Whaddyacallit #229 - Solved! 1963 Riviera Silver Arrow I

[Ray B.]

Ever seen this ?

If you did, please respond below and let us know the make and model designation of the car posted here.
If you haven't registered yet, you need to do so in order to reply with your answer.
Also, please be sure to check out our other puzzles, and, please post a puzzle of your own if you'd like - the more, the merrier.
Thanks!

[Ray B.]

January sales!

[DynaMike]

Looks like a 1963 Buick Riviera... but those had quarterlights, and I guess it would be too easy in the Expert category. Though I did find this very car listed as such (by googling) and then my computer suddenly ran down 

Anyway, it seems to be the 1963 Buick Riviera Show Car...

[Ray B.]

Indeed this is a Buick Riviera, but you have noticed the differences with the production models. And it had a very specific name. That's what I am after. "Show car" is not enough.
A happy new year without computer rundowns...

[DynaMike]

Thanks, Ray B. Happy new year to you and all other Autopuzzlers! Thanks to a hint in an old French classic car magazine I found that this is the 1963 Buick Riviera Silver Arrow I Concept Car, though there might be even a link to the (reborn) name of LaSalle...

[Ray B.]

Riviera Silver Arrow I is correct. Rather than a true concept I believe this was a chopped and customized production Riviera for Bill Mitchell.
My problem is the first car below, going by the same name. Is it the same car with some later modifications or another one?
The second car below is the Buick LaSalle.

[@re]

Yeah, I had that same thoughts about the subtle differences, but then I looked it up in a book of mine:

"1963 Riviera Silver Arrow

If any single vehicle heralded the start of the Bill Mitchell era in General Motors styling, it was the 1963 Buick Riviera. While the production model was a sensation, even more of what the talented designer could do was reflected in the Silver Arrow show car. Complete with subtle trim changes, a filled in grille, headlights in the side pods, and wide whitewall tires, the Silver Arrow at first looked like a mild custom. A closer look will reveal a chopped roof, shortened body, and special multi-hued paint, in silver of course.

Photos of the car reveal what looked like different versions with details altered.

Mitchell continued to update the Silver Arrow for a few years after its introduction.

While called the Silver Arrow I today, due to the Silver Arrow II of 1968 and III of 1972, at its introduction it was simply the Silver Arrow.

As a further note, when the production of Rivieras came to a halt in 1999 (at least for now), final copies were called and trimmed as Silver Arrows."

So your puzzle picture is probably a slightly modified later version of the original '63 Silver Arrow, which does look like the first picture in your later post - with the filled-in grille. The strange thing is that your puzzle pic looks like a 'productionised' version of the original show car, with wheels and grille that looks more standard. I haven't been able to find any pictures of the '68 Silver Arrow II, though, but it probably would have looked more different from the first one than your picture shows. Right?

[Ray B.]

I think that the second picture I've posted may be the car rebuilt by its last owner to appear exactly as it was in 1963 (remember: wide whitewall tyres). This is a recent photo, and there some of the same car at Pebble Beach. My puzzle photo, although a period photo, must show the "updated" car a few years later than 1963.
Here are pictures of the Silver Arrows II and III (altough what the first one shows is dubious. As noted by the fellow who posted it on a forum "(Possibly) 1966 Buick Riviera "Silver Arrow II". Photos of this car are difficult to find, so I am unsure if this is a styling clay of the coming '66 Riviera or the Silver Arrow in early form. The roofline is different from the production car's, along with the lower-body sculpturing. Nevertheless, another really dramatic Mitchell-esque creation for sure:"

[@re]

Agree. That sounds like a plausible explanation.

[Otto Puzzell]

Ray - I've sent you a couple of PM's that may shed some light on the configuration of the two first-gen Riviera's you posted.

[Ray B.]

Thanks, Otto. I had checked them and, although thet are GM material, the first one contradicts the informations quoted by @re (Complete with subtle trim changes, a filled in grille, headlights in the side pods, and wide whitewall tires) and left me dubious. Which one is the original Silver Arrow? The one with the wide whitewalls and filled grille, or the one found in your link (the same as my puzzle picture) ?.

[Otto Puzzell]

The 1963 Buick Riviera Silver Arrow I Buick concept car was a production Riviera coupe specially customized by GM styling head William L. Mitchell. The roof was lowered and the front fenders lengthened several inches housing the concealed headlights. The car served as a personal vehicle for Mitchell when not being shown, much the way early Buick concept cars had for his predecessor Harley Earl.

There were actually two more versions of the Silver Arrow I. The Silver Arrow II and Silver Arrow III incorporated unspecified, but relatively minor, changes to the production Riviera.

General Motors in the Twentieth Century. Alan K. Binder and Deebe Ferris (editors). Ward's Communications. 2000
Buick Muscle Cars. By William G. Holder and Phillip Kunz. MotorBooks/MBI Publishing Company. 1996.

Based on the above, I believe your puzzle car wasn't correctly ID'd. The first photo was the Riviera show car. The wide-whitewalls car is one iteration of the Silver Arrow, which the Riviera show car morphed into. 

[Ray B.]

Now this is tough.  First, let's dismiss the Silver Arrows II and III, who are later models.
The wide whitewalls car is, I believe, the Silver Arrow I. It is, or was, in the Alfred P. sloan Museum in Flint (I've seen photos to prove it) and they should know. But from what I read everywhere, there was no other show car in 1963 besides the Silver Arrow.
I find this in George H. Damman's "Seventy years of Buick" (Crestline Books, 1973) an authority on Buick:
Buick came out with two Silver Arrow Riviera show cars this year, both quite similar, but with the original version having a few more show-type frills than this second version. Both were painted in metallic silver, used their own special grilles, and had their headlights hiddden behind large plastic pods on the leading edges of the fenders.
The car illustrated in the book (car N°2) is in a show-room, has the exact same wheels as my puzzle car, but what seems to be a filled-in grille. The book is only ten years younger than the car, so I am inclined to trust it.
To make things even more complex, the Buick club of Australia, on whose site I copied the picture, calls it the Silver Arrow I and says that it is in the Sloan Museum. That's not conclusive though.

So, Otto, I'm certain of nothing, but I think that my puzzle is correctly ID'd.

[Paul Jaray]

My source, the Standard Catalog of American Cars 1946-1975, reports, in the 1963 historical footnotes:
"Two Riviera "Silver Arrow" show cars were also seen, both being slightly different."
and in the 1971's : "A new "Silver Arrow" Riviera show car was exhibited."