GM is dead; long live GM! In our last chapter, the Sunbird had been resigned to the crusher, due to an accident while taking it to the mechanic, and suffering enough damage that the insurance company decided it wasn’t worth repairing. I had two months of college left before graduation, and I was in need of some wheels. Quickly.
The $2000 check from the insurance settlement was burning a hole in my pocket, and I had big plans for it. I started shopping new cars, trying to find something that would fit my unknown budget, as I didn’t have a job lined up yet for after graduation.
I don’t remember how many dealers I visited, but I do remember ending up at a Ford dealer, scoping out the 1985 Escort hatchback. When I had the earlier accident with the Sunbird, I was given a Mercury Lynx as my loaner vehicle while the Sunbird was restored to (semi) drivability. Small, nimble, stick shift – all the things I was looking for. Except for one thing – the car I had chosen had the diesel engine. While it was the largest displacement engine available for the Escort at the time – 2.0L vs. the 1.6L or 1.9L gas engines – it made a paltry 52HP. Which made it slow. No, make that sloooowwww. Still, it had that new car smell, and a new car warranty, and I wanted it. I made a tentative deal with the salesman for $2000 down and $150/mo, with the first three payments deferred until after I had graduated.
I called my folks to bring them into the plan, and to hopefully get their blessing and to co-sign on the loan. My parents quickly put the kibosh on it, patiently explaining to me that making a multi-year financial commitment without any guaranteed income was not the wisest course of action.
Back to the drawing board, and to the classifieds I went. I figured I’d just get something to hold me over until I graduate, figure out where I was going to live and work next, then get something more permanent when I got there. Wherever “there” was.
I saw an ad for a Buick Skylark coupe, with the 350 V8 and 3-speed automatic. The Skylark was the Buick clone of the Chevrolet Nova (and other badge engineered copies). While it was pretty big, at least when compared to the Sunbird I owned and the Escort I coveted, it was still on the small end of the spectrum as far as GM went. The ad copy made the car seem like a pretty good deal – I believe the asking price was $1200 or so. When I saw the car in person, I could tell it had been resprayed a metallic blue shade, and the back half of the roof was white vinyl. The kicker was the faux wire wheels the car was sporting. Sharp! I negotiated the price down to $1000 and had myself a new (to me) car. (Pictured at the top, it’s the only surviving photo.)
Arizona had some rudimentary emission laws in place in 1985, so I had to get my car to pass in order for it to get registered. Which it didn’t. So I took it to a local shop to have things fiddled with (I don’t remember the details of what), and back for a retest. Another fail, and another trip to the shop. Third time was the charm, so I was legal to ply the roads of the metro Phoenix area.
In the two months I had the car, I probably put another $500-750 into it, between the emission fixes and new tires. Being 21 and pretty ignorant, I got two tires, which were all I needed, based on price. Turns out the two tires I kept on the car and the two new ones I purchased were very different – bias ply? Whatever it was, the car was squirrely as all get out on the concrete highways. Every time I changed lanes, the front end and back end didn’t seem connected to each other. In NASCAR parlance, it was “loose”. I kept my speeds down to keep the car in one piece. It also developed – or always had – a miss in the engine. But, since I had eight cylinders, I figured seven would be enough to get me where I needed to go. I didn’t have any issues with the sturdy 3-speed automatic transmission, and the A/C blew cold air, which was a delight compared to the suffering I endured when I had the Sunbird.
It was comfortable to drive, the velour covered bench seats were soft and it exuded all the qualities of GM’s attempt to make a small car feel large. I don’t remember the mileage when I bought it, and I probably didn’t put more than a couple thousand miles on it in the time it was in my possession. I don’t think anybody rode in the car with me, until the week before I sold it. I never took it on any road trips; I never trusted it enough to leave the city limits, frankly.
My folks and best friend flew out to Phoenix to attend the graduation ceremonies, and the morning before the festivities started, my dad and I took the Buick to a buy-here, pay-here lot to sell it off. As we suspected, the engine was not all there, and we were offered $350 for it. Not having many options, we took it.
I’m sure there aren’t a lot of folks who suffer 65% depreciation on a car in 60 days, but I managed to do just that. The proceeds of the sale were enough to pay for the rental car and other costs to move my belongings back to Southern California – where I had a job waiting for me, courtesy of my dad – to begin the next chapter of my life.
(The rental? A Ford LTD wagon, white with faux wood siding. My friend and I had a great trip home.)
Once there, I was again in need of a car of my own. Again, my dad helped me with the purchase, though I rejected his advice on what he thought I should get.
I always thought the Nova clones from Buick/Pontiac/Oldsmobile were good looking cars in and of themselves. Early 70s much more so…
Oy, that’s a lot to lose on a cheap car. Not being familiar with these, I can offer no hindsight-infused wisdom. Someone will surely chime in with “Oh, a failed framathargit was a problem on these, but it was a cheap fix.” Oh well, live and learn.
I will agree with Sloomis, the Buick version was a nicely done version of this last of the decent X body cars.
Great story, Michael. I had meant to comment on your earlier Sunbird post to say that of the four similar H-Bodies, the Sunbird, with its very “Pontiac” front, arguably had the strongest identity.
What strikes me about the carriage roof on your car is how much more attention is drawn to the slope of the back window with the “formal”, squared off rear quarter windows.
About the top picture, are you sure that’s of your car? The blue one looks like an Oldsmobile Omega (what’s visible of the taillamps lenses; also the front turn signals don’t wrap around and there are no Buick “portholes”).
I am not an expert, but I just wondered. Looking forward to your next article.
Yes, the top picture is my car. Olds? Hmmm. It’s been so long, and I had it for such a short time, that you could be right.
Still a great-looking X-Body, and I also like the wire wheels.
I think the blue one is an Olds too, but hey, same difference!
It perfectly encapsulates the problem with GM’s badge engineering when the owners aren’t sure which one was theirs 🙂
Skylark/Nova/Seville were in production down here from 1975-1989 base novas came with 2.5 L and midgrade with 4.1six cylinder and Nova royal with 350/350 combo all of skylark/Seville came with 350 and some skylark models came with manual transmission.
On of my best friends in high school had a two door ’76 Nova his parents bought new. Red with red plaid seats. Many fond memories of the car, though I don’t recall any functioning AC at all.
Man do I miss looking at those brightly colored interiors compared to today’s boringly bland colors.
By the way can someone tell me why Curbside is “Forbidden” on another computer of mine (last two weeks) that is a duplicate of this one and used during the day. Seems it has a problem with Curbside not being a secured HTTPS site according to the white screen that shows up. This computer shows https: in the address bar now while the other doesn’t show that at all.
Try clearing the cache, we did make the jump (finally) to secured within the last two weeks, your old computer is perhaps trying to find the unsecured version. Note that I am the last guy you should take tech advice from but that change it likely the issue. No idea why it was seamless on your other machine as well as for most people, sorry.
You had me howling at the “it has eight cylinders so it should be okay with seven” comment Michael.
It brought back a lot of memories of those teenage years where if it had enough power to move itself yeah we’re good to go!
I used to call it a 306, since that was the displacement of the functioning cylinders. Even then, it was way quicker than the Sunbird.
The lack of Buick faux-portholes on the end of the front fender adjacent to the door makes me believe this is definitely an Omega, which would have had the Olds Rocket V-8 and not the Buick 350. Maybe the mechanic was also confused, hence being down a cylinder! 🙂
I think by 1978 all the X bodies with the 350 V8 had Chevy engines. The Buick came standard with the Buick V6, and the Nova came standard with the Chevy in-line 6. Beyond that I get confused.
Bob
Looking at the catalogs, you are mostly right in that by then the division-specific engines were not offered in Skylark or Omega. For most of the country the available V8 was a 305 Chevy in both, with a Chevy 350 offered for California and high-altitude areas.
Sounds like you had a mix of bias and radial tires, which was a squirrely combination especially with the bias-plies on the wrong axle. I can’t remember the correct set up, but you probably could have cleared up most of the handling issues by rotating the front tires to the rear axle and vice versa.
More importantly, at that point in the game the tire shop should have known about the issue, and addressed it at the time of purchase!
That was probably it, and I’ll agree that the tire shop should have noted the mismatch. But, I was young and dumb, and likely overpaid for them. Live and learn.
More than 40 years ago I remember driving these when pretty new for Hertz….I was a transporter for them summers of 1977 and 1978, and we had Chevy Novas and Buick Skylarks (though Hertz rented mostly Fords back then, there were a few GM, mostly low end but some mid-sized cars in my home location’s fleet). I remember the dashboard, and that “vertical” radio (hadn’t seen that prior in cars).
They drove fine for me…even back then, many cars had transitioned to radials…I had them on my ’74 Datsun I was driving back then. I know they told you not to mix them on the same axle…and it was probably better to have all one type of tire…but I’d guess it was even getting hard to find bias ply tires …I don’t know exactly when the switchover happened, my Dad had radials pretty early on his cars…of course he did drive foreign cars too; his ’68 Renault 10 had radials…but even our ’73 Ford wagon had Firestone 500 radials…which promptly delaminated right after he bought the car in early 1973…so I think it took some time to get the radial construction for some manufacturers…the car was up on a lift, maybe to get a hitch installed (we had a poptop camper) and they saw the tires were bad…we almost took them on a long camping trip to Florida (we were living in Manassas VA at the time) and my Dad had them replaced…not sure if he got anything for them, as they came with the car, not sure if there was any warranty…but that didn’t sour my Dad on radials, as I think all his cars from that point had them (maybe from the manufacturer…he was buying new cars as he did for the rest of his life).
Frankly, the Nova/Skylark seemed like a generic car to me back then…didn’t appreciate their long-lived drivetrains, and that they were the last of a generation of RWD cars which were common back then. But I drove mostly Fords for Hertz; these were a bit of an exception…now everyone seems to want RWD cars back, but for American cars, only Chrysler still makes them.