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In 1966, General Motors wanted the 1966 Buick Riviera to share front-wheel-drive technology with the 1966 Toronado and 1967 Eldorado. But problems cropped up during early testing of front-drive prototypes, and Buick decided the Buick Riviera should stick with rear-wheel drive. In 1966 dollars, front-wheel drive made the Toronado $400 more expensive to manufacture than the Buick Riviera. Yet the 1966 Toronado's list price was only $161 more than the Buick Riviera's. Also, pre-prototype testing showed durability problems with the front-wheel-drive differential bearings. Here's basically what happened. In 1963-1964, Buick had responsibility for that part of the Toronado's front-drive system between the Hydra-Matic and the inner constant-velocity joints. In other words, Buick's engineering research and development (R&D) department were charged with developing the front-wheel-drive differential mechanism and drive axles, a project that ended up in the lap of a 30-year-old Buick engineer named Jack DeCou. The team was having problems burning up pinion bearings due to lubrication issues. DeCou and other engineers changed bearing angles and lubrication systems and redesigned the differential.


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DeCou's boss,  Buy Prime Boosts Phillip C. Bowser, cited a third reason why Buick chose not to make the 1966 [[https://www.ourmidland.com/search/?action=search&firstRequest=1&searchindex=solr&query=Riviera%20front-drive|Riviera front-drive]]. Buick engineers didn't like the way the big front-wheel-drive pretest vehicles rode and handled. They had a tendency to understeer, especially when pushed to the limit. Bowser went on to become Buick's chief engineer in 1968, but throughout the first-and second-generation Riviera's development, Lowell Kintigh held that position. He remained, throughout his career, a staunch believer in over-the-road testing. To him, what a car felt like on the road meant everything. According to those who worked with Kintigh, he had an almost unbelievable sensitivity for  [[https://rumiki.wapchan.org/w/index.php?title=User:BetseyMcgrath67|Prime Boosts Supplement]] the feel of a car. He drove hard and fast, often dusting the lonely mountain roads of Arizona and Colorado at speeds that made his fellow engineers distinctly nervous. Ride was one of Buick's hallmarks, but another was braking ability. Buick had almost always prided itself on its brakes.



To evaluate the finned, aluminum-clad, 12-inch front drum brakes that appeared on the 1966 Riviera, Kintigh had his brake development people test them over and  [[https://paintingsofdecay.net/index.php/Help_With_Modeling_A_Dragon|Prime Boosts Supplement]] over down Pikes Peak. The test mules were put in Drive, driven hard down the mountain, then driven back up to come down again. The cycle was repeated a number of times. The rear-drive 1966 Buick Riviera did end up sharing some of the Toronado's sheet-metal stampings. Both cars used the same cowl, roof, glass, and inner doors. The frame and undercarriage, though, were very different. The 1966 Riviera also shared the Toronado's rocker sills and the rear section of the Toronado's floorpan. The Riviera had specific toeboards but a common floor from the third frame member back. Finally, Ryder notes that the 1966-1970 Riviera stood slightly taller than the first-generation coupe. It now had a single cardan joint in the driveline instead of doubles.



There's no question that Buick made the right decision in going with rear drive. In the next section, learn more about the history behind the Buick Riviera's design. The original 1963 Buick Riviera gave GM a much-needed entry into the four-seater personal-luxury market. Before it came along, the Thunderbird had that market niche all to itself. Yet the first Buick Riviera's purpose wasn't just to fill a hole. It was also to boost Buick's image, and it did that with success. Through such cars as the Riviera, the Wildcats, and the Special Skylarks, Buick got rid of its reputation for gaiters and galoshes. He originally conceived the car not as a Buick, but as a four-place Cadillac. Because of the fender uprights, which took their inspiration from the 1939-1940 LaSalle grille, Nickles called [[http://roedu.co.kr/bbs/board.php?bo_table=42_2&wr_id=349956|Check this out]] concept car the LaSalle II. GM Design Staff, meanwhile, gave it its official experimental number, XP-715, and Nickles' boss, GM design vice-president William L. Mitchell, added the clean, shapely, slightly razor-edged body sculpting plus the eggcrate grille.



Mitchell initially urged Cadillac to produce the LaSalle II, but it soon became obvious that Cadillac general manager Jim Roche wasn't interested. At that point, General Motors decided to let Pontiac, Buick, and Oldsmobile compete for the right to build the car. Buick general manager Ed Rollert and sales manager Roland  [[https://test.cuber.co.kr/onyeol/bbs/board.php?bo_table=free&wr_id=121425|natural male pills]] Withers both felt strongly that their division needed an image maker like the LaSalle II. In the intramural competition that followed, Ed Rollert personally made Buick's pitch to GM's executive policy committee. His presentation was bolstered by Buick's ad agency, McCann-Erickson, as well as by the division's marketing staff. Rollert also called on chief R&D body engineer, Ed Reynolds, to lay out a plan that would allow Buick to build the 1963 Buick Riviera using a good number of off-the-shelf parts, mostly from GM's B-cars. According to Phil Bowser, Reynolds used everything possible from the B-body but still kept the unique flavor Nickles and Mitchell had put into the LaSalle II.
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