Minneapolis Street Sighting: Buick Reatta

In the late 1980s, and well into the early-1990s, GM was going through a major restructuring; sales were falling, and the rise of personal GT cars, and other "European" ventures were being welcomed 'stateside. This prompted GM to bring out a trio of upmarket, supposedly European-influenced vehicles to each of its premium-core brands. Since Chevrolet was seen as the bread-and-butter brand, and Pontiac was geared toward excitement, neither of those brands were offered a piece of the luxury pie; GM instead gave those honors to none other than Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile.
In late 1987, scoops of the Cadillac Allante hit car magazines, and within months, various enthusiast publications predicted that Oldsmobile would have a version of this "new European derived Cadillac", and they were right; what magazines didn't know is that Buick would receive one as well.
Since Buick was, at the time, experimenting with performance cars like the Regal GNX, and Grand National, speculation was that if a Buick version of this new car came out, it would carry a turbo powerplant; unfortunately, this was not so. Instead, the Reatta was a rather sour mixture of new-age luxury wrapped in svelte body--not unlike the Buick Regal GS of today; sleek body, and tons of luxury without power a sporty car does not make.
Not very many Reattas were made -- even though it was intended from the start as a halo car, production still fell short of initial expectations. Even though it says just over 20,000 were built, exact production numbers are unknown, and because these cars were hand-built, build dates are unknown; the hardtop is the most common, with the convertible being ever so rarer with just under 2500 built. To date, I have seen maybe four or five convertibles, and about thirty or so hardtops--and probably the same car more than once.









Like most Reattas I see, this one is in rather good condition; it isn't perfect, but what daily-driven Minnesota car is? As non-red Reattas go, this example is the nicest I've seen; they were available in black, white, and gray, all of which I have seen, but most of them I encounter seem to be red. Yes, red was a very popular car--not only for the Reatta, but for other "sporty" cars of this era, too. The Mercury Capri, which wasn't quite a competitor, but it followed the whole "sporty looks with not much cook" format fairly well.
With the exception of some minor damage to the left headlight, this collector Buick seems to good-to-go. I don't recall seeing any "pristine" ones, either. All the ones I've seen have damage to either the headlight fixtures, or suffer from leaky taillights. Oddly enough, the leaky taillight problem exists on the Allante as well. Go figure.
I have no desire to own one of these, but I do like them in their own right; it's a shame these cars didn't live up to their looks, but I suppose that can be said of all of the "luxury coupes" that debuted in the 1988-1991 season, the Allante included.