1966 Buick Riviera in Riviera Gold Paint & 425 Nailhead Engine Sound

Jim Kolich has owned this 1966 Buick Riviera since 1991, the same year his daughter was born, and more than thirty years later he is still showing it off at events like Wisconsin’s World of Wheels. Finished in gold with Buick’s distinctive 425 Nailhead V8 underneath, the car draws comparisons to some of the cleanest American designs of its decade. Watch to hear Jim’s full story behind three decades of ownership.

Some cars get bought for the way they perform. This one got bought for a completely different reason, and the timing tells you everything you need to know. In 1991, the same year his daughter was born, Jim Kolich picked up this 1966 Buick Riviera, and more than three decades later he is still telling people about it at car shows across Wisconsin. The car itself, wrapped in a gold finish and powered by one of Buick’s most distinctive V8 engines, would be worth talking about entirely on its own merits. The story behind why he bought it, and why he has never let it go, makes it even better.

A Riviera Built to Turn Heads Without Trying Too Hard

The 1966 Riviera’s second-generation styling, with its sharp creases and coke-bottle profile, is widely considered one of the cleanest full-size American designs of the entire decade, understated compared to contemporaries chasing bigger fins, gaudier trim, and increasingly busy sheet metal. Buick’s designers took a genuinely restrained approach at a time when plenty of other manufacturers were leaning hard into chrome and ornamentation, and that restraint is exactly why the Riviera’s lines have aged so gracefully compared to some of its more flamboyant contemporaries from the same era.

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The Nailhead’s Distinctive Character

Buick’s 425 cubic inch Nailhead V8 earned its nickname from unusually small valves for its overall displacement, a quirky engineering choice that gave the engine a genuinely unique exhaust note enthusiasts can pick out from a crowd of other American V8s without even seeing the car it belongs to. That distinctive sound, paired with strong low-end torque delivery, made the Nailhead a favorite among period Buick buyers who wanted effortless power for cruising rather than the high-revving character some rival big blocks were built to deliver.

A Purchase Tied to a Family Milestone

Buying a car the same year a child is born is the kind of detail that turns a vehicle into a permanent keepsake rather than just another used car passing through a garage, explaining exactly why Jim has held onto this particular Riviera for over three decades instead of trading through a string of different cars the way most owners eventually do. That connection between a specific car and a specific family milestone gives the Riviera a meaning that no amount of money could ever really replace for him.

What World of Wheels Represents for Owners

Regional indoor car shows like the one at Wisconsin State Fair Park give owners like Jim a dedicated audience actually interested in hearing a car’s full story, rather than just walking past a static display on their way to somewhere else entirely. World of Wheels events specifically cultivate that kind of engaged, knowledgeable crowd, giving longtime owners a reason to keep bringing the same car back year after year even decades after they first bought it.

Why the Riviera Gets Overlooked

Despite genuinely striking styling and a unique drivetrain, the Riviera often sits in the shadow of Buick’s more performance-focused GS models, even though its blend of luxury and personality arguably makes it just as compelling to own and show at events like this one. That relative lack of attention compared to flashier muscle car nameplates is part of what makes a well-preserved example like Jim’s feel like even more of a discovery whenever it does show up at a local event.

A Design Viewers Still Wish Automakers Would Revisit

The comment section’s admiration, with one viewer flatly asking why modern manufacturers cannot build something this clean anymore, reflects a broader nostalgia for an era when full-size American cars prioritized proportion and restraint over aggressive character lines and oversized grilles. That sentiment comes up constantly whenever a genuinely well-preserved example from this period surfaces online, and it says a great deal about how differently design priorities have shifted across the decades since.

More Than Three Decades and Counting

Jim’s ownership history, spanning his daughter’s entire lifetime and then some, is exactly the kind of long-term stewardship that keeps cars like this Riviera in genuinely original, well-preserved condition instead of cycling through a series of short-term owners who never develop the same attachment. More than thirty years in, the car has become as much a part of his family’s story as any photograph in an album, which is precisely the kind of connection that keeps a fifty-plus-year-old Buick showing up at events year after year instead of quietly disappearing into a barn somewhere.

What Jim’s Story Says About Why People Keep Cars

Jim’s connection to the car echoes what “My Car Story” does best across its entire back catalog, treating the human relationship between an owner and a vehicle as being just as newsworthy as any horsepower figure or option code. Lou Costabile’s willingness to let Jim simply talk about his daughter, his own memories, and three decades of showing this same car is exactly the kind of storytelling a spec-sheet-driven review would never think to include, and it is a big part of why this particular format has built such a loyal following among people who care about cars for more than just their numbers.

A Format Built Around the Owner, Not Just the Car

Gold has never been the most common color choice among Riviera buyers of this era, and finding a well-preserved example still wearing its original finish decades later adds another layer of rarity on top of the car’s already distinctive drivetrain and styling. Paint choices like this one tend to fall out of fashion and get resprayed in more conventional colors over the decades, making a genuine survivor in its original shade an increasingly uncommon sight even at a well-attended regional show like World of Wheels.

A Color That Rarely Survives This Long

Thirty-plus years from now, cars bought today for similarly sentimental reasons will likely be turning up at shows told through the same kind of personal story, proof that the emotional side of car ownership has never really gone out of style even as the vehicles themselves change from one generation to the next.

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