Sometimes I wonder if there was only one way to make things look during certain periods of time. Like, in the 1980s, if you wanted to show something “classy,” you were only allowed, perhaps due to some federal statute, to show a rose on a piano keyboard. That was it. In much the same way, I wonder if during the late 1960s and early 1970s, if you had to take a picture of two people, you could only do it so it looked like an album cover for a folk rock duo.
You know the kind of look I’m talking about; a grainy photo, dramatically (usually a bit too dark) lit, sometimes even backlit, lots of hair, posed close together, perhaps even a bit too close, lots of browns and earthtones and that look, a look that locks eyes with you and makes you feel maybe a little dirty. Maybe more than a little.
You know, like this:
This is, technically, a 1970 Buick brochure, but stick it in a big rack of old albums and all of a sudden it’s the debut album from Ronnie and Ronni, the biggest musical sensation to come out of Boise since Idaho governor Dom Samuelson trained a cow to hum La Marseillaise.
Just look at those two! You have Ronnie, all city-slick sophistication, and then you have Ronni, a barely-reformed flower child with a taste for danger. You can even look at that list of Buicks as the tracks on the album:
Riviera (3:54): An exotic ballad to a fling on the French seafront, with an extended description of making love on a bed made of wheels of Brie.
Electra 225 (17:40): A futuristic sci-fi story-song about a fembot who falls in love with her human owner and steals a Spaceliner so they could fnally be together, living in a cloud-castle on Saturn.
Wildcat Custom (2:44): A lighthearted novelty song about the mating rituals of the wildcat community
LeSabre (8:15): A powerful, driving song about a saber-wielding knight slaying a dragon who works for the county’s department of land management
Estate Wagon (5:31): A raunchy, folky song about the erotic entanglements among servants in an English country estate.
SportWagon (0:32): Instrumental duo on flute and tuba.
GS (43:18): Ronnie’s spoken word “poem” outlining his extreme neo-monarchist political views while Ronni says “Tell it, daddy” every three minutes.
Skylark (7:11): The duo’s attempt to re-tell (or, here, sing) the story of Jonathan Livingston Seagull but with a better bird
Those seem plausible, right?
The brochure really revels in putting pictures of people (and sheepdogs) in these black voids, with only a Buick to anchor them. I guess it’s effective in that almost all distractions are eliminated, and you have no choice but to really scrutinize the Buick’s many flowing character lines and swoopy curves.
You do get one knot of people on a bright white background, perhaps for contrast reasons. Look at all those permutations of Buick! 40 models! Holy crap.
it’s worth remembering that back in 1970, Buick really did have some striking designs, the best of which may have been the Riviera; It’s been toned down a bit since the first generation and has yet to really blossom with the next generation and its striking boat-tail, but it’s still a very handsome car with great presence.
No pillars, a skirted wheel, dramatic proportions! What’s not to like?
These early ’70s dashboards were such huge slabs of weirdly-scaled instruments and wood paneling appliqués. Note the crotch-cooler vents on both sides, though!
This is also one of my favorite features of ’70s American cars: the cornering light. Once side markers became mandatory in 1968, carmakers really embraced them and leaned in, perhaps because they legally had to run wires to the sides, anyway, they figured they may as well throw in a whole other kind of lamp.
I love this illustration style used here, too, especially when you look at how the chrome parts are rendered, with those curvy lines of high contrast, making all metal surfaces look like an iridescent oil slick.
This is really some amazing re-purposing or perhaps half-assery. I suspect that illustration came from a GM truck brochure, but here it’s used as “your rear window as it should be with the optional rear window defogger.”
It’s literally just anything that could possibly be seen out a rear window. This feels like they forgot to illustrate the rear window defogger option and some designer had a realization that, technically, anything you see clearly through a piece of glass could be said to show what a defogger does!
Brilliant!
In its defense, the 1970 Riviera kind of deserves a singles release. It wasn’t quite the avant-garde tour de force of the previous generation a la Bill Mitchell, but it’s still stylishly distinctive. And to add weirdness to cool, it shares its platform with the Toronado and Eldorado while remaining steadfastly rear-drive.
The 1970 model did, however, step away from the extremely cool hideaway headlights. The previous models went to unusual lengths to tuck those away, and in 1970 now they were just…out there. All the time.
Cornering lights are actually pretty cool. I had a C4 Corvette that came with them, and they really came in handy.
That brochure looks like they tapped someone with real talent at making those building layout images.
They detuned for the follow-up album in ’71. Made for some really flat tracks.
GM styling of this era was arguably peerless.
GM had some seriously good looking cars for a few years there. Most of these are rather stunning. Chevy, Cadillac, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, all had at least a few very good looking cars in the mid 60s to early 70’s in their line ups, which is hard to say about any other major OEM at that time.
The 1970 Buicks is a peak Millennial/GenZ band name: a year from your parents’ generation + a dead brand.
Technically Buick is not a dead brand, though its very easy to forget about its current lineup! I agree to the band name equation though.
Power windows – available on all 1970 Buicks, EXCEPT Skylark. If you buy a Skylark, you don’t deserve power windows. Crank them down the old fashioned way, loser.
Buicks actually my favorite brand for muscle cars.
Wasn’t the GS a pretty hot car? Or was that Olds?
The GS Stage 1 was very hot. The Olds to get was the 442 W-30 option package.