1972 Buick Riviera on Bring a Trailer Is One Bodacious Boattail

• Far more charismatic than anything in Buick's current all-SUV lineup, this swaggering coupe hails from an age when Buick cranked out hits.

• The iconic boattail styling still looks great half a century after this car hit the road, and brown on tan was never a more appropriate color combination.

• The Bring a Trailer online auction on this '72 Riviera ends on Thursday, September 14.

The current lineup from Buick consists of largely homogeneous crossovers, competent but mostly forgettable. Back in 1972, however, choosing to park a Buick Riviera in your driveway was making a fashion statement. And unlike most of the fashion statements made in the early 1970s, a brown-on-tan '72 Buick Riviera is equally stylish decades later.

For proof, check out this Buick Riviera up for auction on Bring a Trailer—which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos. It's a 1972 Buick Riviera, complete with effortless V-8 torque, a vinyl roof, and some rarely seen factory options like a power sunroof. It is maximum brown but in the best possible way. It's the automotive equivalent of your grandfather's leather jacket.

Riviera started out as the hardtop version of Buicks like the Roadmaster, but in 1963 it entered production as a standalone personal luxury car. Early Rivs are stunning cars in their own right and have their own space-race 1960s charm. While filming Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy drove a Riviera, which elegantly contrasted with co-star William Shatner's brawny Corvette daily driver.

As the Sixties wore on, the Riviera grew in size, losing much of its early elegance and distinction. With the third generation's boattail styling that arrived for 1971, the Riviera recaptured the spotlight. The styling is a blend of Corvette and earlier Rivieras, which is fitting as it was overseen by GM's VP of styling, Bill Mitchell. Mitchell's designs for the 1963 Corvette and the 1963 Riviera were approved on the same day, Christmas Eve, 1961. Mitchell tasked designer Jerry Hirschberg with the third-generation Riviera's design, and while Hirschberg himself thought the car a little too large, there's no denying that a boattail Riviera is a knockout.