General Motors only makes one muscle car, the Camaro, and its future is uncertain. Most enthusiasts would want a Pontiac Firebird added alongside it on the production line. However, Pontiac is dead, while Buick is still alive as a brand and has historically produced just as many awesome muscle cars.
Buick was GM’s gentleman’s automobile division. It sat below Cadillac on the totem pole and produced what the marketing people called “doctors’ cars” throughout the 1960s. Yet after the success of the Pontiac GTO, Buick did begin to offer sportier models, the GSX perhaps being the most famous.
The starting point of the Buick muscle car era was in 1965 when they introduced the Gran Sport version of the Skylark, which shared a lot in terms of underpinnings with the Tempest that Pontiac based the GTO on.
In terms of power, the Skylark offered a Nailhead V8, the 401 cubic-inch GM engine that produced 325 horsepower. The GS models also received a heavy-duty suspension, 14-inch wheels, and dual exhaust.
The engine was technically classed as a 400ci because of GM’s internally imposed ceiling on displacement for intermediate-sized cars. The following year, power increased to 340 hp, and in 1967, the car was renamed the Buick GS 400.
The gloves came off in 1970. First, the displacement rule was lifted, so a 455 cubic-inch V8 dropped. And things really got wild with the new Buick GSX, which had full-length racing stripes, bold colors and a lot of power with the Stage 1 option.
It’s this kind of Buick Skylark that digital artist Timothy Adry Emmanuel (@adry53customs) tries to bring back to life in his commissioned rendering. It captures not only the spirit of the base model in 1969, but also the GS and GSX. There’s still some of that restrained nature, but it’s been combined with some flamboyant styling draped over what looks like a Camaro body.
I can’t imagine a doctor buying one of these in 2022, but an extra muscle car can’t hurt. Buick hasn’t made a sports model since the 2014 Regal GS sedan, if anybody even remembers that.
Adry envisions this as a 2-door fastback rival to the Cadillac Blackwing sedan. GM probably has enough recalls and Japanese rivals to allow internal rivalries like that. The company dominated U.S. sales back when the Skylark was a thing. Even so, the old C7 Corvette powertrain proposed for the rendering would be easy to source.
And at least looking at a Buick muscle car rendering gives us time to think about all the cool cars they used to make. There’s obviously the GNX, the king of the 1980s, but I also have a thing for the 1965 Riviera GS.
