Lewis Crusoe and Robert S. Here’s a rare photo of an early build example located at the entrance to Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, with a crash test dummy. The 1958 Thunderbird took GM by surprise. To begin this chronicle of the Riviera’s styling, let’s go back to 1958 and the brand new four-seater Ford Thunderbird.
![1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird 1963 buick riviera and 1963 ford thunderbird](https://i2.wp.com/atxcarpics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/1963-Buick-Riviera-at-Custom-Sounds-front-2.jpg)
I’ll have something more to say about this towards the end of this feature story. It would not be the last time GM’s product planning was caught out by Ford, which had the ability to identify emerging market segments and take the risk of filling them with stylish models that generated significant revenue. As the market leader they ought to have moved to claim it ahead of the competition. Given GM’s global resources and development capabilities, the company ought to have foreseen the growth of the market for a car like the Thunderbird. Said GM’s styling boss Bill Mitchell in a 1984 interview with David Crippen of the Benson Ford Research Centre in Dearborn: “Out comes the Thunderbird. For me, the Riviera is a high-profile example of GM being caught off guard about future trends, and then having to run hard to catch up. Many of the photos you see here are published for the first time.īut there is an aspect of the Riviera which has been long overlooked. XP is the code used by GM for eXPerimental projects. With the help of the archivists at the GM Heritage Centre in Michigan, I’ve been able to uncover images of the two “XP” projects, XP92 and XP715, which led to the Riviera. This Retroautos story reveals the design to driveway history of 1963 Riviera. It set a styling template which General Motors (GM) used time and time again for the next three decades. I think the 1963 Buick Riviera is one of the best-looking cars ever designed.