1955 Buick Century Riviera
Buick’s “Hottest Buick in History” tagline for the 1955 Century wasn’t marketing bluster… the car backed it up. Contemporary road tests recorded 0-60 mph runs in under 10 seconds, a figure compelling enough that the California Highway Patrol purchased 270 specially built examples for fleet use, the only year the department relied on Buicks.
The Century’s performance formula was straightforward: take Buick’s lighter body and install the division’s most powerful engine, a 236-horsepower version of the 322 ci “Nailhead” V-8 (named for its small, unusually positioned valves) paired with an improved Dynaflow automatic transmission. The Nailhead had debuted just two years earlier as part of Buick’s 50th anniversary.
The two-door Riviera hardtop announces itself through a broad chromed grille and the four VentiPorts punched into the front fenders (a detail that distinguished the Century from the base Special).
Buick produced 36,276 two-door Riviera hardtops for 1955, compared to 5,581 of the more sought-after convertibles, making the hardtop by far the more attainable entry point into the model today.
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