The boat tail Riviera is one of the oddest things Detroit ever put into production. A roofline that sweeps back and tapers to a point over the deck, a chrome nose the width of a door, and a body so wide the wheels look like they came off a smaller car.
Buick sold it for a couple of model years and then stopped. In red with Mr. Gasket lettering it is the most unusual shape in my case, and I like it more every time I move it.
Why the real Riviera looks like that
It came out of a period when American manufacturers still let designers take risks. The rear glass narrows to a point over a deck that falls away on both sides, an idea lifted from the boat tail speedsters of the thirties.
Buyers were not convinced and the shape did not last. That usually happens to designs that arrive before their audience is ready, and it is exactly why the car is interesting to me now.
For a collector there is a practical upside. Cars that flopped are underrepresented in collections, so owning one gives your shelf a silhouette nobody else has three of. Park it next to a Charger and a Chevelle and it looks like it arrived from a different industry.
How well the casting captures the boat tail
The tapered deck is properly formed. Mattel could have flattened it out for easier moulding and did not, so you can see the twin humps rising toward the point in the middle. That is the make or break detail on this body and they got it.
The front carries a full width chrome bumper with the headlights faired into it, and on mine that is real chrome rather than silver paint.
The compromise is the greenhouse. The side glass is a single tinted piece with the pillars moulded in dark, which reads fine from a metre away and flattens some of the subtlety of the roofline up close. Normal at this price. I would still rather have it than not have the car.
Mattel also lowered it and fitted bigger wheels than stock, as they do to everything. Here it works, because the real car was already low and wide, so exaggerating those traits pushes the design further in the direction it was already headed instead of fighting it.
The Mr. Gasket livery
A black side panel outlined in white runs from behind the front wheel to the rear quarter, carrying the Mr. Gasket Co. logo in a box. There is a matching white and black treatment on the hood and a small Hot Wheels flame near the rear quarter and again on the tail.
Using a real aftermarket parts brand instead of inventing a fake sponsor is a smart move. It puts the car in the world of period speed shops, and anyone who recognises the name gets an extra reason to buy. Red, black and white keeps it simple and leaves the shape as the main event.
Is the Hot Wheels Riviera worth collecting?
If your collection is heavy on the obvious muscle cars, this is one of the better ways to add variety without leaving the era. Mainline price, unusual outline, stands out at a glance.
Who will not enjoy it: anyone who wants their cars to look fast. The Riviera is a personal luxury coupe and no livery is going to change that. It looks expensive instead of aggressive. That is a feature to me and a drawback to plenty of people, and I would rather say so than pretend everyone will love it.
Buying a loose boat tail Riviera
The chrome front bumper sticks out further than anything else on the car, so it takes the hits. Look at it straight on to check it is square, and look for dulling or scrapes along the leading edge.
Then the tail. That point is a narrow high relief feature with nothing protecting it. Mine has minor paint wear right at the tip, which seems to be almost universal. If a listing has no rear three quarter photo, ask for one before you bid.
The long flat hood carries the white stripe, so run a light across it looking for scratches and thinning. And because the car is long and low, a bent axle shows up as a visible sag that you will not stop noticing once you have seen it.
What to display it with
Mine sits with early seventies American cars instead of with the muscle cars, alongside the personal luxury coupes and the last of the big bodies. In that group it looks intentional. Dropped into a row of Chargers it just looks like the odd one out, and the car deserves better than that.
Other cars from this era to look for
If the Riviera does what I think it does for a shelf, there are a handful of similar shapes floating around the mainline range.
Look for the big personal luxury coupes, the last of the full size two doors, and anything from the early seventies that sold badly at the time. Those are the cars that get overlooked at swap meets because they are not obviously fast, which means they are cheap.
The other advantage is that nobody else is chasing them. Try to build a shelf of desirable muscle cars and you are competing with thousands of collectors and paying accordingly. Build a shelf of commercial disappointments from 1971 to 1974 and you will be almost alone, the cars will cost you very little, and the result will be more interesting to look at than another row of Chargers.
Verdict
A bold shape captured honestly in a cheap casting, wearing a period correct speed shop livery. It will not appreciate and it will not impress anybody chasing rarity. What it brings to a display is genuine strangeness, and if you want a shelf that looks like it was put together by a person with taste instead of by an algorithm, cars like this are how you get there.
