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The Lost Reatta
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Comments
A Grand National edition Reatta might have sparked some much needed excitement, in my opinion, and attracted people who were looking for more excitement, without betraying the concept of a comfortable grand tourer.
Now in later years, GM was able to supercharge the 231 and use it in FWD platforms, but I have a feeling these cars were much more beefed up than the 1986-era E-body (Toro/Eldo/Riv) upon which the Reatta was based.
Buick's demographic was starting to shift in the later 80's, as well. Buick had once been looked upon as an upper medium price brand, which in modern terminology, I believe they call "Near Luxury". Buick once was the Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, etc, of its day. Earlier in the 80's, there was a definite market for the pricier Buicks. Rivieras and Electras were popular, and the more expensive LeSabre Limited tended to outsell the cheaper Custom by a wide margin. In later years though, Buick made more of its volume off of smaller, cheaper cars like the FWD Century, Somerset Regal/Skylark, cheaper versions of the LeSabre, etc. The Electra saw a few good years at first, after it went FWD, mainly because the economy was coming out of a recession, which kept sales of the earlier RWD models lower than they normally would have been. But it fell from grace pretty quickly. And Buick really shot themselves in the foot with the 1986 Riviera. Sales fell from about 65,000 of the 1985 models, down to a paltry 22K for the shrunken 1986 models. Similarly, the FWD Regal never took off in quite the way that the RWD model had. It had a few upward years at first, probably because the RWD model had just gotten long in the tooth and buyers were looking elsewhere. But the trends were pretty obvious, that Buick was moving downscale. Truthfully, it had been doing so since perhaps the late 50's, when platform sharing became more pronounced, but it seemed to accelerate in the 80's.
The Reatta was also pretty expensive, for what you got. The 1990-91 convertible stickered for around $35-36K. In contrast, a Corvette convertible, which had the heritage and power to give it some prestige, didn't sticker for much more..$37-38K.
These caused troubles when they were new and if one of them went bad now, it would probably condemm the car.
Where would you ever find another one?
The digital dash on the Reatta got pretty temperamental in cold weather, too.
I remember, hearing in the late 80's that to replace that big dash unit cost someting like 2600.00 plus labor!
I don't know if that was accurate but today, I doubt if you could find one at any price.
Everything was controlled through that screen. Climate control, radio etc. They would tell you things like if your AC freon was low etc.
Kind of nifty, actually but troublesome and not very practical.
The early Allantes were nothing but trouble and the Cadillac dealers REALLY hated working on them!
Those Reattas were VERY expensive as I recall.
A question for my buddy Mr. Shifty.
HOW in the world do you monitor all of these boards? Is it a 24 hr 7 day a week job for you?
You can answer that in a private email if you wish. I'm just curious.
I don't know for sure, but I imagine one of the objectives of the Buick Reatta was to pull younger people into the showroom, but it failed to do that. I think the Reatta was nicely styled for its day, but its driving dynamics weren't sporty enough. As an expensive premium model, it wouldn't have had to target the below 30 crowd, other than as an aspirational. "one day I want to own one" sort of way. However, it certainly would have had to appeal to the upwardly mobile late-30s and older crowd, instead of only (with few exceptions) the 55+ motorists.
Suppose the Reatta had offered a supercharged or turbocharged version, with a tight suspension and a 5-speed manual, a Reatta "Grand National" or "GNX", in addition to the regular version. Could that have saved the Reatta?
In mesage #13 british rover wrote the following:
"Well the Reatta was deal by the time the Series II 3800 engines came out and those were the first Supercharged 3800s. They never did a series 1 Supercharged 3800.
You can't even put a supercharger from a supercharged 3800 onto a NA 3800. Everything about the engine is different. THe SC 3800 motors used completly different heads."
That doesn't really explain why Buick couldn't have made the necessary modifications to offer a supercharged or turbocharged version. Money wasn't nearly as tight then as it is now.
Maybe GM was just getting confused as to what, exactly, they wanted Buick to be. With dropping the sporty T-types, I think they were supposed to start focusing more on luxury, but they never really got there.
I think the problem about a hi-rod Reatta or an XLR is that there is no room in this narrow market for a wannabee Mercedes SL .
GM should repeat ten times a day "We cannot, nor will we ever, be able to build a Mercedes SL, so let's stop trying".
My point, then, is that I don't think the hot rod Reatta would really have competed with the Mercedes SL. GM assigned that role to the Allante, and the fate of that Cadillac model supports your point more than the Reatta/SL comparison, in my opinion. But, for whatever similarities existed between the Reatta and the Allante, I believe it's appropriate to discuss and compare them separately with the SL.
You could compare it to another modern flop, the Chrysler Crossfire. Fast enough, very svoopy-doopy and all that, and way too expensive once again.
I just don't think there was a niche that the Reatta could have survived in at that price point.
Well, that's harder to counter than the Reatta/SL comparison, but let me try.
The '90s 300 ZX was indeed an awesome car. The same could be said of the Buick GNX, however, even though these particular cars weren't direct competitors because you can't compare a sportscar with a muscle car.
Although I've never driven or even ridden in a GNX, from everything I've read it couldn't be compared with the Buick Regal on which it was based. It's performance didn't fit the Buick image. Their performance was as different as night and day. The GNX was one mean car. It has a solid enthusiast following.
I cite the GNX to make the point that if Buick had used the GNX as a model for a performance Reatta, the 300ZX might have had a competitor, and the Reatta might have survived. Now the indisputable difference between Nissan and Buick is that Nissan actually put out an awesome car, while Buick might have/could have/should have, but didn't.
I believe that the success of the GNX (such as it was) was due more to the paucity of anything else left for the American car enthusiast to buy in 1986.
But your idea of a *developed* GNX powerplant in a *further developed* Reatta---well sure, that could have given GM a 300ZX competitor.
But I think GM was still pretty clueless in 1990. They really didn't "get it" until the Corvette C5, did they? -- what, 7 years down the road?
At least the XLR, which you cited in an earlier message, is RWD, which the Reatta and Allante should also have been. I guess, in GM's defense, when they did the feasibility studies on these two sporty cars the engines weren't so powerful that torque steer was a major problem, and fewer consumers were as aware of the limits of FWD as they are today. That's not to say that, even as a FWDer, the Reatta couldn't have been a much more engaging drive than it was, but your comparison with the 300 ZX wins this debate.
Follow the linky.
1990 Buick Reatta
The dopey ineffectual principal I had in high school drove one of those.
Nice to see you round here again.
I am sure that is mostly broken in those cars by now. Maybe the HUDs would still work those seem to last as long as the windshield is replaced with the right type.
I have been around but been busy with the house, trying to keep up with work stuff and a toddler now so haven't been posting in most of my usual forums.
Ugh! Did you ever notice how just seeing one undesirable person driving a particular car could ruin the image of a vehicle for you? You start thinking, "If a guy like him drives that kind of car, I sure as heck don't want one!" Your description makes me picture Principle Skinner from "The Simpsons" in a Reatta.
Exactly. That's why I hate the Ford Tempo to this very day...my stepdad used to have one! But, I can easily find reasons other than that to not like the Tempo. :P
But at least he wasn't an arrogant jerk like some. His lasting impression on me is the Reatta.
As I am a nut, I can remember many teacher's cars going back to second grade (77-79 T-Bird)
Pick it up tomorrow....more later!
For years it belonged to an 85 year old member of the Buick Club and the current owner has owned it 7 years. Decent shape, always a Seattle car so no rust.
Hate to say it, but one reason I let my membership in the local DeSoto club expire was simply that I didn't have much in common with the other members. I was only 20 when I bought mine, and most of the other members made the typical Buick demographic look like the Justin Bieber crowd. Or, back then I guess it was New Kids on the Block or whatever...
A cross between silver and charcoal I would say.
I did belong about 12 years ago when I had my 1953 Suoer with 45,000 miles and at the time most were my age or older.
I din't know about the Ford show at BCC today and missed it!
Instead I ended up at the Triple X in Issaquah for a boring BMW meet.
Mustang show at BCC should be in a month or two.
Picked it up yesterday and it's even better than I thought.
Body is as straight as a pin. Original paint looks good unless a person wants to pick at it and point out the areas where the clearcoat is starting to peel just a bit.
Leather and interior are probably an 8 out of 10 and it runs exceptionall well. 138,000 miles.
A/C will throw snowballs at you.
The worst thing are the aluminum factory wheels. If you look at them close, you'll see curb rash and clearcoat peeling. They really need to be redone.
ABS light is on and has been for at least five years according to the seller
Owners Manual and Reatta pen are included in the leather folder. I found the factory "build sheet" inside the car.
If someone tells he how to do this, I'll post pics.">
I just realized something...they don't have "CarSpace" here on Edmund's anymore, do they?
To post pics, you need to have an account at a photo sharing site, like Flickr, Photobucket, etc, or some kind of personal website where you can upload pictures.
If you don't have one, if you want to email me some pics, I can post them from my photobucket site.
Hate to admit this but when it comes to things like this, I need to take a class.