To most observers, those who were there and those who were not, 1970 was the pinnacle of the muscle car era. In that one golden year, a consumer with a few thousand bucks to spend could buy an LS6 Chevelle, any number of hot Mopars, Cobra Jet or Boss Mustangs, 429 Torinos, W30 442s…the list is impressive.
All three automakers carried on for one final year in high compression, leaded gasoline glory; all automakers continued to use insurance angering, inflated gross horsepower numbers. And for that year, a Buick was one of the fastest musclecars from the new car showrooms.
But not this one. While some GS Buicks carried the full-load “Stage 1” 455, with a rated 510 ft./lbs. of torque, this “burnished saddle” ’70 carries the 350 small-block. Buick rated this 350-4V at 315 horsepower, which was only 45 rated horsepower shy of the mighty Stage 1. Of course, gross horsepower ratings of the time had more to do with throwing a dart at a map than any actual mathematics. For example, my 250-horsepower ’65 Skylark ran neck and neck with my dad’s 2004 Escape with the mighty 200-horsepower Duratec V6. Therefore, many of those horses may be fictitious.
That’s not to say that a 350 Buick can’t run. I’ve personally seen a near stock ’72 350 GSX run a 13.7 quarter at nearly 100 miles per hour. In fact, v8buick.com, where I found the above picture, stockpiles many threads from enthusiastic 350 owners.
I’ve always found it fascinating that General Motors offered four 350 engine architectures. The Buick was a long-stroke design based loosely on the old aluminum 215, which had relatively close bore centers. On the other hand, the big-block Buicks were designed with large bore centers, so the 455 used a relatively short stroke for its displacement.
The ’70 GS may be the most collectible Buick on the road; it’s at least in the top five. The above brochure image was quite out of character for Buick; not since the Buick Bug did they foster such a racing image. Those who found the ad copy hokey were forced to take the Stage 1 seriously as soon as magazines found that it could run with Chrysler Hemis with ease. Additionally, the Stage 1 exhibited Buick-like street manners, unlike the finicky Hemi, which was noted to be uncomfortable on anything but a racetrack.
Getting back to our featured GS, the current owners are doing their best to perpetuate the old Buick stereotype by riding on beaded seat covers. There are likely few ’70 GS Buicks with those little add-ons and a litter bag. Nevertheless, this GS is one of my favorite types of vehicles. While I’m not crazy about the ’68-’72 redesign, this Buick had a well-used but well-maintained aura that I aim for with my fleet. Cracked beltline trim, a few rust bubbles, and a little orange peel on an old paint job take nothing away from this car at all. It’s perfect.
Looking at the brochure, it’s obvious that Buick offered a choice of steering wheels for the GS. Our example wears the far more appropriate sport wheel that Buick offered for many years, for good reason. It’s one of the most attractive steering wheels from any manufacturer.
Buick arguably has a handful of cars that define its history: the original Century, the original Skylark, the Riviera, the Grand National, and this. The ’70 GS is the epitome of Buick muscle, and this is a great driver example of why people appreciate this model year and bodystyle. The GS came from a time when GM allowed their divisions to personalize similar architectures, and those divisions responded by creating four muscle cars with their own unique characters.
And while you are unlikely to see a Formula-style race car in the brochure for your new LaCrosse, it’s nice to know there was a time when staid Buick built a car like the ’70 GS.
The 1970 GS is not only the one with the most power available but it’s also one of the best-looking intermediates from Buick. My personal favorite would be a 1965 Skylark GS hardtop coupe with the 401 but this would be my second choice!
I’d order mine in Apollo White, with the GSX package, the Stage1 engine and 4 speeds but also a/c and every power option please!
Funny how the 455 is rated at 350 hp in the GS455, 360 with the Stage 1 package but 370 in the full-size models. Less-restrictive exhaust, maybe?
Of course, outright power is only one factor in one’s quarter-mile time, and the standard GS came with a 3.23 rear end (manual or automatic), the GS455 3.42 (manual) or 2.93 (auto) and the Stage 1 3.64 (both). The big Buicks needed all 510 ft-lbs of torque to turn a 2.78, except for the Riviera GS which had a 3.42. Unbelievably, the Turbo Hydra-Matic 400 was standard only on Electras and Rivieras. A three-on-the-tree was officially standard even on Estate Wagons, though I’d love to know how many of those, or even LeSabres and Wildcats, left the factory that way.
The family “Green Monster,” a 1970 Estate Wagon in triple Sherwood Green (including vinyl top but no wood trim), could move pretty well for its size.
Coming from a 1964 Chevy Impala wagon with a 283, a Powerglide and a radio, we reveled in the Buick’s luxury features like air conditioning, power windows, power seat, map light and a tissue box hanging below the dash. It took all eight of us (sometimes a couple of cousins or a dog added for fun) on trips back and forth between central New Jersey and Long Island.
Then it did yeoman service as all six children learned how to drive in it and it then took them all through college. It spent 19 years in the family and probably should still be around if I hadn’t broken a brake line jumping a curb.
I want another one. Though my cousin and older brother both later drove contemporary Skylarks with that 350. Buick made great cars back then.
THE GS 455 AND STAGE 1 CAME WITH TURBO 400 TRANSMISSIONS-THE STAGE 1 HAD 6 CLUTCHES AND THE REGULAR 455 HAD 4 CLUTCHES
1968 GS was the closest to this that I have had chance to drive. 400 cui V8!
Guys who really knew muscle cars back in the day were always wary of any 70/71 Buick GS – if it indeed had the 455 Stage 1 then no matter if you were driving a 440 6 Pack, 427 Rat or 428 CJ, you were going to be in for a very competitive race.
While I have no doubt that a Stage 1 455 Buick was formidable on the street, I can’t imagine it being that much faster than any of the other, biggest big-block GM musclecars of 1970 (particularly the LS6 454 Chevelle).
In one of the worst cases of a manufacturer giving the auto press a ringer since Pontiac gave Car and Driver a 1964 GTO equipped with a prepped 421 as a stock 389, Buick supplied a 1970 GS that had a massaged 455 in it that ran some of the lowest quarter mile times they had ever seen. Although it was definitely not indicative of what a showroom Stage 1 would do, that one article is where all of these ‘Buick GS is among the fastest street cars, ever’ legends arise.
I guess I’ve never heard of the Stage being a “ringer.” Of course, I’ve heard about Wangers’ 421-powered ’64 GTOs, and I was aware that all the major manufacturers used them, but my take on Buick in the muscle era was that, if anything, their test cars were underprepared.
Motor Trend reported that the Gran Sport they tested in 1970 ran the quarter mile in 13.38@105.5 mph. It’s just that one, solitary report where all the hype for that car originates.
The problem is this was much faster than anything else they had ever tested, including cars powered by a 426 Hemi and LS6 454. Additionally, no other magazine could duplicate the feat (or get even close). That amazingly low ET put the 1970 Gran Sport in the same league as a 427 Cobra and race-only Max Wedge Plymouth with 13.5:1 compression ratio, cars that could hardly be described as regular production daily-drivers.
OTOH, the Buick 455 was 150 lbs. lighter than a Chevy 454 and did produce a huge amount of torque. So it was undoubtedly fast; just maybe not quite as fast as legend would have it.
I don’t think that Buick was any more of a ringer than any of the other manufacturer’s cars that were tested back then. I’ve spent a lot of time at drag strips and seen lots of “13 second” musclecars that couldn’t live up to their reputations, and not just one brand either.
Quite a number of years ago, one of the early magazines dedicated to the then rising interest in musclecars ran an article trying to rank the fastest ones using the old test results. It ended up starting a war of words between a Hemi owner and the owner of a Buick GS 455. The magazine got them together at a drag strip, where the Hemi came off second best. A 30 year feud between the Buick enthusiasts and Hemi proponents resulted, and both camps went to absurd lengths to “win”. It sold a lot of magazines, but it also made the point that these Buicks were just as potent as anybody else’s hottest from back then.
I remember that match-up. I believe the magazine was Muscle Car Review.
The owner of the Hemi (a 1970 Plymouth Road Runner hardtop, if I recall correctly) wasn’t too happy when the stock Buick repeatedly beat his car.
The legend of the 426 Hemi is about the same as the 455 Stage 1. It’s really no surprise that the latter could beat a Hemi ‘if’ it was from a dragstrip style, standing start launch. It was pretty well known that an L78 396 (375hp) Chevelle could beat a Hemi if the race was done in the same manner. A Hemi (particularly one that was box-stock) just didn’t do that well off the line. They were race engines designed to make the most torque at the higher end of the rpm band.
If it was a rolling start where the Hemi could get some rpms built up, things were a bit different.
That was Musclecar Review in March, 1985. The Buick was a GS 455 hardtop with the Stage 1 and automatic while the Plymouth was a GTX with a Hemi and a 4-speed.
Nice,I’ve seen these cars smoke Roadrunners and big block Coronets at the drag strip.You didn’t have to have blue hair to drive a Buick then.
The best looking A-body of this generation. With this example, Buick definitely built a banker’s hotrod.
Terrific find, Aaron.
Is this the car from the film “the seven ups” where Roy Schneider chases the crooks through New York city, killing two Opel Kadetts?
No, that car was the Pontiac clone of a Chevrolet Nova.
Using the “Bullitt” soundtrack nonetheless! Since when does a Ventura sound like Frank Bullitt’s Mustang? 🙂
Hmm… I see the beaded seat thingies, but I don’t see the large, plastic gold crown air freshener in the rear shelf!
In addition to Olds Cutlass 442s, I have a soft spot for the Buick GS as well, even though my top choice is a Chevelle. 1970 indeed was a very good year, for me and the auto industry!
A very nice car, and no one can dispute the fact that the auto world of the 50s & 60s really did end with the 1972 models, at least as far as GM is concerned, which is what really mattered anyway.
There were also over-the-counter Stage II and Stage III options (on the big blocks, I think). Stage III was a 1970-only option, IIRC.
This is one car that I never had any firsthand contact with. I liked the 70-72 version of the skylark much better than the 68-69, and this one in GS trim is quite nice.
It is interesting that even though Buick was not normally the place folks thought to go for high performance, they came up with a car that ran with the best of the breed.
It just now occurs to me that this car marks the beginning of a color combo that stayed at the top of the GM sales charts for 25 years. Some kind of medium brown outside and light brown inside was a staple at GM for far longer than it was at other companies, or at least so it seemed.
Seeing this ’70 Skylark GS in this color brought back images of one from the past. My sister Joanne had finished school and needed a car. I found her a 1970 Skylark in this color. Albeit, it was a sedan with a 250 six and few options, but it was a very nice car. It belonged to a postal worker and had logged 60,000 miles in three years. That was considered high mileage. She paid $900 for it and, in return, got years of trouble free service from a well built car built at a time when manufacturers offered cars from both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between. And JP, I agree. the 70-72s were the best looking of the four year run.
A neighbor lady had one, and I think it was a ’70 like this one, when I was very little. It was white, one of the few white cars that I’ve ever thought was attractive.
My uncle had a ’69 Special Deluxe with a 350 2-barrel when I was a kid. I welded quarter skins on it when I was in college, and then he sold it.
I’ve always felt the ’70 was a big improvement over the ’69 (I think many people do), but I still prefer the ’64-’67 models (well, I own one, so I’m biased).
The ’70 is the Buick muscle car icon though…
Aaron, My sentiments exactly. The ’64-’67’s were the best looking of all. Just thinking about them makes me fell like I’m twelve years old again. I had four older sisters. Every day after school, there’d be coupes, from Coronets to Skylarks, from three different towns parked in our front yard. I liked the Skylarks best.
Nice find, Aaron. One thing not so visible on your feature car is the fender bulge over the front wheel aperture that stretches way back into the door. It looks awkward to my eyes, but the angles you’ve given on this brown example seem to minimise its presence.
Nice-looking find. I think its color is appropriate for its more upscale Buick image.
Great car. My personal favorite. albeit with the Stage 1 455.
It’s not that the mfgs were giving out wholly fictitious HP ratings, it is just that they gave the HP the engine made w/o have power sucked away be accessories, so in some ways you could consider it being more honest as to what the engine truly made, even though it was not all useable. Certainly there were some cases where they fudged the numbers, but in 1970 on hot cars they were fudging on the low side in many cases to make it a little more likely that a buyer could afford insurance.
When it comes to honest HP ratings, I think of the Chrysler 340, rated at 275 horsepower. The Z/28’s 302 may have actually had 290 horsepower as well.
Not to bring my ’65 Skylark into this again, but the 300 2-barrel from that year had 9:1 (rated) compression and 210 hp. My 4-barrel had 10.25 (rated) compression, and 250 hp. They both had the same cam, heads, and exhaust manifolds…I just don’t think there’s an extra 40 hp there, and that’s assuming that the 300 2 barrel actually had 210 hp.
I wonder if Buick might have puffed these numbers to blunt the comparison with the Oldsmobile’s stronger 330?
I’ve always wondered that, too…Wasn’t the 330-4 barrel in the F85 rated at something like 315 horsepower? Sometimes I wish I would have found a ’65 Cutlass instead of a Skylark! 🙂 Honestly, the little 300 has plenty of power, just maybe not 250.
I can see an easy 40hp from that extra compression, premium fuel, 4bbl carb and dual exhaust.
Just for comparison IH used net HP even back then, actually the advertized gross and net, and the dual exhaust on a 345 was good for 15-20 hp net bump, don’t remember the exact number off the top of my head right now. Another comparison would be the 4.6 in the early Panthers, the dual exhaust bumped the net from 190hp to 210hp in 1992.
This calculator says that you’ll see about 7.5hp from that compression ratio bump alone. http://www.wallaceracing.com/hp-cr-chg.php
Also I’m pretty sure that the cams were different between the low compression 2bbl and the high compression 4bbl engines.
Note those numbers I posted are nets so gross will add a couple percent over the net.
According to the NHRA blueprint specs, the cams look the same between the 300 2 barrel and 4 barrel engines.
http://nhraracer.com/content/general.asp?articleid=46634&zoneid=132
I don’t think the net system is any more honest. The measurement still comes from an engine attached to a machine, just with a few accessories thrown on it. That still doesn’t account for transmission/drivetrain losses you would see on a chassis dyno, so what the CAR puts down to the ground still rarely reflects what the owner was enticed by in the brochure. Gross was a way to sell you the engine, not the “package” as a whole, so in that era where there were so many engines to choose from, listing the engine’s rating alone wasn’t necessarily dishonest.
Leaving off ‘accessories’ like water pumps, fans or alternators isn’t terribly representative. I don’t imagine many power ratings today are done with A/C running, or power steering pumps doing any work so presumably they contribute negligible drag anyway.
The quarter mile dyno is not a bad measurement system!
Nice Buick…needs the correct snorkle air cleaner assembly though. I’ve attached a pic of my ’72 Skylark, also with 350/4
Nice but you need to swap out that plastic and foil heated air duct for the proper paper and foil one, it is available in the Help! line. Even though most stores only stock the plastic version they can get the proper stuff.
At 200.2″ the Chevelle Malibu based 1970 Buick Skylark GS 2 Door Coupe was very much identical in size with the Nova based 1974 Buick Apollo 2 Door Coupe. The wheelbase of the Buick Skylark GS 2 Door Coupe was only an inch longer at 112.0″. The width was however almost a 5″ difference Skylark GS @ 77.3″ vs the Apollo @ 72.7″. Their curb weights however very subjective were around the 3200-3600 pound ranges.
I’d like to find an Apollo to write up. I have just enough ’70s Nova fascination, and being a Buick makes it that much better. I guess I didn’t know they were Skylark-sized…never even thought of it!
The 1973-74 Buick Apollos were in fact based from the 1968-74 3rd Generation Novas. They were available in 2 Door Coupes, 2 Door Hatchback Coupes and 4 Door Sedans. In 1975 since the Skylark (unrelated to the previous Chevelle Malibu based versions.) name was revived, it was christened as a 2 Door Coupe and 2 Door Hatchback Coupe. The 4 Door Sedan kept the Apollo name until it was switched to the Skylark name in 1976. Only the Two Door Coupe of the Chevelle Malibu based Buick Skylark was identical in size with the 1974-75 Buick Apollo/1975-79 Skylark all body styles. The 4 Door versions were much larger though which were about the size of the 2 Door Colonnade versions of the Chevelle Malibu Coupe.
and another pic..
I always liked these and do want one, we had non-GS Skylarks of this vintage as a kid, my mom had a 1970 dark green over parchment hardtop coupe and my grandmother had a 1972 flame orange over white Skylark 350, they were probably the first cars I learned to identify model year changes on as a kid.
I think this would be a great alternative to the more common Chevelle. Really good looking color on this car. When I got my license in 72 in California, I seem to recall litter bags were either required or strongly recommended to be carried in a car, the DMW even used to give them out for free. Were those beaded seat covers really comfortable to sit on?
One of my first work colleagues in CA in 73 had a 72 Skylark Custom Coupe (2-door hardtop) she had purchased new the year before. It was ice blue with a very high quality black vinyl interior (bench seat). That car was really nice, ice cold A/C, quiet and comfortable, beautifully built. It had the 350 (I think 2-barrel). An excellent car for around $4000 at the time. GM at its finest. Things went downhill after that…
Yes, litter bags were a big thing in CA at the time and just about everyone had one. I probably still have one of the blue AAA bags around here somewhere. I don’t recall anyone having beaded seat covers!
A good friend of mine growing up had a (IIRC) a GS 350 version of this car, exact same colors, same interior, wheels, etc. How a 16 year old kid could afford the insurance on this thing was beyond me, but he worked a lot of hours.
Dave was a pretty level headed kid, even as motorhead crazy as we were. Once, I goaded him into doing a burnout near a grocery store. The store was situated on a corner with the parking lot away from us. He lights up the tires and as we pass the grocery store, we see three township police cars, lights blazing! We thought for sure we were busted, but as it turns out, the cops were in the store, as it had just been robbed.
Another instance, we had gotten into an illegal display of speed with another car on a local freeway. We had been feeling a vibration right after the run, and as we were returning back to our neighborhood “BOOM”! And a scraping sound. The car had no drive, we thought we’d grenaded the transmission. As it turns out we were incredibly lucky that night, when we got out and looked underneath, the U-joint at the end of the trans had broken and the driveshaft was scraping on the ground. We were incredibly lucky that the driveshaft didn’t hit a pothole in the road and pole-vault us into eternity!
He kept the car throughout our junior year in high school, but sold it shortly after. By then, he was working full time for a local body shop and was already “flipping” cars; he’d buy the salvage titled cars at auction, fix them up at the shop, drive them for a while and then sell them for a nice profit. Not bad for a high school senior!
The CC effect lives. Was watching the 1979 movie Breaking Away last evening (which seemed to be a must-see movie for my daughter who is soon heading to college at Indiana University). I had forgotten that the most frequently-seen car in the movie was this beat up 1970 Skylark driven by a very young Dennis Quaid.
Plot aside, it is a great car-spotting movie, particularly the scenes involving the bottom-feeder used car lot run by the main character’s father.
This Skylark was spot on for the blue collar 1979-80 era teens featured in “Breaking Away”. GM A bodies were the a favorite ride. F bodies and true muscle cars were too expensive to insure, so the plainer mid size coupe was the next best thing.
Next car on the ladder up would be a Colonnade era Regal or Cutlass, or a later 70’s F body.
By now, Dennis Quaid’s character would be driving a Chevy pickup or Tahoe.
This is the 2nd ’72 Skylark we’ve owned. 1st was a red GS clone. I love the GM A-body cars, and the Buicks are dressed a little nicer than the Chevy’s for a whole lot less money. This one needs a little suspension work, but otherwise is a very nice car. The 350/4 has a little scoot too.
1 more pic…
Hey, that’s the high quality interior I remember from my colleague’s car back in 72, mentioned above. I think these were quite a lot nicer than the Chevy equivalent, with more sound deadening, too. Back when Buick meant something. Nice car.
Nice write-up of the unfairly overshadowed sibling of the GTO, 442, and SS. I actually prefer the (admittedly odd) 1968-69 styling with the sweeping character line, but these heavily facelifted versions are very good-looking cars too. And the bronze-y brown does really suit it!
They do make a nice change from a Malibu. I see about one Malibu a week.
I see their Buick contempories about once a year.
I like em all, but the ’69 Skylark/GS is my favourite. GM cleaned up the ’68
styling just enough.
Admittedly I’m biased. There’s a 69 hardtop in my garage. Now with front disc brakes.
CC-effect from about 6 months ago – pretty close apart from the vinyl roof
nice car but as said before. The gs came with “air grabber” air cleaner
I will say this, most hp ratings in the 60’s and 70’s were way underrated, for insurance reasons. Definitely not overrated. The 455 Stage 1, was actually said to have had close to 410 hp. So you be the judge.
Had a 69 350 GS that beat 383, 400 GTOs