This 1967 Buick Skylark had been trying to get my attention in a Facebook ad on my wall for a week or so. At first, I thought it was a Buick LeSabre, been there done that over and over, then I realized it was a Skylark. Wow. Holy one-off's Batman.
Buick first used the Skylark nameplate in 1953 and 1954 on a limited-production convertible based on the Roadmaster, commemorating Buick's 50th anniversary. The Skylark name returned on a compact for the 1961 model year, although technically the Skylark designation wasn't applied to the Buick Special until 1962. It shared General Motors' Y-body architecture with the Oldsmobile F-85 and Pontiac Tempest.
Come 1964, "Skylark" was used on an intermediate, or "mid-sized," car based on General Motors' new A-body platform. The A-body designation had been dormant since 1958, when GM's former A-body cars were moved onto the larger B-body platform. It was revived for 1964 for GM's new intermediate cars, including the Chevrolet Chevelle, Oldsmobile F-85/Cutlass, Pontiac Tempest/LeMans and Buick Special/Skylark.
GM redesigned its A-body intermediates for the 1968 model year, necessitating an entirely new body and body shell. So, for 1967, Buick's A-body went out in style with a unique, one-year-only body so handsome that even fender skirts can't muck it up.
Fender skirts, which I don't care for on intermediate sized cars, gave the car a more formal, full-size appearance and were standard on the 1967 Skylark. They were not used on the performance-oriented GS models, which had open rear wheel wells to accommodate their wider tires. The "GS 340" and "GS 400" suffixes denoted Buick's new-for-1966 340-cubic-inch V-8 and new-for-1967 400-cubic-inch V-8, respectively.
Back in the olden days, kids, General Motors' myriad divisions made their own engines. No doubt it was an expensive, time-consuming proposition and ultimately a frustrating one for vehicle owners and mechanics, since many of the engines shared, technically anyway, the same displacement and sometimes even appeared similar, although they were often very different designs.
Those unique engines helped make the makes on GM's pricing ladder distinctive, even if there wasn't necessarily anything intrinsically better about a Buick-built engine than an Oldsmobile-, Pontiac- or Chevrolet-built one. And, most certainly, a Cadillac engine, although generally larger and more expensive, wasn't automatically any more reliable than a Buick engine.
1967 was also the last year Buick offered its 225-cubic-inch V-6 in the Skylark. If this car did have the V-6, which it doesn't, it would make this truly unique as you simply don't see many '67 Skylarks anymore not to mention ones with the V-6.
This car has the 340 V-8 presumably in lower-compression, regular fuel swilling, 220-horsepower, two-barrel guise. Step up to the "Wildcat 375" version and you got a 260-horsepower, premium-fuel, four-barrel engine - the extra cost of the engine and the pricier gas it will use doesn't seem to me to be worth just 40-hp. The "375" in Wildcat 375 referred to torque output.
Buick, based in Flint, Michigan, sold the tooling for its V-6 to Kaiser-Jeep after the 1967 model year. Kaiser-Jeep used the engine as the Dauntless 225 through 1971. After American Motors acquired Jeep, the tooling eventually made its way back to Buick/GM in the mid-1970s. The engine evolved into the 231-cubic-inch V-6 and its descendants, remaining in production in various forms until 2008.
The 1967 Buick Skylark also featured a dual-circuit brake system, four-way hazard flashers and an energy-absorbing, collapsible steering column and wheel, along with other federally mandated safety equipment. The age of government-mandated automotive safety regulations had arrived.
"Lesser Buicks," though, have always vexed me. As someone who believes in structure and a chain of command, the fact that Buick sold cars back then that stepped on the tires of similar Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet models—and vice versa—is counterintuitive. Then again, Cadillac was the only GM division that essentially sold one basic type of car, and although historically GM's most profitable division, it never sold that many cars year-over-year compared with Chevrolet.
So, from a business perspective, I get it. As a marketing guy, though, that's where things get more than a little dicey. Then again, by 1967, the lines of distinction between GM's makes and models had long been blurred.
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