Cadillac’s loss was Buick’s gain when GM’s luxury brand passed on Bill Mitchell’s XP-715 four-seat, two-door personal car concept.
GM Design chief Bill Mitchell was really impressed with a knife-edged, custom-bodied Rolls-Royce parked in front of the hotel he was staying at in London. When he came back to Detroit he turned a new project, Code XP-715, over to stylist Ned Nickles. Mitchell wanted to incorporate some of those Rolls-Royce styling cues in a low, slick four-seater that could compete with Ford’s Thunderbird. He also wanted Nickles to include some classic Ferrari touches to help set a new benchmark for personal luxury cars.
In 1960 Nickles’ design was offered to Cadillac as a possible sporty coupe to be badged LaSalle. Cadillac was not interested and bidding for the project was opened to all GM Divisions. Buick, with help from its new advertising agency, McCann-Erickson, won the competition. That concept would become the first (1963) Riviera, a brand that would last for decades and may return to the Buick lineup in the not-too-distant future.
Two friends, Jim Koscs (The New York Times) and Mike Gulett (My Car Quest), blog about classic Rivieras at
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/automobiles/collectibles/a-high-style-buick-at-a-reasonable-price.html?_r=0
http://mycarquest.com/2012/10/the-best-car-to-pull-the-ferrari-race-car.html
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