Buick forged a reputation with its ventiports, like Pontiac with its silver streak and Cadillac with its tail fins. In fact, you could tell how expensive a Buick was by counting those ports: three, and it was a junior model aimed at the entry-level and mid-market; four, and it was a top-shelf senior car listed at a proportionate price. This 1955 Special Riviera advertised here on eBay was indeed special in its day, and not just for its three ventiports: it was the first production four-door hardtop sedan. But it was a car for everyman – not the elite – and it was a best-seller, responsible for boosting Buick to third place in sales. This one is bid to $3750, reserve not met; a buy-it-now option is available at $29,994. A few niggling issues – a misbehaving dome light, a couple of paint blemishes, a bit of cranky trim that doesn’t want to fit right, neglected interior finishes – await improvement by the new owner, but this car is largely a “get in ‘n go” prospect. It’s located in Mesa, Arizona. Thanks for sending along the tip, Curvette!
The engine is Buick’s 264 cu. in. Fireball V8, backed by a three-speed Dynaflow automatic – both rebuilt. Videos accompanying the listing show the car running – it’s slightly reluctant to fire up and noisy at first, but quickly settles into a purr. Installed in the Special, Buick’s first Fireball V8 provided 188 hp breathing through a two-barrel carb. Just one year later, the 322 cu. in. became available as an option, lending serious performance to the lightweight Special. This car’s odometer was reset after its restoration; it’s covered just shy of 10k miles since then. The underside shows evidence of this drive time, but it’s still respectably clean.
The seat upholstery is charcoal cloth surrounded by red vinyl, mostly replaced during the restoration. The headliner and carpet are new. The windshield has a minor scratch on the passenger’s side – the rest of the glass is decent. Carpet is missing above the pedals in the footwell, but that’s barely noticeable.
Buick pulled out all the stops in the mid-’50s, with chrome and brightwork adorning all four corners of its cars and then some. The Special’s sweepspear evolved from a character line in 1950 to a full-length flash of stainless by 1955. The tail lamp assemblies were laden with chrome, and the front bumper grew “Dagmars”. Post-war exuberance was on full display at American car makers. Today, these cars are fading in popularity, though fans will still pay a slight premium for the Riviera hardtop. As nice as it is, a price between $20k and $25k is likely all the money.
Needs another porthole ( and a 322, I read, they used Centuries with a 322),,”Officer Broderick Crawford of the Highway Patrol” ( cue da,da,da music)
To anyone that is trying to make a living selling classic cars, good luck. Here they want $30grand, and with only just over 10% of that offered, should reinforce my views. Now, does this dealer have $30grand in this car,,,probably not, but these outfits better get used to a more sedate lifestyle, like 10% of what they’re used to.
Wonderful cars, some of the best, yet so many will never get to know that. Little heavy on the black vehicles, don’t you think?
You beat me to it, Howard! I saw this and immediately could hear the intro to Highway Patrol, and then see Broderick Crawford setting up to cut a guy down at 100 yards with a 4 inch barrel.
Now I got images of Crawford giving his closing comments and the theme song of Highway Patrol playing through my mind. Need to switch to YouTube and look for something to take my mind off those memories. Well, they weren’t bad memories…
Dan Matthews, Highway Patrol: “Leave your blood at the blood bank, not on the highway”.
10-4, 10-4…
2150 to Headquarters…
I don’t trust folks who are acting as Classic Car specialists who will tell me about the rebuilt 3 speed Dynaflow transmission – the signature thing about Buick was the Dynaflow: one speed, no shifting, it’s all torque converter (there is a ‘low’ range but when in drive, the car doesn’t start out in low). Was the smoothest tranny ever, since it never shifted but provided “leisurely” acceleration. But any dealer that doesn’t know this is not qualified to sell one IMO
Quite right sir. I have a 1953 Buick Super 322ci, Dynaflow. It does not shift. Yes it’s plenty smooth, but poor acceleration and worse mileage. But my wife likes it to go out to dinner and stuff. I’ve been threatening to give it away to charity for years but the boss said no. Winter project is replacing the windshield rubber seal. Not a job I’d ever wish on anyone.
Hear, hear, Dave–100%!
This is the 5th time the seller has listed the car for auction, once it was bid to just over $16k, twice just to over $10k the other time to $5,100. This highlights how the prices of cars without a strong following are falling like a rock. Even with cars like this dropping in price, they won’t register with the people that like to complain about the lack of affordable cars, they have lost that much relevance. If a car like this is the dream car you’ve always wanted, buy it and be happy, if you are just looking for a “cool vintage car” to take to the occasional coffee and cars, keep looking until you find something at a more attractive price, the market is changing quickly in the down direction.
Steve R
Nice ride.
Sooner or later, it will have to sell, at some price. That price seems to be diving like a duck.
For most 1950s stuff that is not a T-bird or a Tri-chevy or Eldo, “affordable” is becoming $2500. Muscle cars still have some emotional attachment, but they are next.
The problem is finding someone with a garage, tools, skill, and “want-to”. Most people younger than 50 who have spare cash for something like this now live in sub-divisions with two-car garages filled with kayaks and bikes and other personal junk that they can’t part with.
So there is now a huge “hassle factor” related to owning these kinds of cars. The hassle of storing it, the hassle of insuring it, the hassle of finding a mechanic, the hassle of finding parts, the hassle of cleaning it after every run. On and on.
The helium in these prices from years past is beginning to reveal the real value of pieces like this. The “hassle factor” of owning them makes them nearly un-sellable in the market going forward.
I think traditional muscle and pony cars still have several decades of popularity left. They drive and handle better than the cars that came before, brakes and suspension upgrades are easy to install and plentiful, interiors are more comfortable and they are safer than 1950’s and earlier cars. They are still featured in popular culture and a lot of people under 50 grew up with family members or friends parents that drove over. If a certain car has been popular and sought after for close to 50 years, that doesn’t change overnight, their day will come, but not anytime soon. The market will start correction well before that, but not collapse like you are seeing on cars without a specific strong following. Major project cars for all but the most desirable will become parts cars, as they always should have been, but cars in good overall condition will continue to command strong interest from buyers.
Steve R
Steve R – I agree that muscle still has a fan base.
I’d argue that the remaining fan base is largely the “buy it, drive it, sell it for a new toy in three years” crowd. Or they buy and hold something they really want. Projects, even mild ones, have no market going forward.
One of the factors here that nobody mentions is that the property that someone needs to deal with these projects (multi-car garage with tools and parking space for parts cars) is becoming prohibitive to own for two reasons.
First is property taxes. These types of properties are taxed based on land, house, and outbuildings, and those taxes are considerably more than a two car garage plot in a subdivision.
Second, the underlying structures (house, garage, sheds, wishing well gazebo) are now old and dated, need massive repairs to be presentable, and the current owners are likely way behind with upgrades. Like their cars, nobody wants that. Definitely no modern wives.
The valuations of these “car guy” real estate tracts on the fringes of town are way out of line with their selling prices. Assessed values for real estate taxes are looking in the rear view mirror, so property taxes are just pure punishment. Especially in the Northeast, where property taxes are simply out of control in 2026.
When they do sell these car guy properties to guys willing to take on the maintenance and upgrade challenges, the younger buyers junk them up with side-by-side ATVs in the parking areas and motorcycles in the garage and an RV for music festivals instead of a classic car. An older truck with a 4 x 4 hi-lift conversion is far more attractive to them than a classic car. I see this exact scenario all over the place in Western PA. It’s real.
So the limiting factor here with old cars is the ability to deal with them in a practical way. The market is shrinking very fast.
Steve your absolutely right about this car. He’s been trying to dump it off for at least 3 year’s that I know of. He originally was asking if I recall close to 40k or more, but he’s been going downhill ever since. The video of him driving the car is not helpful to buyer’s hearing him talk about stuff that needs re-doing or fixed. Especially when you hear him mention the brakes are spongy !
Just as I think what happened with Ford Model A’s, just about everybody who wants one has one. And as that cohort fades away, there’s more sellers than buyers.
And the cars themselves: When this car was new, it and many of its relatives were often derided as numb, wallowing, gas-guzzling tanks.
nice Buick in the iconic black/ red combo. 50s cars are getting harder to sell due buyers aging out and not wanting the hassle that goes with any collector car. another deal selling they must like sitting on it if has been for sale previously and not selling it. if i had bottomless pockets i would buy it and cruise it around. hard to find that buyer though.
Buick looked beautiful in 1954, the new body being able to have 1953’s styling-cues adapted nicely to it, losing their frumpy dowdiness in the process. But the 1955 “refresh” was another matter altogether, with those grossly over-done tail-lights and that chrome-laden uber-heavy grille on what otherwise was a 1954 Buick — rather a kin to what Studebaker did to ruin their delicious little coupe in 1955 — some things are better let alone! But the mid-1950s were the beginning of hideously over-wrought styling, with rank ugliness shown-off as “space-age” modernity.
Young folks now are used to power everything and it is the old fogies that would want a car like this. I have and drive a 55 Chrysler from April to Christmas, it is far from pristine but people love seeing it. I am the only one who loves it and the reason is my dad had one and I learned to drive with it. I drive a memory only because I remember how much my father enjoyed his Chryslers. Talk about fixing it– it is so easy to work on and if you can’t get the part you make it. Other than a dripping trani, it just keeps on going and going.
I never realized that there were so many wise folk on this site. It’s refreshing to see other than “LS swap.”
Thanx, y’all.
I bought a cheap 55 4dr Buick Special (not rusty but not running) and I find it a piece of superb artwork, built to a very high standard of quality. While 60s muscle cars may drive better, when a $35k Hyundai is faster than any muscle car, I think the (admittedly reduced) market demand will turn to artistic cars first.
There was a reason the 55 Buick sold so well that they had to build them in the aisles at the factory! They are fabulous machines.
I learned to drive in my folk’s black 1957 Buick Special. An old USAF friend of my Dad’s let me drive his new 1961 Olds 88. Used to that smooth albeit leisurely Dynaflow transmission, the Olds’ Hydramatic felt like a clunky, archaic relic to a very young me (it wasn’t of course).
If you thought the Hydra-matic transmission clunky in a sixties-vintage car, you should have experienced it in late-40’s-to-mid-fifties Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and Pontiacs. On acceleration shifts would move your body back and forward in the seat, as if you were riding in a manual-transmission car operated by someone who was learning how to shift gears. And the loud, variably pitched hum that it emitted, especially on downshifts, was impossible to ignore. I’ve owned several of these cars including Buicks with Dynaflows. By my lights, the latter offered a far more pleasurable driving experience.
Just feed the dripping habit and enjoy
BTW, the car pictured is a 2-dr HT, not a 4-dr, as suggested in the description.
End at $10,425.
Reserve Not Met.
15 bids.
And there’s the true price.
The “investment car” game promoted by Mecum and Barrett-Jackson and Hagerty is over. It’s not coming back. This is not a correction like 2008 and other dips. It’s permanent.
All this stuff will now sell for “novelty use” prices.
Which is a good thing.
Most sellers are not in at the top end. They can cut their prices and come out pretty clean. Theyre just holding out hope that there are still greater fools, because they’ve been sold a story that this stuff just goes up.
That’s over.