Riviera Owners Meet – January 23rd, 2010


It’s years since I’ve been to a local car club meet. I think the last one would have been a Ferrari Owners’ Club meeting in England, so that must be more than twelve years ago as that’s how long Su and I have been here.

It so happened that the “Riviera Owners Association” of Southern Florida had their yearly meeting not five miles from where we live, at Biff Burger’s restaurant, up on 49th St in St Petersburg, last Saturday afternoon and I duly gave the Riviera a good clean on Saturday morning. Su and I climbed in and ten minutes later we were driving into Biff Burger’s parking lot, where there were already many more Rivieras than I had expected would show up.

The organizers had done a great job in getting about twenty Buicks together and there were also some Chevrolets and a Hot Rod to round things off. For me the best Riviera there was a 1967 car that had been imported by its owners, David and Stephanie from South Africa, when they had emigrated here three years ago. David’s father had bought the car new and David had later on bought it from him. Lovely car.

I was struck by how many similar stories were to be heard from other owners, many having had their 1960’s Rivieras passed down to them by their parents. It’s that kind of car. Another car to get a mention should be the 1964 black car with just 28,000 miles on it, as it had been in storage for about twenty-five years. That must be the lowest mileage one I’ve yet seen.

We ate, chatted cars and generally enjoyed ourselves until it was time to go. A good afternoon’s fun was had by all, methinks!