My Christmas list will forever include one of the four forward-thinking compacts produced by General Motors in the early 1960s. But my lust is strongest for the special song sung by Buick dealerships in 1962. When I really would rather have a Buick, 1962 is the year.
Much has been written about the development of the B-O-P compacts, here on Curbside Classic and elsewhere; I won’t rehash the details here, especially since we’ve already been inundated with reminders of their frequent Car of The Year accolades. However, I will reiterate that each of them ended up with a rather unique personality–not surprising, since they were conceived during the GM transition that took their brands from divisional autonomy to badge-engineered cloning.
The Tempest, with its flexible drive shaft, Trophy 4 engine, and swing-axle rear transaxle adapted from the Corvair, was the wildest of the bunch. Oldsmobile had hoped to pioneer front-wheel drive with V6 power, but they and Buick ended up producing relatively conventional vehicles.
On the surface they looked like scaled-down versions of their big brothers, but their aluminum V8s and unit construction put the junior Olds and Buick in a different league–and not only from their siblings, but from every other kid on the compact-car playground. As twins often do, each tried a few ways of asserting its own identity, right down to the number of head bolts and the shape of the combustion chambers in their 215 cu in aluminum V8s, as well as the number of gears in the transmission.
One thing they did agree on was offering a line-topping coupe with bucket seats and a little more zest under the hood, something undoubtedly inspired by the 1960 Corvair Monza, which was having a ball at the epicenter of the sporty compact market. As a longtime purveyor of fine things, Buick calibrated a four-barrel carburetor for its Skylark V8, giving it a zippy 185 horsepower, and also stitched together a tasteful interior. Despite a late, mid-season introduction, some 12,000 reborn Skylarks went out Buick showroom doors.
Eventually, the 1962 lineup would expand to include a very handsome convertible, and the V8 would receive an additional five horsepower. While the senior Buicks became dull as bricks for 1962, the Special/Skylarks kept their jaunty flanks for another model year. Also of note is the Car of The Year award-winning Fireball V6. Although not available in the Skylark, you COULD get that rambunctious engine in a lower-spec Special convertible.
For an asking price within shooting distance of your garden-variety Impala Hardtop Coupe with a 283 V8, you could slink into the sexy Skylark with a lighter body, a more powerful V8, and sprightlier performance. While not an overwhelming success, the Skylark held its own in the burgeoning luxury compact market.
If the Corvair Monza inspired the conception of the Mustang, the Mercury Cougar owes a lot to the Skylark and the original Olds Cutlass. Yes, GM responded with their own pony cars in 1967, but the Firebird always remained a few prestige points behind the Cougar. The faux-luxury interior in the Cougar XR-7 seemed more pint-sized Riviera than gussied-up Mustang, leading one to think that Buick threw away an awesome opportunity.
Relatively expensive to produce and not exactly a volume seller, the unibody Special/Skylark was pretty much doomed from the start. Plans to replace them with truly “downsized” big cars in 1964 were solidified after a clobbering at the hands of the new 1962 mid-sized Ford Fairlane further pressured GM to move “bigger.” It didn’t seem to matter that in the ’60s, this was probably as close as Buick would come to offering a balanced, well-rounded automobile that wasn’t the Riviera.
With just under 9,000 units sold new, the 1962 convertibles are somewhat rare beasts. About 2,000 more of the duller-in-hindsight 1963 models went out the door before the Skylark/Special entered puberty (and intermediatehood) a foot longer and 200 pounds heavier in 1964.
Although most reviewers of the day preferred the 1963 styling to that of the previous year, I think it’s fairer to say that the newer models presaged a “Generic Buick” look, which–thankfully–seems to have ended, albeit only because today’s Buicks are essentially Opels with more chrome.
Just about every early-60’s styling trend GM threw at the public (save the Corvair’s character line) has gone the way of the dinosaur. There’s something to be said for Bill Mitchell’s early attempts to meld the flamboyance of the ’50s with the cautious optimism of the next decade. The 1961-62 Buick compacts represent one of most cohesive designs from that transitional period. Although they’re basically 1961 Buicks left in the dryer too long, the absence of two feet of fluff really works. Rarely in the decades to come would the styling of an ordinary Buick convey such an air of sportiness.
Their styling is my only justification for loving these Buicks so much. Yes, I could say that they performed well enough, were well-crafted, and offered interior appointments of timeless elegance–and yes, some of you would refute any or all of those points. To me, however, they illustrate the once-high standard set by even slightly above-average American cars of the day–and that turning away from the qualities that set you apart often precedes a very great fall.
I dunno Laurence…typically your impressive photo’s and wordsmithery bring me around.
Not on this car though. To me it is an unappealing clump of steel, somewhat bloated and swoopy. ’61 and ’62 not good years for Buick in my opinion.
To each his own. I own one of these, and I LOVE the lines on it. Not bloated at all – the physical size of this car is actually about the same length, and a little narrower, than my daighter’s ’99 Sunfire. With a transplanted T5 trans, it achieves gas mileage in the 20’s as well!
Look at the top picture again. So much for the stereotype that all are gigantic… 😛 The color combo with the plain chrome wheels almost makes it look like an automotive tuxedo.
To me, this entire series of cars (Corvair thru Skylark) was the end of the “real GM”. The ’64 intermediates was the beginning of the slide into bankruptcy (not that any of us would have believed it then – my father absolutely loved the Chevelle) 44 years later.
Makes you wonder what GM could have done if the attitude shown in these four models had survived. Of course, even I’ll have to argue that (in the short run) GM’s badge engineering and commodity-ization of their cars was the right decision. The stuff certainly sold.
Which showed that, in general, the American buyer had absolutely no taste in cars. And still doesn’t, given all the crying for the return of the classic American trash, er, car.
It’s worth mentioning a word or two about the Dual-Path Turbine Drive, which went into the large majority of these cars. (You could theoretically get a Warner T-10 four-speed, but they’re undoubtedly in the hen’s teeth category.) It was a two-speed torque converter automatic, but had nothing in common beyond that with Powerglide or, for that matter, the Super Turbine 300 that replaced it.
The Turbine Drive had a few interesting features. First, it had torque-splitting in top gear, as did the TempesTorque (or a Roto Hydra-Matic in second). Second, it didn’t actually have a reverse gear; when you shifted into reverse, the torque converter turbine locked stationary and the stator drove the car backwards! As a result, Turbine Drive was one of the lightest automatics around, actually weighing less than a three-speed manual transmission, about 60 lb less than a Model 5 Roto Hydra-Matic, and about half as much as an iron-cased Chrysler PowerFlite. Contemporary road tests found that the Turbine Drive actually compared pretty well to a three-speed stick, although obviously not to a four-speed box. I have no idea what the Turbine Drive’s reliability was like, though it probably benefited from the fact that a driver with a V6 Special was not likely to be brutal with the transmission…
Thanks! I never knew if the Turbine Drive in these were related to the Super Turbines that followed.
Not really, nor did they have much in common with the Twin Turbine/Turbine Drive in the big Buicks (which was a development of the Twin Turbine Dynaflow).
I assume the Super Turbine 300 emerged from some corporate mandate for greater commonality. The Turbine Drive sold only as many units in three years as Powerglide did in three months, which is a bad ratio if you’re looking for economies of scale. The small Roto Hydra-Matic did a little better, having also been sold in some Vauxhalls, Holdens, and possibly Opels, but not much. Buick, Olds, and Pontiac didn’t want to have to standardize on Powerglide, but it didn’t make financial sense for the three divisions to each have their own transmission, so they came up with a common design. Of course, even then, the Super Turbine 300 wasn’t quite identical; through ’67, Buick and Olds had a variable-pitch stator (a trick Buick had been using since the mid-fifties), which I don’t think Pontiac ever used.
(I say Super Turbine 300 because Super Turbine 400 was Buick’s name for the first Turbo Hydramatic, obviously a very different unit.)
As someone who grew up in, and learned how to drive in a ’62 Special wagon (215V8, Dual Path) reliability was good.These transmissions, because of the “dual path” of power flow, would operate even when basically out of fluid, but you only got one gear. And yes, very light weight, they were even air cooled. Had our Special from ’66 to ’81, no trans probs at all. And, other than a valve job late in the game (thank you, unleaded fuel!) no engine problems either at ALL. Great engines, good cars. Speaking of hen’s teeth, summer of 2011, Broadmoor golf course in Portland OR, I saw, and photographed, a 1962 Special convertible, with said 4 speed stick. And its a local car, still had the original Portland dealer license plate frames on it. It was a Deluxe, so i assume it had the 215, although you could get the 198 V6 if you special (no pun intended) ordered it.
I am more captivated by the commercial photography & set decoration on the second photograph from the top. Lighted colored panels, blocks of ice with money inside them, perfectly rain-slicked street.. and the key feature of most automobile ads: An attractive couple softly gazing at their car (not each other). There is no background on earth that has ever looked like that..a work of art in itself.
I agree that is a wild picture, I do wonder what they were trying to convey with the money in the ice blocks. The other subtle think is that woman was driving. That’s not very common for the era, usually if a woman is shown behind the wheel she’s either by herself or has a load of kids in the car.
i agree. the ice blocks, then the “play” money in the blocks are what captured my eye immediately.
I like the photo that does a nice job of comparing the rectilinear lines of the Special with the humpy-looking Saab convertible around the corner.
And its about time someone did a CC on the best compact car of 1962! Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?
I will admit to liking the styling on these cars, although the higher trim levels look better than the cheap-o Special sedans. However, these never called my name. The low number of in-service examples always dissuaded me from looking into one as a daily driver. Parts and people who were familiar with them would tend to be in shorter supply than more commonly-found stuff. My family’s less-than-happy time with the Olds F-85 and its 215 V8 probably also color my perception.
I consider these cars to be the result of GM hubris as much as anything. I understood the old GM divisional structure, and believe that it was responsible for some very good cars. However, with the 1960-61 compact introductions, GM was basically doubling its product offerings and its overhead, but without a prayer of doubling its business.
Each division now had one (or even two) additional unique engines and transmissions, let alone body structures. Having a junior series that shares virtually nothing with either the divisional Sr. car or with the Jr. cars of the other divisions is a really expensive yet ineffective way to run a car company. Time would prove that the company could not even provide separate powertrain hardware for five different auto divisions when each division shared most of that hardware between larger and smaller cars. The state of things from 1960-63 was just unsustainable. It did, however, provide for some unique and interesting cars.
They were never sure how to launch these, they were almost treated as “companion” makes like GM had in the 20’s. Many Pontiac dealers used the “Pontiac-Tempest” tag line in their sales organizations. GM didn’t know how serious the rush to compact would or would not be, to cover their bet, they figured, better give a full line to all the divisions.
Well, also, the economic climate had changed between the time these cars were conceived and when they actually went on sale.
True, they started working on these during the 1958 recession when compacts boomed.
My uncle, a die-hard Buick man, had one of these as an executive commuter. Upscale enough for the management parking lot, yet compact to handle dense city traffic. The only problem the car had was coolant leaks due to aluminum engine, copper radiator and heater core, combined with antifreeze chemistry of the day.
Great Write upand as always photos. My Grandmother always wanted a Buick Special, especially a 62, however, all she thought she could afford was a Valiant.
The most advanced power plant of that era was the turbo-chaarged Olds Skylark. It had a separate water tank and injection to prevent detonation! I think it was only produced in 62. The small aluminum block engine tooling was purchased by Rover in 1965 and first introduced as the P5B in 1967, the B referring to Buick!
The turbocharged Olds was the Jetfire (Skylark was a Buick name), made from 1962-1963. Naturally, it used the Olds version of the engine (which had some differences from the Buick). The Jetfire engine was quite sophisticated for its time, with a wastegate (something the contemporary Corvair Monza Spyder did not) and water/alcohol injection. If the water injection tank ran dry, a switch at the bottom of the tank would open the wastegate, killing boost but preventing detonation. (Compression ratio was not reduced with the turbo — it was still more than 10:1.) Sadly, a lot of those cars were converted to non-turbo four-barrels by dealers.
I remember learning to drive at 16 years old on my mom’s 62 Skylark station wagon. That was already 1971 and old reliable was still going strong. It took a licking and …… well you know. We sold her (the car, not mom) at 300,000 miles and saw it on the road for at least 15 years after that.
hello to all i simply enjoy my daily driver in summer. traded for 1925 hudson limo this summer .90% complete . i will enjoy my 215 2 speed untill it is sold some day red with white top . thank you for ur photos good bye.
I’ve always liked the 1962 and 63 Buick Special, Special Deluxe and Special Skylark.
I have a 62 skylark convertible with the 215 V8 4bbl and 4 speed. My wife and I love cruising in it, it’s a real kick in the pants to drive. It needs some cosmetic work, but the car is mechanically sound and all original. If I don’t quit driving it so much I’ll never finish the resto work! Hope it someday looks as good as the cars the photos. Thanks!