A few days ago, I made it to 30,000 words in the Riviera Project. I’ve made a few more design decisions, including solving a basic book formatting issue that had been bothering me for months.
I’ve been getting more of the option tables done, which only reveals how inconsistent some of the data is. I’ve also become resigned to the statement under Selected Available Equipment in many Buick brochures:
This is a partial list.
See your dealer for details.
One thing that helps with getting accurate options data is scans and photos of the original window labels (the famous Monroney sticker), which sometimes turn up in the strangest places. I’ve gotten to the point where I hope for a heavily optioned car when I do find a window sticker—it’ll give me more data!
Options available in a Riviera of any generation are somewhat strange to our modern eyes, where reduced choice is often the watchword. Even at the very end in 1999, the Riviera was available with 12 exterior colors, six optional accent stripe colors, and five interior colors. Contrast that with Buick’s current top-of-the-line car, the 2019 LaCrosse sedan: 10 exterior colors, no accent stripes, and four interior colors.
A few statistics while we’re at it: revision 12 of the book sits at 106 pages. The two longest chapters are on the sixth generation and the seventh generation cars. Unsurprisingly, by far the most pages per year are for the first generation. The eight chapters on each generation currently make up 82% of the book.
J3Studio Press 