Media | Articles
This Week on Hagerty Marketplace: How Do You Define Personal Luxury?
Welcome to This Week on Hagerty Marketplace, a recurring recap of the previous week’s most noteworthy cars and significant sales from the Hagerty Marketplace online auctions.
Personal luxury used to mean something fairly specific in the car world. The 1958 Ford Thunderbird pretty much ushered in the genre with its focus on comfort over performance. Now you can get a fully loaded Kia that will personally coddle you for miles on end. If you’re after some old-fashioned personal luxury, however, look no further than the ’72 Buick Riviera that sold recently (shown below). That tail end is to die for. Fancy something a bit more modern for your plush cruising? How about a gorgeous, low-mileage German rocketship with a hand-built engine—talk about personalized. Then there’s this bruiser of a Jeep. Nothing luxurious about it, but you can’t deny that the love and attention put into it was anything but personal. Wherever your needle falls on the personal luxo-meter, we hope you enjoy the ride.
1972 Buick Riviera GS
Sold for $34,240
Personal luxury cars never came much sweeter than the Buick Riviera. Although its third-gen redesign for 1971—with its throwback boattail rear end and two-piece backlight—was slated to ride on GM’s smaller A-body platform, corporate carmaking realities dictated otherwise, and the proportions were expanded to fit full-sizer, which now rode on a 122-inch wheelbase. Regardless of the design’s intended purpose, there was nothing else like the new Riv on the road. Not that it mattered much, as the third-gen cars turned out to be poor sellers, for many reasons, including an economic slump. But the design has aged well, and buyers who seek them out seem to have no hang-ups.
This Riviera GS was one of 2171 built in ’72 with the GS package that added a heavy-duty suspension, traction control rear axle, and a dress-up kit for the big 455-cubic-inch V-8. The interior includes A/C, Stratobucket seats with four-way power, power windows and locks, and more. The powertrain is all original, with 129K miles showing, and the two-year-old respray in the original Vintage Red looks great, with a few blemishes noted. The sale price puts it solidly between #2 (Excellent) and #3 (Good) condition, which is a fair result.
Marketplace
Buy and sell classics with confidence
1978 Jeep CJ-7 Renegade
Sold for $22,000
Few vehicles are cooler, or more capable, than old Jeeps. When the CJ-7 joined the lineup in 1976, it did so with a practical removable hardtop and a wheelbase 10 inches longer than its CJ-5 stablemate, an incredibly useful extension that added better doors, better on-road manners, and more room for passengers and their cargo—all without sacrificing much when the pavement ended. Power came from either a 110-hp 258-cu-in inline-six or a 150-hp 304-cu-in V-8, and a GM TH400 automatic transmission joined the options list. During its 11-year production run, the CJ-7 proved a big seller right up until it was replaced by the Wrangler in 1987.
This Renegade is said to have been the beneficiary of a five-year restoration project, during which the entire drivetrain was replaced or rebuilt. Notably, the original 258-cu-in six was swapped out for a rebuilt and upgraded AMC 360-cu-in V-8 from a Wagoneer, now mated to a TorqueFlite four-speed automatic. This “trail and street” resto left the original Oakleaf Brown paint with gold stripes and lettering alone, and as such it still shines well but shows nearly 50 years of chips and minor rust bubbles. At the sale price, it falls into #4 (Fair) territory, likely owed to the state of the paint and its original interior, but we love the thought process behind the resurrection of this CJ-7 and hope the new owner does indeed use it as intended.
2003 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG
Sold for $25,413
As modern luxury performance cars go, any Mercedes touched by AMG is a mouth-watering prospect. Factor in the stellar looks, amazing retractable hardtop functionality, and not insubstantial history of the SL nameplate, and you’ve got a winner on your hands. To the standard, already terrific SL500, AMG subbed in its own hand-built supercharged aluminum 5.4-liter V-8, making 493 horsepower at 6300 rpm and 516 lb-ft of torque from 2560 to 4500 rpm, all of which propelled the svelte and yet hefty (4400 pounds!) SL55 to 60 mph in just 4.5 seconds and on to the quarter mile in 13 seconds at 110 mph. Top speed was limited to 155 mph, but c’mon, this is a near-200-mph car. They were priced as such, too, starting just north of $118,000.
All of which makes this seven-owner, 17,000-mile SL55 an immense bargain in the supercar-lite realm. Although some might be put off by the sheer number of owners, with a clean Carfax, recent service by Mercedes-Benz of Colorado Springs, and a professional detailing, this Teutonic cruise missile should offer plenty of long-term thrills for less money than a new Miata.
Find more values
Search for prices of other cars, trucks, vans and motorcycles
My friend Google tells me that luxury is an abundance of ease or comfort that is not necessary
I don’t think the definition of luxury has changed, but the definition of a luxury car has immensely
I think of my full-size Cadillacs back in the day that had seats like couches, soft gliding suspension, and power steering you could turn with your finger. This meets the definition of comfort
We started driving faster, gas got more expensive, we started expecting the appearance factors of a car to last 10+ years, and Johnny Law has pretty much invaded every aspect of car design.
Soft suspensions, anti-feedback high gain power steering, and seats shaped like couches really don’t fit our driving style anymore.
Looking at that black plastic interior of that AMG, Johnny Law probably said no more chrome or big ornate knobs in the interior, and our demand for 10+ years of aesthetic appeal pretty much said no more natural fibers or wood – except that little piece of wood inlay in the console assuming it is actually wood
Chrome bumpers with big vertical elements – forget it, they could hurt a pedestrian and drop fuel mileage by 2%
Real luxury is largely unwanted and illegal these days. Luxury cars are now luxury sport cars with a heavy emphasis on sport
Take a drive in a high-spec Lexus ES350, to experience modern luxury.
Good luck finding and then PROGRAMMING a spare key for that SL.
Personal luxury as more of a smaller than full size coupe that provided the luxury features of the larger and more expensive cars.
The original Riv, The Grand Prix and Monte Carlo were the definition of the model.
As time went on others tried to copy but they grew in size and cost to where they no longer represented the original concept.
A Benz coupe is too expensive and the older Riviera was too large.
The Jeep is just a jeep thing.
Today it is a lost idea of the past.
I’d be leery of the SL since it’s had 7 owners but only 17k miles in 22 years.
Of these three, my choice is the 72 Riviera GS.
The current king of luxury coupes:
Ford F-150. Simple as that. Luxury “sedan”, get a 4 door F-150… or get a Denali. There are no more everyman Luxury “cars” anymore…they’ve all gone “sporty” like Cadillac, or quit (Impala, Crown Vic, etc.).
The main thing that really denotes “luxury” is inertia…big boaty cars that don’t feel the impact of the road, and don’t really like changing direction/speed. That has all been legislated out of existence these days…the only way you can get a bunch of “extra” car to drive around with a larger than necessary engine…is a full size pickup.
And yet, a truck is still a truck. Except for the Ram, they ride rough, and they all use a lot of gas (except the EV’s, of course), and – news flash! – have no trunk.
Never was a big fan of the boattail, although they do look interesting. I would much rather have a 1968-1970 Riviera, than the boattail.