There are some Curbside Classics one simply has to stop, turn around and photograph on the spot. I’m glad I caught this one, as it appears there is a large, 1978 Skylark-shaped hole in our CC Archives…
First off, let’s get it straight that the dubs rims are not included. I presume the 145 hp Chevy 305 (5.0l) V8, is, however. Lest anyone be confused over what this car actually is (not), the owner has helpfully annotated the For Sale sign.
Although a heaping helping of flat black paint almost obscures it, the ’78 grille received a minor update that included two horizontal bars running its width.
Out back, the tail lights were divided into three sections vs. two from the previous year, not that anyone would notice.
Besides being a member of the National Street Machine Club, our car also sports the optional Landau roof, available only on the Coupe.
It appears the rattle can (and broughaminess) ran out before making it to the interior, however. Loose wires hanging out of the steering column always sets off warning flags, but front seats that are not bolted to the floor is just cause for a four-alarmer.
Only 17,116 Skylarks rolled out the factory door in 1978 with a V8 (just over 10% of production) – the vast majority came with the 3.8l V6. Besides the coupe, Skylark could be had as a sedan or hatchback. A short 1979 model year would mark the end of the RWD X-body Skylark, with a completely redesigned FWD model bowing in 1980.
This copy from the Canadian 1978 Skylark brochure offers a clue as to whom these Barely Badge-engineered Buicks were aimed. The US brochure mentions that Skylark is “Small enough to offer practicality an maneuverability, and Buick enough to reward you with genuine comfort.”
The vibe I get from this car (dubs and flat black notwithstanding) is that it’s not quite sure what it wants to be. Like the ad copy above, one has to work hard to find something positive to say. I’m not even sure where I’d begin were I to purchase something like this. Put it back stock? Go “full hood” and finish what was started? The X-body is definitely a moddable platform, but who mods a Buick?
Never will understand god awful rims like those. Just why?
Presumably for the same reason the “stance” craze with stretched rubber on oversized wheels exist. Or why some people put their massive bro-trucks on stilts. It’s what some people like.
No taste! Thats why. No, I’m not too old. Your rims really do suck.
Glad to hear you say that. I also think they suck, but I probably am “too old”.
The carriage roof here is particularly egregious, breaks up an otherwise pleasant design.
Psychologizing is always risky, but I think the folks who like carriage roofs (who are dying out) grew up in a time when class meant owning a coach-built town car. Which is the only appropriate place for them.
So monster wheels are called “dubs?” I don’t get out often enough to stay current on the latest street argot.
Well what can yer say .. .. .. pass the bucket please…QUICK!!!
I love these Skylarks, my favorite X-body. Also loved the Nova LN. Unlike the Granada which was trying to copy the boxy Mercedes, these last gen Xs managed to look Buick or Chevy and at the same time completely contemporary. They performed well too. In that 1975 Car and Driver comparison that gets posted here a lot the Nova LN did very well against the Audi Fox and Saab. Surely there are no Foxes still sitting around, dubbed or otherwise.
The “bones” and mechanicals of the car were so good that Cadillac used it as the basis for the Seville. The wheels and white wipers don’t work for me here but the black-out grille and taillamps are pretty cool and T-Type.
I am never a fan of Dub Style Hubcaps, Tall Hood Scoops and 4×4 Tires nor even Lowriders since these customizations ruins the original looks of these vehicles and cars weren’t made to be done this way INMHO but whom am I to say? Anyway, I have assembled a photo montage compilations of almost identical sized Buick Two Door Coupes made from 1972-95. As shown here, you will be able to see how the Buick’s version of the Chevrolet Nova measures up among other Buicks from three different eras and yet by today’s standard these cars will no doubt be considered large Full Size Coupes today. The Buicks shown here ranges in size from today’s Lacrosse and all the way through the Park Avenue (Chevrolet Caprice PPV here in the US for Law Enforcement Markets.) made for the Chinese Market.
These were some of the identical sized Buick 4 Door Sedans and how each measured up to the Skylark.
With some modifications here and there, that Skylark would be a good sleeper if we swap the 3.8L V6 turbo from a Grand National or a 455 Buick V8 to create some phantom “Skylark T-Type/Grand National” or “GSX”. 😉
I suspect that any enthusiasm found at Buick dealers for selling these cars in 1974-5 had long dissipated by 1978. Maybe these were there to sell to old codgers who were finally ready to trade their 1962 or 63 Special V6 with blackwalls and poverty caps. The only people on earth who would have considered this car an upgrade.
The expression “two-door coupe” really grates on me. The definition of “coupe” is a two-door car. The top should be, but is not necessarily shorter than that of a sedan, so there is some variation in coupe styling, but regardless of the ideas of certain marketers of swoopy-looking German cars, a coupe is a two-door car. “Two-door coupe” is way too much like “Hi, I’ve got a Ford Falcon two-door coupe!”
There are lots of acceptable modifiers of “coupe” – club coupe, business coupe, hardtop coupe, convertible coupe, sports coupe, 3-window coupe, 5-window coupe…NOT “two-door coupe”.
There…I got that out of my system. Have a nice day!
I feel the same way when I see what are described as “4 door coupes”.
Ugh. Not..actual..coupes!
That’s not true at all. The etymology of the word coupe refers to a car being “close-coupled,” couple being the distance from the driver’s seat to the rear axle. Even the EPA defines a coupe based on rear seat volume rather than number of doors.
“Coupe” is now often used to refer to cars with two doors, but there’s a long history of two-door sedans, including many manufacturers who have simultaneously offered distinctly different two-door sedan and coupe bodies in the same line. The third-generation E30/E40/E50/E60 Toyota Corolla and Sprinter, for example, offered two- and four-door sedans, two-door pillarless hardtops, two-door coupes, Liftback three-door hatchbacks, and a station wagon also sold as a commercial ‘van.’ Furthermore, what would you call something like the Saturn Ion, with its small third door?
The current crop of high-end German four-door ‘coupes’ don’t necessarily satisfy any of the definitions and it’s certainly true that manufacturers have also applied the “coupe” label to cars that would more properly be called two-door sedans. However, all that just underscores the point that the definition has never been that cut and dried.
I thought coupé came from the French word for ‘cut’, as in the vehicle was cut and then shortened from the donor four-door. It’s become its own word, hence vehicles like the 4 door Gran Coupé from BMW.
L.J.K.Setright gave this derivation when he wrote on coupes in a column in Car and Driver sometime around ’80.
Was Rover the first to sell a 4 door coupe with their Rover 3 litre Coupe? It was a sedan with a much lower and sportier-looking (un-Roverlike?) roofline.
Love those Rovers. I remember reading about a fashion designer in the UK who put Range Rover mechanicals underneath one of those bodies.
wiki: A coupé or coupe (from the French past participle coupé, of the infinitive couper, to cut) is a closed two-door car body style with a permanently attached fixed roof, that is shorter than a sedan of the same model, and it often has seating for two persons or with a tight-spaced rear seat. The precise definition of the term varies between manufacturers and over time. The term was first applied to 19th-century carriages, where the rear-facing seats had been eliminated, or cut out.
btw, do you remember the P4 Marauder?
Probably so. It was certainly my first exposure to the term “four-door coupe”. And it makes sense, and works; always loved that particular Rover.
My own definition has always been whether the roof line is clearly different than the four-door sedan version of the same car. Hence cars like the Jetta “coupe” (gen 1&2) were really 2-door sedans.
That aggravates me to no end! The VW CC is an offender too. I can get behind the ‘clamshell coupe’ idea like the RX-8 and Saturn ion coupe. But 4 forward swinging doors, and a fixed rear window/regular trunk is a sedan. Hell, theres not even any ATTEMPT to hide the rear door handles! Love or hate the Acura ZDX all you want, but if you MUST make a 4 door, that’s the way to do it. Lie to me, at least a little!
The word coupé is indeed derived from the French word for cut, and so defining coupé as “cut down” is not inaccurate, if imprecise.
However, it’s important to remember that in the early days of closed bodies — and in fact really until well after the war — it was by no means universal for sedans to have four doors, particularly in the cheaper price classes. A lot of lines offered both two- and four-door sedans and many buyers opted for the two-door version, usually because it was cheaper. For low-priced American cars of the early ’40s, prior to the U.S. declaration of war, the four-door version would typically cost you an extra $30–$40, which adjusted for inflation is the equivalent of $500–$600 today. In the ’30s, the spread was sometimes wider than that; a ’35 Ford Fordor sedan, for instance, cost $60–$65 more than a Tudor (sic), the equivalent of more than $1,000 (U.S.) today.
The cheap two-door sedan (distinct from coupes or hardtops in the same line) stuck around until around the early ’80s — the last-generation Ford Cortina, for instance.
So, the idea that a sedan must have four-doors is a considerably more modern one than the definition of coupé.
That’s why I use the word ‘saloon’. For me it covers both two door and four door. And sounds swanky.
Based on how some of the cars of the era performed, I would dub it Sir Stalls Alot.
Given the penchant for running on also common to the era, you could also call it Sir Stalls a Lot the Unstoppable…
+1 LOL
I’m guessing this abomination has a lift kit or hack job lift to accommodate those wheels. That means when someone buys it, it’ll look like a lot of the “donks” here in Upstate S.C.: 14 or 15 inch black wheels with miles of gap between them and the wheel wells. With the exception of this car, I don’t know if people spend money lifting these cars and then have to wait until they can steal… I mean, earn the money for the wheels or, if they rent the “rims” (yes that exists and is very popular), have then repo’d due to none payment and are forced to hit the junkyard for steel wheels. I guess it’s important to have big wheels while sacrificing looks and ride.
Yeeaah for this generation hip young crystal meth-heads the B I G G E R the wheels the B I G G E R the c*** so we are told ..
Did they paint over a bumper (decklid) sticker?!
Bring it back to stock? You’d have to change the engine then.
The pimp rims are this car’s saving grace if they really want that price! Throw ’em in!
Drive over to the South Side and it just might sell.
By 1978 the 305 was optional in the Skylark. Makes sense because it was a pretty big jump from the 231 to 350.
Now thats a dork car even without the wagon wheels Barf.
..think i’d prefer to be seen driving the big furry dog on wheels with flapping ears on ‘Dumb and Dumber’…
All I can see is those terrible wheels and painted-over chrome. And I bet the black primer on the rockers is hiding rust. Poor Buick, she deserved better. 🙁
It’s not too late to save it, Tom!
Compact donk, all the flash, with fuel economy to boot….
Grandma got into the meth ( again)….
Dork Donk.
Ask anyone that owned a 76-79 X body how many times they had to replace the rear leaf springs! I had a 77 Nova and one side broke at less than 20,00 miles at two years old. Maybe it was a snow belt issue causing rust which lead to all the failures. Another friend had a 76 Skylark from new and he did just as many.
“Rims not included”
Whew…thank God! Those things are absolutely ghastly!
I’d consider that *type* of car, it would make for an interesting sleeper of sorts. However, I don’t trust ghetto shade tree mechanics. God knows what kind of dumbassery was commited on that car.
The problem with not including the rims is the suspension is still effed up all with the modifications done to make those ghastly abominations fit.
It is highly likely that the suspension could be returned to stock or http://www.hotchkis.net/search.html?Make=7&Model=1390&SubmitForm=Search and really “fix” it with better geometry and a lower than stock ride height.
Clown Shoes
+1
Ha! That’s a good name for these things…
“rims not included” that’s a definite selling point.
2500 looks to be about 1500 too much for a car in that shape. Maybe only 1000 too much if the 305 is strong. Nah, no such thing, I want to say 135 or 140 HP for the 305 in ’78.
Still an uncommon car that deserves restoration if it’s not rusty underneath, but that price is definitely crack pipe worthy (to borrow another site’s parlance). Quite a long time since I’ve seen one though!
Thank God the owner isn’t selling those rims with the car – but given their size, the car might have some transmission issues.
they used to make skylarks&novas&sevilles here in iran up till 1988.all skylarks came with 350/350T combo.fully loaded.most of them are still on the road.