Canadiancatgreen has an unusual find posted to the CCohort, a 1981 Buick Skylark convertible. Such a thing being created back in the dark days of factory built convertibles being taboo isn’t overly surprising.
What is surprising is the extent of such aftermarket manufacturing that took place from the late 1970s through the mid-1980s.
From the scant information to be found, American Custom Coachworks converted some number of 1981 and 1982 X-body Skylarks into convertibles. They also did these conversions on the Pontiac Phoenix and Oldsmobile Omega, the Skylark stablemates.
Coach Builders Limited and Barrows were two other companies making drop top Skylarks at the same time.
It appears American Custom Coachworks went out of business in 2003. Of the two links found here, one is no longer valid and the other leads to a French website.
Coach Builders Limited is still in business in Florida. Their Facebook page currently has a picture of a Dodge Challenger Hellcat converted into a droptop.
Barrows seems to have evaporated. There is a coach builder in Barrows-in-Furness in the UK, an auto parts store with the Barrows name in Georgia, and an auto repair facility by that name in Phoenix.
The convertible-ization business appears to have been a vibrant one for a short time as evidenced by the list of GM cars so converted by a variety of coach builders.
Those businesses, like this Buick, certainly had a good run.
I worked in an upholstery shop in the early 90s. Many, but not all of these conversions were appalling hack jobs when viewed up close and personal. And by that time, many people needing a new top for one were SOL, unless they were willing to pay for a custom-made one using the old one as a pattern. Most were not.
I searched for images of these X-body Skylark convertibles and, from what I could find, they seem to fall into the category of ‘hack job’. It’s most apparent with the top up.
That looks homemade.
You’re being kind. It looks like an 8th grade shop class project and everyone enrolled failed. Crush it soon.
Breaks my heart to see a unique auto junked. Once was the pride and of someone.
Looking at the coachwork of a Cadillac, I will share a story.
It was the late 1970s, I lived in Houston. Invited to a party. Party hosted by an old Texas guy, once a farmer, now oil rich. I was an interior design, and his 3000 sf, two bedroom home was one of the moist beautiful and comfortable homes I experienced, then and now.
Like it was yesterday, I remember driving into the courtyard parking with my 1976 white Eldo convertible, top down of course. The host was there, he asked me “who made my convertible”. He had a 1976 Eldo pickup in the driveway. My reply my conv. came from GM.
Thr Skylark was perhaps the nicest of the X-cars, but what I can’t quite understand why instead of using the Skylark for a custom convertible, they didn’t the handsome G-body Regal. For whatever kind of extra money the Skylark conversion cost, might as well have paid the extra for the difference in price for the Regal.
There were at least some companies doing the A/G cars. Here is a Monte https://www.classic.com/veh/1983-chevrolet-monte-carlo-convertible-1g1az37h5db125733-WjLkDl4/
I find the “stiffing” added to the frame quite interesting, bolting some 1×1 tubing down each side seems to be about the extent of the effort to keep it from flopping around.
Aftermarket sun/moon roofs were a huge thing in California then too .
I wonder how flexy this thing was when driven ? .
I rather like the Cadillac “flower car” in the advert .
-Nate