I hope I'm not jinxing anything by joining here

Found a "parts car" Riviera for $300, a 1995 model, supercharged, 120K miles, near mint interior. Needs some work to be a driver and of course it'll have a hassle of a bonded title. But I should have it here this afternoon for pictures. I'm going to try and title this thing and drive it, but if that doesn't work out, I have a 1995 Cutlass Ciera with a weak 3100 that sure would wake up with a 3800SC, or even just the 3800 with a regular intake mounted and I'll sell the supercharger and other bits. We'll see what I can get done with it. Should be an interesting project, bringing back a $300 car from the dead, good thing it's a Riviera, right?

Welcome! Good luck with your resurrection! Often times cars are junked for want of a few "unknown" repairs needed. The important thing is to figure out why it was junked in the first place. Good luck!

now the guy seems to want $450 for it and not $300...I guess his ad got too much response so he's fishing for more money...

we'll see what happens this afternoon when I go to pick it up...

he claims the water pump went out and broke the belt so I'm bringing a breaker bar to turn the crank over two full turns and be sure it isn't locked up

What color is the interior? If you end up buying and it deciding it isn't worth fixing, some of us are looking for various 1995 interior bits.

I do not know yet. I can't imagine there are many of these in my area, and I found an old (2009) cardomain page of someone who lived here and had a rough one they were selling for $1300. If this is the same car then it is white (and half the paint was missing 4 years ago) with a gray or possibly blue interior. I'll know a lot more about 2pm when I go to see it and if the guy isn't a complete crackhead I'll pay something for it and bring it home. Would rather pay $300 than $450 but either price would be a good deal. It'll probably be $1000 by this afternoon *rolls eyes* I hate Craigslist sometimes.

Alan, welcome to this Riviera Forum. I certainly hope that you get a good platform to fix-up and repair into a road worthy vehicle!

Jeff

I got a pic from him, it's champagne colored with a light tan interior, has the 12 spoke wheels in silver paint. Nothing special but it's at least a start and the front clip and left side appear decent enough to sit in my driveway without the neighbors groaning

Thanks for the welcome. If this ONLY needs a water pump and a belt and some minor fixes to be a decent driver and I can get the title/tags situation squared away, then it'll be a driver for me. I won't part it out or use it for a powertrain donor if it's as nice as it seems so far. Besides if this is supercharged then it is the Series I 3800 and I don't want that for the Ciera. I think the car would look great in black with later model LaCrosse/Lucerne machined finish wheels, and black would still look fine with a tan interior (otherwise I'd go silver or charcoal gray outside).

Series II 3800's without superchargers are cheap enough used anyway, I've found several for $400-$500 each at local yards and many more for even less in larger cities about 2 hours out. I was hoping to find a wrecked '95 Eighty Eight with the L36 engine to use for a donor anyway. That way I can use the dash cluster and so much more of it than from a Riviera or other car. Gotta keep my eye on Copart for one of those.

Alan welcome!

Haha crazy story! I just bought another Riviera for 300 bucks! It needs more than a water pump and belt though... If you can get it for under 500, you could part it out/scrap it and make money on the car. Theres no way you can lose!

My wife even okayed the purchase, she actually thinks it would be a great car for our 18 year old stepdaughter to take to college. It would have to be mechanically perfect and that's what I like to think I'm good at. It would be an order of magnitude better than the 1999 Cougar silver colored money pit she is driving now.

Now if I can just get done working without being distracted by thoughts about the car, I can go check it out and get it hauled to the house.

Welcome and good luck. I hope you get the Riv back on the road.

Good luck with getting the car up and running! With a little time, you can find just about anything you want to know about that car on this forum