The Reatta is often clumped together with the Cadillac Allante, which is fair considering they are both based on the Cadillac Eldorado frame. The Reatta was designed in the US by GM designers who weren’t too thrilled to see Cadillac snubbing them and outsourcing the Allante’s design to Italy -but we’ll get into the Allante in the next post. So, in the early 1980’s, designers at Buick started to whip up some drawings and models for a concept that much later, in 1988, would hit the marketplace as Buick’s first two-seater since 1940.
The Reatta is an attractive little car that has looks to rival its Italian designed cousin, the Allante, at about half the price. That’s not to say that the Reatta was inexpensive. Reatta’s were vehicles that were meant for folks who had extraneous funds available to them and could justify spending around $30,000-$40,000 on a cute little toy over 2 decades ago. Is the price justified? Well, yes, and no. What the Reatta had going for it was that it was hand built in stations rather than on an assembly line. It came more or less loaded with features, with the only real options available to add being a 16 way power adjustable seat as opposed to the 6 way adjustable seat, and later a CD player in lieu of the standard stereo.
The Reatta was not meant to be a sports car, which is fitting, because it certainly doesn’t have sports car performance. It was presented to management at Buick as a luxury two seater; the kind of car that has foxy looks but a classy and courtly driving demeanor. Thus, the top speed was limited to 125 MPH, it was only available with a 4 speed automatic transmission with overdrive, and its 3.8L V6 had an output of only 165HP and 210 lb-ft of torque (for the first 3 years, then it got a boost of 5 HP for 1991).
That’s not to say that designers didn’t have higher hopes for the car. Originally, they wanted the Reatta to be Buick’s halo car. It was going to offer everything to buyers: exquisite looks, luxurious lineaments, charming utility (it could only seat two, but still had enough trunk space for a weekend getaway to the country), and scorching performance…. Except that the big shots at Buick decided to go another way. They made up their minds that it was best to stick with their stalwart and aging buyer demographic rather than to risk breaking new ground, and essentially cut the Reatta off at the knees.
Designers intended for the Reatta to be turbocharged, making this rather small coupe and later convertible a veritable rocket compared to other cars on the road at the time. Originally, designers of the Reatta wanted a to take a page from the Buick Grand National with its 245 HP turbocharged 3.8L V6 engine and plunk that powerhouse down under the hood of the Reatta. Had they been able to get clearance for this from the higher-ups, they almost certainly would have had to make a manual transmission offering for their buyers. Neither of these things came to fruition, though, because Buick’s focus on an older demographic meant that they assumed older buyers wouldn’t be interested in performance (I think yesterday’s post about the speed machines that I spotted in the parking lot of the senior citizen activities center in Austin, MN proves that assumption to be not entirely accurate), that they would want a completely tame ride, and would be satisfied to have a vehicle that was nice just to be seen in, but not necessarily to have a real driving experience with. While they were at it, determining that their old fuddy-duddy Buick shoppers wanted to be lulled into a glazed-over state of extreme boredom while driving or riding in Buick’s products, they also decided that older buyers would be confused and/or scared off buy sophisticated technology.
The first two years, when the Reatta was still only offered as a coupe were also the years that the car showcased what was at the time, some pretty high-tech features. The most impressive of these features was a touch screen computer interface that controlled the radio, interior climate, and handled diagnostics for the vehicle. This was an impressive addition to a car nearly two and a half decades ago. Apparently, the decision makers at Buick decided that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, and determined that their older buyers would not be able to figure out a touch screen display and would take their discretionary dollars elsewhere to find fun toys.
The problem was that while Buick was doing away with all the cool stuff the Reatta should have had, they were also doing away with the things that made the car fun and exciting. No high tech stuff? Well, even if buyers didn’t really make use of it, they’d still like to show it off. Scrapping high-performance in favor of mediocre power because they assume older people don’t want to have fun or thrills anymore? I call BS on that. After all, if older people weren’t interested in fun or thrills, Viagra wouldn’t be such big business in the realm of pharmaceuticals, would it?
The Reatta had some good stuff beyond its looks. It featured independent suspension and disc brakes for all four wheels. Though it was offered with front wheel drive, perhaps a rear wheel drive set up would have helped that Grand National turbocharged powerplant seem like it better belonged in the Reatta’s engine bay. It needed a manual transmission that buyers could opt for, and it needed enough power to make the drive something to remember. This angle that Buick took with the Reatta, insisting that it was a luxury two seater rather than a sports car, was silly. If you’re cruising along in the lap of luxury, no matter how nice it is, and you’re getting lapped and blown out of the water by similarly sized cars at a fraction of the price; you no longer look like the aristocratic car enthusiast out for a spin in their upper crust automobile; you look like a fop piloting a douche bag on wheels who just got his expensive butt handed to him by a member of the proletariat in a common, but apparently superior car.
The type of decision making that killed off the Reatta after just four model years (1988-1991) sent ripples throughout the brand name’s image that are still plaguing Buick now as it tries to market itself to younger buyers, having finally realized that older buyers do continue to age and eventually stop buying cars. The problem with targeting older buyers by dulling down cars that ought to have been sharp as a razor on all fronts is that it’s an insult to those buyers, and it dulls not just the products, but the brand name’s luster, too. If buyers want a car with a “mature” (steady, solid, yet unremarkable) driving feel , they’re not going to be shopping for two seater coupes or convertibles in the first place. For that matter, once a person has survived to retirement age, might it be possible that they would want to actually enjoy those twilight years rather than die of boredom?
Buick took a car that was born to be its halo and tarnished it. They denied the Reatta its technological advances, fearing that luddites would find it off-putting. They castrated the car, leaving it seeming impotent and unexceptional in its ability to provide drivers with a satisfying experience behind the wheel, done in the name of trying not to offend the some notion they had of their supposed buyer’s genteel sensibilities. In that same vein of thought, they decided to detach drivers yet one more step from having any meaningful interaction with their automobiles by offering only an automatic transmission. They came too late to the game with the convertible, and they priced the Reatta too high to make up for any of these shortcomings.
Worse yet, it appears Buick is still under the impression that its buyers are looking to be lulled into a tedium-induced coma behind the wheel. The Encore I drove in June was a prime example of a car that was literally doused with all kinds of flash and shiny features (though the flashy design aesthetic wasn’t intrinsic to its very form like it is with the Reatta) as it tried to draw drivers into its clutches only to beat them over the head with its underwhelming performance and irritating lack of actual utility. It’s an automobile that’s bedazzled with chrome and ornamental appliqués as a way to camouflage the lethargy that oozes from the machine and imbues its driver with a dooming sense of lassitude and lifelessness.
For those of you speculating or populating a car collection; in spite of all the things that seem so damning about the Reatta, now would not be a bad time to get your hands on one. Prices are low for the time being, and the number of Reattas was never great to begin with, but can only dwindle from here. There were only ever around 22,000 Reattas made, of which only about 2,500 were convertibles. Their drop in value from when they were new means that many are being trashed by owners who don’t appreciate them as a potential collectible. That means we’re probably going to see a steady decline in the number of Reattas in existence as more and more get used up and abused and/or sent to the scrap yards. This growing rarity means that eventually, the value of the Reatta is going to push back up. A well cared for example can still be had for a relatively small amount of money at this point in time. Today’s specimen is a 1990 Reatta convertible that was sitting on display at Ellingson Classic Cars in Rogers, priced at $8,950, which is a large tumble from the price displayed on the original Monroney sticker that the car still bears, showing an MSRP of $36,741. I don’t know if the Reatta will ever regain its full initial value, but I would venture that over the next decade, a well preserved Reatta purchased for between $7,000-$10,000 will see an increase in value of at least a few thousand dollars. Perhaps Buick’s would-have-been halo car can regain some of its shine after all.
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