A Modified 1972 Buick Riviera Boattail

General Motors was proud of it’s 1972 Buick Riviera for a variety of reasons, and the automobile’s innovative styling was certainly one of them. The 71 Rivieras were radically redesigned.These models were designed under the direction of GM’s Bill Mitchell who had worked previously under legendary auto designer Harley Earl.

The Riviera Boattail Design

The 72 Riviera’s styling stood out with it’s beautiful Boattail. On the Riviera this took the form of a huge, tapered, wrap-around rear window and protruding trunk. The boattail design on the Riviera’s was a bit controversial on a design standpoint at the time and may still be controversial with some collectors.

Auto collectors will usually associate the flowing boattail design with the Auburn Speedsters of the 1930’s. That same styling was also seen on the Chevy Corvettes from 63 to 67 and no doubt hung around the GM design rooms long enough to makes it’s reintroduction in 1971.

Buick Riviera’s MaxTrac

Buick offered it’s MaxTrac all-weather traction control system beginning with the 1971 Riviera. The system operated with a small computer two sensors. One of the sensors is located at the transmission output link and this measures rear wheel speed. The second sensor is located on the left front wheel hub and measures front wheel speed. MaxTrac kicks in when the computer detects the rear wheels going significantly faster.

What happens at this point is that the computer cuts the ignition ( the 12 volt coil wire png ele || []).push({});