GM’s Retro Rides Debuts with a Look Back at the 1986 Buick Riviera’s Pioneering Touchscreen
Kicking off Retro Rides, a new GM News feature spotlighting notable vehicles from the company’s past, we revisit the 1986 Buick Riviera, a car that was decades ahead of its time with an industry-first touchscreen control center.
Dubbed the Graphic Control Center (GCC), this monochrome touchscreen replaced traditional buttons and knobs, managing everything from radio and climate control to a trip computer, diagnostics, and even a calendar.
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It even featured a hidden service mode for technicians—a forerunner of today’s onboard vehicle diagnostics.
Despite its innovation, the GCC wasn’t widely embraced. Its small virtual buttons made navigation tricky, and the technology was too advanced for most drivers of the era.
While GM briefly extended the concept to other models like the Buick Reatta and Oldsmobile Trofeo, the experiment faded within a few years.
Still, considering touchscreens didn’t become mainstream in vehicles until the 2010s, the 1986 Riviera was astonishingly futuristic. Launched just a year after Microsoft’s first Windows OS, it predated even Apple’s iPhone (2007) and iPad (2010)—a true glimpse into the digital automotive future.
Though just a chapter in Buick’s storied Riviera legacy (1963–1999), the ’86 model proved that GM was thinking far ahead of its time—a bold step toward the tech-driven cars we drive today.
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