Saw a ratty Reatta in the parking lot....

unevolved wrote: For anyone else curious what the screen looked like:

Seeing that again just made me feel old

Would that display play Pong?

makes me wonder if GM engineers put any easter eggs into the computer.

I do think you could probably replace that display with an LCD touch screen.. but who knows what colours it would come up as

irish44j wrote: no, if it still works, you write the buttons in with a Sharpie for when it stops working

That's fairly brilliant right there.

JohnRW1621 wrote: A google image search of Reatta brought up this: Where I learned that a Reatta had once won a LeMons race. http://blog.caranddriver.com/24-hours-of-lemons-southern-discomfort-2012-we-have-winners/

That may be my new favorite racing photo.

mad_machine wrote: makes me wonder if GM engineers put any easter eggs into the computer. I do think you could probably replace that display with an LCD touch screen.. but who knows what colours it would come up as

This was a qoute on one of the posts off of youtube.

"I was a buick service Technician back in 1989 when that came out. You could get that as an option on the Reatta and Riviera. If you go to the climate control menu and hold down OFF and WARM at the same time, it will put you in service diagnostic mode and you can pull Trouble codes and monitor live engine data better than any scan tool. This is NOT in the owners manual, but WAS in the service manuals we got at the dealers."

Richard Nixon wrote: Thanks for that video! I've always known that that Electra Estate existed, but only ever saw it in grainy magazine pictures. Seeing it in action has really made my day. Zero-60 in 5.2 seconds. FIVE POINT TWO!

WITH FAUX WOOD SIDING!!! That is awesome beyond all comprehension. I wonder what the fun test mules are that are out there now.

BTW--Lisa's hair was awful. I don't miss that about the 80's. Ugh.

Rivieras and Reattas both used that touch screen. It was weird to see one out, it was made by Zenith and looked like a miniature TV CRT. You could access the onboard diagnostics by touching 'OFF' and 'WARM' at the same time, in fact IIRC that was possible in pretty much any GM car that had the blue displays.

I've always liked the styling of the Reatta (and the similar vintage Cad Allante) but I'm not sure I could go back to the 80's era GM interiors.

Gutting one, converting to RWD, and adding a LS engine would be pretty awesome, though.