No...not the one in France, unfortunately; if I had a chance to visit the French Riviera I doubt very serious that I would ever come back to Chicago. Would you? Since this is a starving artist's gallery, my Riviera is much more down-to-earth, in fact--in its present condition--this one is actually sitting on the earth. The Riviera in question (for those of you no of that strange species of life form known as the motorhead) was a large, powerful, and stylish (at least during its first 10 years anyway) personal luxury coupe manufactured by the Buick Division of General Motors between 1963 and 1999. The dissipated specimen you see a part of here, is a 1972 model. It falls smack in the middle of the flamboyant 1971 - 1973 design cycle unofficially known as the "boat tails." So-called because the center section of the back end resembled the aft of a boat. It featured a semi-fastback roofline that incorporated a hugs sloping back window that narrowed into a raised center-section of the trunk lid and terminated in a point that protruded a good 6 inches beyond the rest of the bodywork. Nearly 40 years after their introduction, these cars remain some of the most controversial and distinctively-styled automobiles ever to come from an American manufacturer. To say that they stand out in a crowd is a massive understatement. Naturally, I spotted this one right away, lurking like the USS Nimitz among a sea of more recent transportation modules in the fenced-off side yard of a service station near my apartment. Frankly, I was surprised that it was still there as I'd originally noticed it when I moved back to Chicago from Florida in 1998. So it sits and it rusts and every time I try to make a picture of it, the snarling Doberman who does night watchdog duty around the place tries to eat me and my camera in one slobbering gulp. Imagine the snarling of a doberman in the background of this shot and me saying things like "Nice doggy," and various curse words as I bob and weave beside the fence. It's a wonder this shot came out at all. Photographed in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago in November of 2009.