The 1971 Buick Riviera Boattail and the 2018 McLaren Senna walk into a bar. Except it’s not a bar, but the computer of one of the world’s leading digital artists, Khyzyl Saleem, who’s been tasked with bringing these apparently immiscible machines together for a rendering. And while it shouldn’t work, it somehow does, so here we are, gawking at the aero-heavy result.
You can think of the 1971 redesign that marked the introduction of the Gen III Buick Riviera as a C3 Corvette brought to the size of a Cadillac. Such a piece of styling was a massive challenge in itself, but The Khyza now has to put a wing on it, which is never an easy job when it comes to classic Americana.
And that wing is just the start of the aero treatment. Since the pixel master used a McLaren Senna as an aero donor car, the iconic slab of GM now also accommodates air channels in its super-sized fenders, while that gorgeous rear window is adorned by an air scoop feeding the N/A V8 that’s been relocated right under it.
If you’re reading this with your purist glasses on, you can at least find comfort in the fact that this seems to stick to the original engine recipe, albeit with the Buick 455 ci (7.5L) V8 having received independent throttle bodies.
The full-size Riviera was never a friend of the scales (think: 4,247 lbs/1,926 kg), but, with all the British carbon present on the virtual build, it is now.
The fascias are the fruit of massive skill and relentless work
With the artist having honed his skills by creating designs for game such as NFS Heat, as well as real-life builds, most of which come under his Live to Offend brand, if anybody could pull this marriage off, it had to be him.
To these eyes, the fascias were even more difficult to mix than the profile, but, after some apparent hurdles that Khyza mentions in the video below (hat tip to Hagerty), it all came together.
The front end looks like somebody put a feather to the funny bone of a McLaren employee and tickled the person into using the Woking factory’s modern ways for building a Riviera. While we enjoy the said melange, the posterior is the part we prefer, with the 1963 Corvette Stingray Coupe-inspired rear window of the Buick now flanked by super-sized air vents.
And once you see the redesigned exhaust, it almost makes you wonder why somebody hadn’t already done it this way before.
The ’71 Boattail was controversial from the very beginning
It might be difficult to assess the impact of this McLaren-mixed Buick, though and perhaps only time will tell how people really feel about it, even though those who would simply have it without the rear wing will have their wish fulfilled in the final part of the clip.
After all, the Boattail Riviera was considered a controversial design back in its day and, also due to the fuel crisis slamming the brakes on large personal luxury cars, the model was retired after just three model years. And that was only to replace it with a more traditional-looking Gen IV that rode on the same platform and didn’t survive for longer. Nevertheless, the standout design of the Gen III receives plenty of love these days.
For the record, the Boattail approach was executed by designer/rock singer Jerry Hirshberg and built on a concept penned by GM design chief Bill Mitchell. The latter came up with the extreme lines after being impressed by a coachbuilt Rolls-Royce he saw in London, which is exactly where The Khyza is based…
