I found this heavily repainted "blurple" 1978 Buick Skylark on Facebook Marketplace this morning with advertised with just 60,000 miles on its ticker and an asking price of $4,000. In a day and age of hyperinflation on used cars, that seems almost reasonable. There's not too much info in the ad about it; looks to me from how jacked up the front end is, this may be missing its engine. That being either Buick's own 3.8-liter (231 cubic-inch) V-6 or a Chevrolet built 5.0-liter (305 cubic-inch) V-8. Legend has it a seriously detuned Chevrolet "350" was also available in high altitude regions of California.
Buick's "Skylark" template had been around for over forty-years in a number of different guises by the time they offed it for good after model year 1998. Our '78 here part of the class-of-'75s that were built on the same chassis as the Chevrolet Nova. In 1973 and 1974, to jump on the space craze that was already dying down if not all but dead and buried, this car was known as "Apollo". Pontiac and Oldsmobile built a "Nova" back then too. Pontiac labeled theirs "Ventura" from 1971-1977 and then "Phoenix" from 1978-1979. Oldsmobile's was "Omega" from 1973-1979. Technically, Cadillac didn't get one, what were known internally at GM as "X-body", but they used the bones of an X foundation for their polarizing 1975-1979 Seville.
It's hard to say if General Motors offering essentially the same car at four of their five automobile divisions was ultimately part of their demise or not. There were so many circumstances transpiring to send GM to their slow, interminable death years ago that it's unfair to point to one misstep and say it was, "the one". That's worth noting since Alfred Sloan's venerated pricing ladder was still in full bloom when a Buick was allegedly significantly "more" than an Oldsmobile, Pontiac or Chevrolet.
Seeing how similar the Nova, Omega, Ventura and Apollo where (NOVA, get it?), to impish and impressionable young me at the time, I understood it and "got it" simply because it was all that I knew. And me being the trust everyone first kind-of-girl I was at the time, if "Buick" said that an "Apollo\Skylark" was somehow and way superior to a Chevy Nova, then by golly it must be so. Sigh. I sort of kind of miss that "me" too. Although my mother made me wear plaid tough skins.
Historically, this '78 is somewhat interesting. There was a 1979 Skylark, but it was out of showrooms as soon as GM made the new front-wheel-drive "X-body" Skylark available. So, what we have here is a Skylark from the last full model year a rear-wheel-driver was offered. That may or may not get your automotive juices flowing positively.
I'm all but certain the engine is missing from this the more that I look at it. Seeing it's for sale here in Cleveland, Ohio, if it's "clean", meaning no rust, it could be made into something a whole lot zestier than it was when it came from the factory in the deepest throes of what many refer to as the "Malaise Era" of automobile-dom. Perhaps you can work out a deal where the seller keeps the gawd-awful "dubs" and even the Crager's seeing how they really look out of place on it. To me at least. Swap on a set of GM "steelies" that I know you have lying around and shop far and wide for a set of Buick rallies after you make it into what you want.
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