(first posted 10/21/2013) The 1964 Pontiac GTO unleashed a tiger, sales wise as well as performance wise. Needless to say, everyone wanted in on the action, even the relatively staid Buick division. It got a bit of a slow start, with its Skylark Gran Sport appearing in the spring of 1965 for a mid-year introduction. And even its name, Skylark Gran Sport, was rather reserved, compared to GTO, SS396 and 4-4-2. But that’s not to say the GS didn’t have its appeal or fans, as Charles Platt made abundantly clear in his memoir of a rust-bucket ’67 Gran Sport.
The GTO formula was well-established and predictable, by this time. But in 1965 Buick went about it in a very understated manner, shown here with an elegantly dressed woman more likely to step out of something altogether quite different.
Meanwhile, GTO ads were taking a decidedly different tone. Are you sure you’d really rather have a Buick? Not surprisingly, the results were overwhelmingly in favor of kicking ass with the right foot to coterie high-fashion. In 1966, Pontiac sold just shy of 100k GTOs; Buick managed to sell just 13,816 Skylark Gran Sports.
Marketing- wise, the 1966 Gran Sport started out of the gate still pretty sedate with this shot from the brochure. A bit more down to earth, but she wouldn’t have lasted long in the casting call for the Pontiac GTO tiger ads.
By this time, building a mid-size muscle car was a well-known formula: Drop in an engine out of the larger cars into the intermediate A-Body, but not to exceed 400 cubic inches, as per the edict from the 14th floor. The ’64 GTO busted the 330 inch glass ceiling, so now it was reset at 400 inches (for a few years). Just one itty-bitty problem in Buick’s case: the closest sized big-block nailhead V8 measured 401 cubic inches. But Buick got an exemption for one year, probably because the new V8 family to replace the nailhead was coming the very next year.
Don’t let the “Wildcat 445” sticker confuse you like it did me when I was a kid. It took me a while to realize that Buick was using torque numbers to identify its engines back then, rather than cubic inches or horsepower. Speaking of, the base GS engine was straight out of Electra, and rated at 325 (gross) hp. Feeling like it wasn’t keeping up perhaps, Buick offered a mid-year option with 340 hp. That knocked a second of the sprint to 60, to about 6.8 seconds. And the 1/4 mile was knocked off in a decent 14.9 seconds @ 95 mph. Your ET and trap speed may vary…but the GS was beginning to flex its muscles.
1966 was the end of the road for that rather unusual engine (full nailhead history here). It first appeared in 1953, so its fourteen-year life span was rather short, compared to the V8s in the other divisions. It’s odd cylinder head configuration and tiny valves were not conducive to good breathing, and it needed very aggressive cams to generate competitive horsepower, leading to a rather lumpier idle than one might expect in a staid Buick Electra. I suspect Buick engineers knew that it was also a combustion chamber that would be difficult to de-smog, so for 1967, a wholly new big Buick V8 family appeared.
The Gran Sport interior wasn’t exactly overtly sporty either. So much for even a different steering wheel. And the gauge cluster was all-Skylarky.
It should not come as a surprise that the majority of Gran Sports came with the automatic (the “Super Turbine 300” two speed automatic). For those wanting to shift the standard three-speed or optional four speed for maximum performance had better have a designated tach-watcher in the passenger seat to call out the approaching red-line, because placing this tiny little instrument way down there on the floor was a pathetically bad joke. It’s details like this that made American muscle cars hard to take seriously by European sport sedan fans, despite their performance.
But testers at the time generally gave the GS good reviews, for its all-round capable manners and abilities, even if it wasn’t going to scare a hemi-GTX or any of the other really hot cars of 1966 in stop-light drag. Or take on a BMW 1600 on the twisties. The GS sat on a beefier convertible frame, and had the usual complement of heavy-duty components in its suspension, brakes (still drums in ’66), rear axle, and wherever else it counted. The looks were not just skin deep.
Yes, the GS was a handsome car, although that could be said for all of its re-styled ’66 GM A-Body stablemates.
The basic shape and tunnel-back roof line was shared by them all.
The biggest differences were on the ends, and the Buick’s were undoubtedly the most conservative of the bunch, consistent with its family genes.
This well-kept ’66 even sports its original wheel covers; the only thing missing are red-line tires.
Its proud owner even wanted to show off the pristine trunk. A CC first? Except there’s no tire under that spare tire cover. The trunks on these GM mid-sizers were a bit of an afterthought, inasmuch as the space was pretty shallow and chopped up.
Perhaps because of modest sales, or just to extend the line down-market, in 1967 there was a GS 340 alongside the GS 400, now powered by the new (actual) 400 CID engine, and with 340 hp standard. The ’67 was only subtly restyled, but the GS got a decidedly more aggressive look. And with a year or so, there would be “Stage” versions of the 400 (and eventually 455) that would turn out some very serious power indeed. But that’s a story for another day.
Stunning,Buicks started to lose their blue rinse image with cars like this,it’s like when a plain woman let’s her hair down.I’ve never seen a manual GS 400 before it must be pretty rare.Those performance figures are still impressive nearly 50 years later.I’m guessing it must be similar to the 442 which almost tore my head off when the driver floored it.A great looking car with the performance to back it up,they don’t make them like that anymore,more’s the pity!
My neighbor’s ’66 SS396 showcar has nothing on this gorgeous machine. The color combination suits it nicely and it’s nice to see that this owner realizes the spinner wheelcovers look better than the every-buick-has-them chrome rally wheels. I wonder what the take rate was for whitewalls versus blackwalls versus redlines.
I like the above advertisement. Both woman and car are absolutely beautiful and do not warrant either of them showing anything off. Honestly, I’d have a tough time deciding between a ’66 GS, GTO, or 442 if I had the choice to make.
Does anyone here know whether the GS, 442, or high-performance Chevelle/Malibu were available as both a post coupe and a hardtop coupe? The GTO offered this choice 1964-67, but I have no idea about its cousins.
The GS (and GT and 442) did come in both post and hardtop coupe. The SS 396 didn’t, because there was a two-door sedan in the Chevelle line, so there was never a Malibu post coupe.
All of the A-body muscle cars were originally based off of the upper trim levels (Malibu, LeMans, Cutlass, Skylark). Somewhat oddly, Chevrolet did not sell a post coupe in the Malibu line — you’d think Chevrolet would be more likely to offer it at that trim level than the more upscale brands, but the opposite was true — so there was no Chevelle SS post coupe.
IINM, each of the B-O-P divisions did offer post coupes in their upper trim levels, so their muscle cars came as post coupes as well, for at least the first few years. There eventually came to be some differences between the lineups of the regular models and the muscle car models. ISTR that Pontiac continued to offer a GTO post coupe for a few years after the LeMans post coupe had been dropped, while Olds dropped the 4-4-2 post coupe even though the Cutlass still came as one, or vice versa.
There actually was a Chevelle SS post coupe for one year later on, in 1969. In response to the success of the Plymouth Road Runner, Chevy made the SS an option package in ’69 (in the past, it had been a distinct model), and expanded its availability to any Chevelle 2-door, not just Malibus. This allowed buyers to get an SS version of the lower-line models for the first time, including the post coupe.
The SS package continued to be available on lower-line Chevelles after 1969, but Chevy dropped the post coupe after that year. Again, contrary to what you might expect, I believe that at least some of the more upscale GM divisions did not drop their A-body post coupes at this point, but continued selling the post coupe body style even after Chevrolet had dropped it.
Looked this up in the “Standard Catalog”: The GTO and GS came as post coupes through 1967, the 4-4-2 through 1970.
Olds and Buick both dropped the post coupe from their top-line intermediate trim level after 1967. Since the intermediate muscle cars had originally been based on that level, you’d think they would have also lost their post coupes at that time. That was true in the case of Buick, but Olds kept the post coupe around in its muscle car series for three more years after that. Both divisions continued to offer post coupes in their lower-line intermediate trim levels all the way through to 1972.
Pontiac was the opposite of Olds. They continued to offer a post coupe in their top-line intermediate trim level through 1970, but their intermediate muscle car lost the post coupe three years earlier, after ’67. Like Olds and Buick, Pontiac continued to offer post coupes in their lower-line intermediate trim levels until 1972.
Note that Chevrolet never sold post coupes in its top-line trim level, and dropped the post coupe completely after 1969. That’s the opposite of what you’d expect. You’d think the more downscale the brand, the more prominent the post coupe would be relative to the hardtop. But Chevrolet placed by far the least emphasis on post coupes of any of the GM divisions that sold A-bodies.
(Note: the 4-4-2 was demoted to option package status in 1972. It is not clear to me if it was only available on certain models, or on any intermediate coupe. If the latter, similar to what happened with the Chevelle SS in 1969, it may have been possible to order a ’72 4-4-2 post coupe. I’m not sure one way or the other.)
Before 1971 for Pontiac and ’73 for Buick-Olds, the A-body post coupe was the “Prices Starting At” special for the higher divisions, something no ’64-up A-body Chevrolet needed to be for the entire division – there was always at least one smaller, cheaper car in the line.
64–67, post coupe styling simply was one of the benefits of paying extra for a base Tempest, etc, instead of getting the dorky square sedan roof of a base Chevelle.
Until later on when you could order a Chevelle 300 with SS 396 trim (ca. 1969). Before that, SS 396’s were strictly a Chevelle Malibu option.
The California GS was a “thin pillar coupe” but I’m pretty sure all the real GS cars were hardtops. Don’t know about the lesser brands.
ten seconds of googling would have told you otherwise.
The campaign for the 1965 Gran Sport did have one very memorable aspect.
In one ad, the car was referred to as a “Howitzer with windshield wipers.” If I recall correctly, that line warranted a notice from Ralph Nader.
Beautiful car.
Yes. It is handsome.
That is a good word to describe it.
This. This is what I’d have. Not a GTO. I’m just too conservative. This makes my heart go pitter-pat.
Yes; these are a good match for me too; today I drive a 5-Series but back in the day, I think I’d have gone for a GS*… this is the era of GM cars I love.
* I could have also been tempted by one of the Olds “W” machines if I could have ordered one that without too much exterior flash.
Back when I was a kid in the late 60’s, there were two 1967 GS Buicks in our little town. One was a red GS 400 much like the one at the center of Mr. Platt’s very excellent story, with the same black interior with a bench seat. The other was a GS 340, white with the orange stripe, just like the one in the ad. I remember the red GS 400 as having red line tires, but I could be wrong. Both of these cars made a pretty strong impression on me, but the adult version of Mike prefers the more sedate look of the 1966 featured here. Besides, the 1966 has a nailhead. I’m not sure why, but I love nailheads. Maybe it’s that lumpy idle…
Buick nailheads still have a cult following to this day 🙂
I constantly wonder what the American designers of that era thought tachometers were supposed to be for. Not for using while driving, evidently.
You really have to wonder…they added them as if hanging ornaments on a Xmas tree.
Bah. These are manly muscle cars! Tachs are there solely to reassure your less butch passengers that you are indeed powering through the gears at redline solely by interpreting the noises and vibrations your powerful machine is communicating with you! 😀
Blame it on the accountants. It’s cheaper to just put the tach somewhere where’s there was previously empty air space, rather than actually modify a die to stamp a hole somewhere in the dash. Be grateful that Detroit didn’t just do the under dash chrome plated steel bracket to house the extra instrument(s).
Except when they did… the instrument package offered on Camaros and Novas wasn’t that far from that.
Except Pontiac. They came out with a unique position for the tach, On the hood in froint of the driver, in a fared cover, And made it available on several model lines.
hard to believe I scored a non-GS ’65 ragtop for $800. It has no drivetrain and a ragged top, but still…
Wow, GM was at the top of their game in the mid to late 60s.
For all of the future failings of General Motors, one has to truly respect they broke so much ground and lead the industry for so long. Producing cars like this, with so much character.
If this were 1966, I’d be the perfect target for this car (I’d take one in a heartbeat today too). It is gorgeous, with a good kick of performance without being over-the-top. I love the GTO and 442, but there is something very appealing and “grown-up” about this Buick (and I mean that in a good way). Maybe I am getting old…
This car seems a bit odd with a stick, however, and the tachometer placement is ridiculous. No need to keep track of RPMs. The Buick GS is the sort of car where you just put it in drive (with automatic of course) and cruise quickly, smoothly and stylishly.
I have to say this car would be more appealing if Buick had offered the TH400 rather than just the ST-300 two-speed automatic. For that reason alone, I would lean more toward the ’67.
The story I heard was that the THM 400 (developed by Buick Division and Hydra-Matic division jointly) was initially offered in ’64 on the Senior Buicks and a mid-year option on Cadillac (which still offered the older 4 speed HM – P N DR S L R) . . . . for A bodies, the floor pan stampings were to accommodate the Powerglides/Jetaways/ST-2 and 300’s, and that this was not to be rectified until MY67 when THM’s became available in the A bodies (Chevy Big Block only though until ’69).
For what it’s worth, my oldest brother bought a ’64 El Camino that had been retrofitted with a 327 & THM400. This was in 1975 or ’76.
I don’t think the floor pan had been cut or massaged, but I could be wrong.
(Too bad they didn’t resto mod the brakes, as it was still 4x drums, albeit power assisted.)
My mother had one very similar to this, it was the lighter blue with black interior and an automatic. The engine was actually a 401 CID, but since GM had a policy at the time limiting engine size on that platform to 400 CID, Buick fudged a bit and said it was a 400. the GS option was available in the coupe (with “B” pillar), hardtop coupe and convertible.
I was so thrilled when my mother chose this over a dorky station wagon like all the other moms had.
Great find, Paul. I remember back in 1965 when Buick released the Skylark Gran Sport-
I loved the looks of that car and lusted after one. The styling was certainly more conservative than the Pontiac Tempest/GTO but as a (then) eighteen year old I just loved the looks of it-especially the full-width tail light which ran across the rear of the car.
Unfortunately my crush collapsed upon reading a road test of it in “Car Life” in 1965 where the writers really excoriated it for mediocre acceleration, handling and abysmal brakes. What can I say, I was young and naive.
This is a really interesting car. As a preteen in an upscale Jewish neighbourhood full of GM Canada execs, there was plenty of nice GM iron around. The gent next door, very high in GM at St Therese, had one of these when I was a kid. He kept it in the garage and only drove in the summer. He’d take the local little ones to Dairy Queen to get ice cream in it. I remember it accelerating really briskly. This one had the THM400. Those were innocent times, nobody gave a thought about their kids piling in a neighbour’s car and taking off for a ride.
I never quite understood the need for a manual transmission on a car that has like 400 ft/lb of torque. The few of this genre with manuals I have driven were no fun at all, great, high effort hulking things. When you can have a Turbo 400, why would you possibly want anything else, it’s the best automatic ever made.
But up through 1966, the manual was the only way to avoid those awful retrograde 2 speed automatics that GM (alone in the industry by then) insisted on using.
GM was a big believer in converter multiplication. They backed away from the Triple Turbine/Turboglide, which was essentially a CVT using a torque converter, but the corporate engineering staff argued that a well-tuned torque converter and two-speed automatic was a good match for a three-speed stick.
Actually, for a dragstrip car, the two-speed wasn’t necessarily a huge handicap — you could match the converter stall to the engine and not having an additional geared low ratio would cut down on wheelspin off the line. For the the street, though, it was a different story; you can’t always brake-torque at stoplights.
I’ve also read that 2-speed automatics (i.e., Powerglide) with beefed internal parts worked well in dedicated, high-horsepower, dragstrip-only cars.
My bad; I indicated that this GS already had the THM 400; it still had the two-speed ST 300.
With that much torque, it’s an automatic that’s unnecessary – start out in 2nd and skip into 4th if you don’t feel like running through the gears.
The styling of these cars was near perfect.There was a lot of opposition from Mopar and Ford who also made great lookers and performers.The later 68s were still good lookers but the Buick looked bloated compared to it’s GM relations,especially in 2 door form.
If it weren’t for the dash I’d really struggle trying to choose between this and a 66/67 GTO. I think this bodystyle is where Buick and Pontiac styling particularly shined, whereas I felt the Chevelle and 4-4-2 reached physical perfection in the following 68 body, with the Buick ending up looking boaty and the GTO looking sort of soft(not that I dislike them). 70-72 is when they ALL looked really good to me.
And love those nailheads, even with the breathing issues. I too was thrown by the air cleaner lid callouts. I first learned of Buicks designations when I pulled a junkyard lid, heavy with patina, for wall art from a 1960 Electra with “Wildcat 443” on it. I thought that seemed like a huge motor for 1960! 😛
I was going to post this earlier, but work gets in the way… LOL!
I had a friend who had a 67 GS 340 (IIRC) in high school. It was gold with the black vinyl top and the black vinyl interior, a really sharp car for our part of Northeastern Ohio in 1978. The GM A bodies held up rather well in the salt baths, but this one was in exceptionally good condition. Sadly, our 16 year-old selves could not appreciate this car (it wasn’t a big block, therefore it was crap), and my friend beat the thing into a pile of junk. Oh man…
Beautiful car. Not sure I have ever seen a 66-67 GS in this color. There were not that many 2 door Skylarks running around back then, and the ones that I saw all seemed to be light yellow or that light turqoise.
I always wondered about why car makers felt the need to cheat and use torque numbers to identify an engine. Plymouth did the same thing in 1959 with its Golden Commando 395 that was a 361 cid V8 that was putting out 395 ft lbs of torque.
Please tell Tommy Ivo that Nailheads are duds at the strip before he makes a fool of himself. According to Ivo, the small valves afforded better low end torque which allowed him to launch at lower revs. The result was better launches with less wheelspin. The less dramatic launches were much easier on the entire drivetrain, a big concern to match racers such as Ivo that might not make it back to his home garage for nine months. Equipment had to last.
The real problem with nailheads, and it is stated in the article, is the hot cams they needed to get any power. This was not a big issue when the cars were new, but as they aged and got gummed up (as engines in those days did) they got progressively harder to tune properly. Eventually the intake had to be removed and cleaned out which was not a cheap process.
Ivo was an exhibition man, and avoided the NHRA to focus on IHRA paid exhibition grudge matches. He started with nailheads because he was familiar with them, and they were more reliable than the early blown Chrysler hemis. But the Buicks were down of power, which is why he built twin-engine and four-engine rails. But these were all about the show, really. He was the first to make a business out of running rails.
But by about 1965, he had no choice but to start using blown hemis, as the Buicks just couldn’t touch them in terms of power output.
This car is sexy! Always loved the slight forward rake that the header panel had.
Don’t see too many 4 spd Buicks either, especially ones with the factory wheelcovers 🙂
My mom had a 1966 maroon GS convertible, four speed with bucket seats. OMG! I will never forget that car!!! As a little kid, I dreamt about driving it…..and I still dream of driving one…or at least getting to sit in one again. Watching the reflections of the trees pass over the great big shiny hood is a strong childhood memory. I think I lost my only photos of it to Hurricane Sandy. sigh……….
I was a lucky teenager back in 1976. My first car was a then ten year old 66 GS just like this, except it was black inside and out. 401, 4 spd, and the consolette minus the tach. I think the Buick tri-shield was where the tach would’ve been. I paid $375 for this car, and it was a beast. No power steering or brakes, and a 3:90 gear. Yet it had stock exhaust on it and was very quiet. All you could hear was the somewhat eerie but hypnotic whine of the Borg-Warner T10 going thru the gears, we nicknamed it the black ghost. Lots of speeding tickets, and lots of good memories. There’s something about a guy’s first car….
1966 GS production was 13,816, a little lower than the 65’s. 764 3 speeds 2938 4 speeds, and 10,114 automatics. and 132 of those A/T cars had the ST 400 in them.
Does anyone know who owns this car? I would really like the paint code or could it be the original Midnight Blue Poly?
Seeing these GSs is a treat. My appreciation of Buick’s accomplishment continues to increase, especially with the rich story of nailheads, Stages, and all the rest of it (even the apparent rationale for those disappointing 2 speed–or “2.5 speed”–automatics). As if that weren’t enough, I have yet to follow the link to the 67 GS story. Thanks for making it a great day!
If I bought a new 60’s muscle car,my first stop on the way home would have been to
the auto parts store to buy some real gauges and maybe a tach to mount under
the dash on a panel
Chrysler was just as bad as GM with putting the tach down on the console
I don’t think Ford did too much of this
I think if you wanted a tach in most early/mid-sixties Ford products, you ended up getting an Autolight attached to the top/middle of the dash. Not exactly svelte, but certainly more usable than down on the console.
But my favorite was the tach you got on a 1969 SC/Rambler. It was an aftermarket Sun tach that was hose-clamped to the steering column. And this was from the factory. You had to love AMC.
Wow what a great old Buick. Thanks for the detailed article. I love the console – that is a rare example. Buicks were always torque monsters. You could toast a Mopar with the A/C on!
Paul, as you note, these ’66-67 A bodies are beautiful – they’re more expressive, like the ’65 full size cars, but they have a tautness their big brothers were already starting to lose. In a way, they’re the true antecedents of the ’77 B-Bodies.
Very nice article. I had an AMC model kit of one of these in the 66-67 timeframe and it showed off the clean lines of the body. As a teenager, my attention was focused on 390 GTA Fairlanes and 389 GTOs, but as I matured I realized these A body Gran Sports are really the nicest of the mid-sized bunch.
For all you youngsters out there, it is because of cars like these that we baby boomers revel in the sixties so much. Look at what we had and look at what we have now.
I’m talking style here. Cars as machines are worlds better, and I will take reliability over styling, as we may never see the likes of cars looking like that again.
These mid size car from GM are pretty much all exactly the same except for the engines. As I recall the GTO and 442 were best for performance. While now GM’s engine line is limited, the 3.6 V6 comes with or without turbocharging. With a turbo, the 3.6 will probably out perform the GTOs and 442s of yesteryear.
The words Buick and musclecar never really meshed all that well in the sixties, at least in the classic, big-engined intermediate sense.
But they made up for it in 1970 when the 455 Stage 1 GS became available. Suddenly, Buick was on the same playing field as the hottest Fords, Mopars, and other GM division’s cars.