An unusual Buick Riviera - with gold grille and bumpers

 

Here is an interesting addition to my collection for 2022. The 245 Buick Riviera in a splendid shade of dark metallic blue with gold 'chrome' at the front and back. 

It appears to be an early edition with the 'grab' type of hook. It arrived with the later type of tyre - the post-1967 type with Corgi branding and in line tread - but they clearly cannot have been right so I replaced them with original 'normal' tyres of the right era.

The paint is quite thin but not greatly different to the metallic blue and gold that were the norm (the pale solid blue shade being rather thicker). It is not a coat that someone has added on top of another colour as the photo below shows, so this is either original or the base has been very cleverly refitted with no sign of damage to the rivets or where they might have been removed. The paint does, however, blur the definition of the Riviera motifs on the wings.

So this is a bit of a mystery and the first  I have ever seen with gold front and back. It is conceivable that someone has gold plated the original chrome pieces - or maybe gold pieces were available to buy as new parts - and somehow taken it all to bits and rebuilt it but this has been played with and people who make such smart rebuilds tend to look after them, as does whoever subsequently buys them. I am more inclined to the view that this is a production sample when colour schemes and, indeed, gold-plating may have been options on the table for the 245. Gold plating was not to be and the paint on this sample not suitable so it gets rejected.

It then gets taken home by someone at some point and a Corgi chap's child gets to play with it, eventually coming up for sale with a bundle of other Corgis. The seller had no knowledge of its past, just a random collection bought. 

I am happy to have this and expect it to stay in my display cabinet for many years before I learn any more about it!

Cast wheels on a pale blue Buick Riviera!

 

So the hook's broken and this Buick Riviera has been well played-with, for sure, but look - it's got cast wheels! These are almost unknown on the pale blue model. Usually it is just the late turquoise blue and some normal metallic blue models that have them. They're not that common on the gold editions but really scarce on the pale blue.

I would not have even known they existed if it had not been several years ago when I saw them on an immaculate edition in an original Riviera Gift Set. I tried very hard to buy the set but someone else clearly had seen what I'd seen and I had to drop out when the bidding went past £500 for the set. Add auction fees and heaven knows how much for postage and something approximating to packing and there'll have been little change out of £650 for a set which would usually peak at around half that, and that would be on a good day for the seller.

Since that disappointing experience I have looked high and low for another and finally I am the proud owner of a pale blue Riviera with cast wheels. And a broken hook and grotty paintwork, but I don't care.

The screens are clear and undamaged and the suspension is sound. The Trans-o-lite tubes are all OK and there's even quite a bit of chrome left on the bumpers. That'll do for me.

 

The Cast of Riviera Blues

It seems that it was not just the Toronado that came in several distinct shades of blue but the good old Buick Riviera too.  So far, all those I have encountered have been the same sort of of 'normal' blue metallic. Simply blue, I don't know how else to describe it. Now, though, along comes this quite clearly green-blue. It is much more noticeable in reality - the photos, despite my best efforts - don't show the difference as clearly. (I had the same problem trying to capture the difference in two Toronados, strangely enough.)

This one has come all the way from America. I was looking for a model with cast wheels which I'd spotted on one for sale. Unfortunately, all that I could find here were a very expensive blue one at around £200 and a tatty one with broken bits in gold. That was cheap enough but was beyond simple repair and I reckoned that it would be fairly easy just to change the wheels if I took it apart and then I couldn't prove that it was the rarer, late version.

So there are a few with cast wheels around and I guess they're not that difficult to find but they are worth looking out for. I'll buy a decent gold one when I find it. Finding the new shade was a bonus. The picture in the advert did look as if it was greenish but I'd put that down to light or just rubbish image processing.

The Riviera Set

An immaculate #245 Buick Riviera in gold arrived this morning. This has to be one of the best I have seen and it even had an original box. That had a bite out of it where I suspect a mouse had been munching but nothing major! However, I suppose that might have put off the purists and enabled me to pick this up for a very reasonable price.

Although it does have a towbar I'd rather use the light blue version for the Riviera Gift Set 31s that I am planning to put together. That colour just looks right in that set. I guess there must have been gold ones but all the sets I have seen had the light blue. Even the darker metallic blue was seldom used. I was wondering why they bothered putting a towbar on all models but, of course, the Dolphin boat was available separately as #104 and that would have been quite popular as a cheaper alternative to the quite expensive Gift Set and there wasn't a great deal you could do with the girl on a surf board, the only addition for your money, either.

So I now have gold and metallic blue versions with boxes to add to the site. My original gold Buick has excellent paintwork but the chrome has disappeared leaving just toffee coloured plastic. If I can find some replacement chrome this could be a candidate for the 'black list' (models I have taken apart and put back together again so can't sell as originals). This car could look brilliant in black.