As a Buick, Rendezvous one-upped Aztek with better standard trim and equipment, not to mention a four-inch longer wheelbase that made room for available three-row seating for up to seven, a must feature for this new kind of vehicle. For example, 1982 saw the full-size F-Series pickup begin a long reign as America’s top-selling vehicle of any kind. Some saw a hint of trendy “cab forward” proportioning, others a touch of Jaguar and even Ferrari Dino in the smoothly carved nose, tail, and profile. The interior design also moved forward with better materials and assembly. Styling was cleaner and showed the new direction of Buick design. Developed under studio chief Bill Porter, it had begun as a variation on the curvy Lucerne showmobile, but ended up like no Buick before. Much like the Sonata, the Mazda 3 had some pretty big competition on the affordable mid-sized car market. Probe was a timely Ford weapon against sporty Japanese compacts like Toyota Celica, Honda Prelude, Nissan 200SX — and Mazda MX-6. A little known fact of the Mazda 3 from the previous generation was that it was built on a Ford platform.

Here, too, styling was more curvaceous, though still Buick-conservative, and interiors became more spacious thanks to a longer wheelbase (by three inches), though overall length was little changed. Interior room improved via a longer wheelbase, plus a little extra width and even height, yet overall length and weight were again little changed. It was the same structure used for Oldsmobile’s new ’95 Aurora sedan, but aside from sharing a few underskin components and a 113.8-inch wheelbase, the two cars were nothing alike. However, LaCrosse failed to match the combined sales of its two predecessors. Just as LaCrosse replaced two familiar nameplates, so did Lucerne in 2006. Taking over for both LaSabre (a Buick staple since 1959) and Park Avenue, the Lucerne shared a platform with the Cadillac DTS. Buick was happy to see sales go through the roof, relatively speaking, turning out 41,442 for the extended 1995 run. 3. Chandeleur Island wading trips for Speckled Trout and Redfish out of the famous Chandeleur Islands. Though redfish are found nearly everywhere along the East coast, there are a few places that are noted for record catches and high populations. There were no color choices; all 1988 Chevrolet Nova Twin-Cams wore black metallic paint with a grey interior.

Your buddy either has a time machine, gets visions of cars to come or he’s making up stories to look good because the Chevrolet Corvette didn’t hit the streets until late in the 1953 model year. I keep a healthy work/life balance through prayer, delegation and time management. If you want to keep your energy systems conventional, consider going green with your choice of structure. You can even bring along beer and snacks if you want. Believe us when we tell you that you don’t want this to happen. But the market had spoken, and Riviera was consigned to history after a token 2000-unit run for 1999. Of those, about 200 were specially trimmed Silver Arrow models, a nostalgic nod to the Bill Mitchell show car previewing the classic ’63 Riviera. The weight gain ­partly reflected the use of a new “G-car” platform, claimed to be the stiffest in GM history. Yet for all the changes — including more nimble handling, a bene­fit of the stout G-car structure — LeSabre remained a resolutely conservative, upper-middle-class Buick with a family-friendly character and value pricing in low-$20,000 territory.

The move from E-body to G-car gave Riviera a modern independent rear suspension with semitrailing arms, toe-control links, coil springs and antiroll bar. With buyers fast deserting big coupes for upscale sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) and luxury import-brand sedans, Riviera sales dropped to just over 18,000 for ’96, inched up to almost 19,000 for ’97, then plunged to 10,953 for ’98. I am also excited to journey with my wife, Queenie Matias Rollet (pictured with Rollet), over the coming years since we just got married this past October. The ’99 Centurys, for example, got standard traction control and a useful tire-pressure monitor, while GM’s new OnStar communications system moved from optional to standard for 2001 GS Regals and Limited Centurys. Both amounted to clever reskins of GM’s basic 1997 front-drive minivan design, with different outer sheetmetal giving a quasi-SUV appearance, plus four conventional side doors. Each offered models with front-wheel drive or GM’s new “VersaTrak” all-wheel drive, but the only engine was the corporation’s hoary 3.4-liter pushrod V-6, which sent 185 bhp through a four-speed automatic transmission. The 3.8-liter V-6 with 197 bhp from the previous cars was joined by Cadillac’s Northstar V-8 engine with 275 horsepower — Buick’s first ­passenger-car V-8 in more than a decade.