The 1990 Buick Reatta brought a much-improved instrument panel, with electronic analog gauges replacing the CRT, and the long-awaited convertible, which had been previewed along with the production coupe at the 1988 Detroit show.

Written by HowStuffWorks

Newspaper reviews also tended toward the positive. “The Reatta has a pleasing, contemporary shape that causes heads to swivel,” Paul Lienert wrote in the Detroit Free Press. “The more time I spend behind the wheel, the more attached I become to this jaunty two-seater.” Lienert praised the car’s steering, its roomy cabin, and its “superb” leather bucket seats.

“The absence of a high-performance engine, five-speed gearbox and other exotic hardware makes the Reatta non-threatening to folks who like the car’s sporty looks but don’t necessarily want to deal with the idiosyncrasies of a real ’sports car,’” he concluded.

Recalls Gustin, “The main questions in my mind were: Will the press buy this as a luxury two-seater? Is it luxurious enough? Will we get beat up because it looks like a sports car but doesn’t have super power? The answers were: They did buy it as a luxury two-seater, and because we didn’t sell it as a sports car, we weren’t beat up because it wasn’t.”

Though its volume target was low, Reatta’s importance as an image and showroom traffic-enhancer was high. “We had a concerted team effort working to have a new way of bringing the Reatta story to the public,” marketing manager Clark says. “We tied it in with the people working at the Craft Centre, and did a special commercial and a promotion with the dealers. The entire Buick organization worked extremely hard to ensure the success we needed.”

Prototypes built by Aston Martin Tickford using body parts from Abbey Panels (both in England) were tested at GM’s UK Proving Ground. Dynamic development was done in the U.S. by Cadillac engineers because, as Buick Engineering was folded into BOC in 1986-1987, the program transferred to Cadillac (the only GM divisional engineering group that kept its brand identity, for a while); it retained responsibility for its own as well as Buick’s and Olds’ E-cars.

Among other good things, this development work resulted in some added engine-compartment structure that made Reatta a crisper-cornering car than its Riviera parent.

Wightman’s biggest challenge was coordinating all these activities in various parts of the world. “We ended up doing so many things in so many different places,” he says, “that it required a lot of travel, phone conferencing, and fax communications. We had language and geographic barriers, and cultural barriers even where we spoke the same language.”Another major challenge — because the E-car plant didn’t need the added complexity of Buick’s small-volume specialty coupe — was finding a facility and developing a process for building the car. The eventual answer was a novel concept: a dedicated “Craft Centre” in a 50-year-old former axle foundry and forging plant in Lansing, Michigan.

Here, the Reatta would be virtually handmade by groups of “craftspeople” working in “stations” instead of along a moving assembly line. This low-investment process was developed and managed by J. Robert “Bob” Thompson, who succeeded Colvin as program manager.

————————————————————————————————————————————-

  Reatta’s styling effort began in July 1982, mostly as a reaction to the decision to outsource the Allanté design to Italy’s Pininfarina. “That upset the guys at Design Staff,” says David North, who headed GM’s Advanced Design 2 studio at the time. “They were insulted that Cadillac would go to another designer to get their car done, so they said, ‘OK, we’ll show them what we could have done,’ and they held a contest. They had all the young designers propose a two-place car, and Dave McIntosh, who worked for me, won.”When Reuss saw the McIntosh model, he wanted it as the theme for Buick’s two-seater. But it was “soft” and elliptical, while the E-car chassis was blunt. “We had a cartoon in the studio that illustrated our dilemma,” North relates. “It showed a plan [top] view of this rectangular chassis with this almost circular car on it. There were big red marks where it interfered and four holes — two in front, two in back — where the corners of the frame stuck out. They couldn’t modify the chassis, and it wouldn’t fit under the body. Everyone said, ‘It’s never going to work.’”
Irv Rybicki, who replaced the legendary Bill Mitchell as GM’s vice president for design in 1977, grew weary of this struggle. “Irv called me up to his office,” North recalls.

“‘If you can’t get that rounded jelly bean look out of that car and start making it make sense with some lines on it,’ he said, ‘I’m going to take that project away from you.’ That afternoon I went out to the Proving Grounds for a competitive product show, and the new Porsche 944 was there. Porsches were always rounded, soft cars, but that one had stiff lines on it. I went back to the studio and told one of the designers, Ted Polak, to put creases on the Reatta, which ended up running the length of the car.”

Another inspiration came from another Porsche: “One thing that made the 911 different,” he says, “was the taillight that ran all the way across the back. So we did that on the Reatta. That taillight has about a dozen bulbs in it, and Buick came in and said, ‘Why do we need all those lights?’ They didn’t like it because it cost more money. I said this car has to look different, has to have some recognition.” The full-width taillamp (with 14 bulbs) made the cut.

Reatta’s design program was unique in that it started and stayed in the advanced studio instead of moving to a production studio once approved. “In the Reatta’s case, no one took it seriously or thought it would actually go to production, so it stayed and was pretty much released from the advanced studio,” says North.

“This was unusual because the makeup of an advanced studio was heavy on creative designers and sculptors, where the production studio has a lot more engineering in it. The division sent down a team of production engineers and stationed them in the studio to work directly with us, so when a problem came up, they could tackle it right away.”

The need to fit Reatta’s round-cornered body on a squared-off Riviera chassis shortened by 9.5 inches resulted in an unusually long overhang ahead of the front wheels. “In side view, you see an exaggerated proportion ahead of the front wheel,” North points out.

“The old classic cars look good because they have a lot of ‘dash-to-axle’ [from the base of the windshield to the front axle] and a short rear end, which gives an elegant look. The Reatta has a normal dash-to-axle and a short rear end, but there’s a lot of front overhang because of the frame, so it’s kind of unusual.”

Partly because he grew up on western ranches, partly because he remembered the movie Giant, which took place on the Reata Ranch, North came up with the name “Reata,” a Spanish-American term for lariat, and it stuck. Salata added the second “t” for appearance. When North was promoted to chief designer of Oldsmobile’s production studio, John K. “Kip” Wasenko took over the Advanced 2 studio and completed the production design.

 Written by HowStuffWorks 

The genesis of Buick’s first (and probably last) sport two-seater began more than a decade before its birth. A fresh leadership team arrived in 1975 with direction to grow Buick’s product line, image, and sales. Lloyd Reuss was chief engineer; Dave Collier, general manager.

“I had specific ideas about what we wanted to do productwise,” Reuss recalls. “Our volume was not where we wanted it to be, and we were too much like Oldsmobile. So there was a major decision to move away from Olds and more toward Cadillac. We wanted an upscale, sportier image — call it ’sporty elegance.’”

One project in 1977-1978, known internally as “L-car,” explored the market potential of a sporty V-6-powered 2+2 coupe. It would be derived from and assembled with the plebeian subcompact J-car (Chevy Cavalier/Pontiac Sun­bird/Oldsmobile Firenza/Buick Skylark) but built to be more upscale, quicker, and better handling. Among its targets were eight-second 0-to-60 zip (very respect­able in that post-fuel-crisis era) and 100,000 annual volume in Buick and Olds versions.

Source: Google

It is white with a red interior.

To submit your Reatta Ride, send a picture and short discription to: marck@reattaresources.com

The Reatta sported its own unique body style and was crafted with an attention to detail and quality of finish uncommon for a mass-produced automobile. Initially offered as a hardtop coupe, a convertible version was added for 1990. The Reatta used GM’s ubiquitous “3800″ V6 with 165–170 hp (123–127 kW) and 210–220 ft•lbf (285–298 N•m) of torque with the highest output in the last year of production. The car sported a fully independent suspension, 4 wheel disc brakes with ABS, and front wheel drive. Top speed was electronically limited to 125 mph (201 km/h). The Reatta was rated at 18 mpg (13.1 L/100 km) in the city and 27 mpg (8.7 L/100 km) on the highway.

Every Reatta included a leather book containing the owner’s manual, a flashlight, tire gauge, among other items. Each unit came with a “Craftman Log” with the signatures of the supervisors for the assembly of the car’s various systems; these slightly unusual items were an attempt to sell the mass-produced car as one built with individual care.

During the first two years of production, the Reatta, like its Riviera stablemate, featured a touchscreen computer interface called the “Electronic Control Center”, or ECC. The touchscreen controlled the radio and climate control functions and provided diagnostic access to the vehicle’s various electronic systems and sensors, mostly eliminating the need for a diagnostic scanner. It also featured a date reminder, a trip computer, and a user-configurable overspeed alarm.

The Reatta was conceived during a period in the early to mid-1980s when Buick was marketing high performance editions of its vehicles (such as the Buick GNX). However, midway through the development of the Reatta, GM decided to refocus the brand on a more traditional and mature image that was thought to be more in keeping with its core older buyer demographics. The resulting vehicle had a shape that carried performance car styling cues.

The shorter, lighter coupe was joined by a convertible for 1990 and 1991. These sold surprisingly poorly, and are extremely rare today. Keyless entry was added after the first year. A driver’s side airbag appeared with the more conventional interior and the convertible in 1990.

The Reatta was intended as a halo car for Buick, but sales, originally planned to be around 20,000 units a year, were extremely disappointing and GM announced the end of Reatta production in early 1991.

The Production;

Production is said to have begun in January of 1988 and ended on May 14, 1991. However, various accounts of much earlier and later cars exist, and the handbuilt nature of the car and long development cycle makes accurately dating production difficult.

Year	4EC97 Coupe	4EC67 Convertible	Total	Notes
1988	4,708	0	4,708	First Year
1989	7,009	0	7,009	New hood ornament, keyless entry, sunroof option
1990	6,383	2,132	8,515	First year of the convertible, new instrument panel and console, steering wheel-mounted airbag, Select 60 model gets 16 in wheels
1991	1,214	305	1,519	9 16 in wheels, tuned-port “L-code” engine and electronically-controlled transmission, and a new ABS system join a revised interior with a cup holder
Total			21,751

[Source: eBay. 09/07? Author Unknown. If you know the author please email me: marck@reattaresources.com ]