When those people dressed in their short-sleeved button-down shirts and clip-on ties come to my door and ask me if I’ve heard the Good News about Buick and try to tell me of the legend of the Three Shields and the great Skyhawk, I generally shoo them away, because generally I’m not someone who thinks that much about Buicks. This isn’t a slight to the storied marque, they’re just not really a kind of car that meshes with my own particular set of perversions.
But there is one exception. A strange one that doesn’t even really make sense to me. The Skylark. But not just any Skylark; not the bulbously charming ’50s ones or the cool ones from the ’60s or even the strange Iranian-built late ’70s ones. I’m talking about the early seventh-generation ones, built between 1992 and 1995.
The ones with the big pointy beak:
I remember when these first came out, and I was genuinely surprised that a staid brand like Buick would release something so unusual and striking-looking. It was mostly that front end, with the dramatically pointed prow, though the rear of the car was fairly dramatic as well:
There was that upward rear rake, the partially skirted rear wheel arch, defined by those molding lines that encircled the car, which also provided good bump protection, even around the sides.
The daring look of the car was telegraphed by Buick’s 1990 concept car, the Bolero:
You can some of the general body lines in that concept, but this is one of those rare cases where I think the production car ended up looking more dramatic than the concept car.
This sort of dramatically pointed beak had been used in cars plenty of times before; not just by Buick, which enjoyed these beak-grilles plenty, but many 1970s cars, especially like Ford LTDs and Chrysler New Yorkers. It’d largely fallen out of favor in the 1980s, and was genuinely unexpected to see in the early 1990s.
Designed by Wayne Kady, the car was said not to have a single flat panel, a reaction to the very boxy ’80s designs. It got a fair amount of attention at the time for its styling, which was good because the second-gen N-body platform it was built on wasn’t anything especially remarkable, though it was a little longer, and more attempts were made to differentiate the various GM cars built on the platform, as GM was tired of being made fun of for their lazy badge engineering.
I think the ones with the body-colored grilles were the most interesting, too, if you were wondering.
You could get a 3.3-liter V6 in these cars, but those were making only about 160 hp and connected to either a three- or four-speed auto, so these cars were never really especially engaging to drive, but they were pretty comfortable, at least.
They also had anti-lock brakes, which was deemed important enough to warrant its own commercial that involved a big car-shaped balloon:
Also, unrelated, I found something kind of bonkers in the Skylark owner’s manual.
Even in the early ’90s, people still weren’t totally sold on seat belts it seems, so they had to convey how important they were by setting up a poor fictional child to have a nasty bike wreck:
Seriously, illustrated kid, use your damn eyes! You can see that huge cinder block right there! I guess this shows the value of seat belts, but it’s also not a bad lesson in don’t be afraid to turn so you do drive into shit.
Want to see what Motorweek thought of the car? Sure you do; you’re human:
I haven’t seen one of these in years. They later updated the styling in 1996 to something far more timid, and then I went back to my usual state of not caring about Buick. But for one short period of time, there actually was a Buick that got my attention.
Top graphic image: GM
Got a soft spot for the “Costanza” skylark-he had a GS I think. Buddy of mine and I borrowed a teal green base model ‘94 from his college friend. We drove it from Swarthmore to NYC in 2000. Hit Fuddruckers in Princeton. Nice little road trip, parked it near Times Square, $48 a day parking. First time for me in NY, went to the Village Vanguard, Empire State, WTC Walked from 79th to Greenwich village. Comfy car, got it done
1994 was the year of the teal vehicle. I had a 1994 Jetta GL in metallic teal
I can’t deal with that pointy little nose. It looks fine from the lower-elevation perspective in the lead shot, but once you get some height in the view it juts out awkwardly.
I’ll stick with the Achieva for my shameful 90s N-Body craving, or move on up to a Cutlass Supreme.
Both arguably the best N body and W body respectively.
Though I don’t like the design and though I don’t think it fits Buick, at least it isn’t bland or boring.
I do not often comment on the internet. But when I do it is on the Autopian.
It boggles my mind that there are still people who don’t wear a seatbelt. Yet in 2/3rds of all the fatal crashes in my local news, “Driver was not wearing a seatbelt”. Or that we actually have to have a law for some motorcyclists to wear a helmet.
That video of the engaged belts gave me PTSD flashbacks. I always used them as normal damn belts in my W body Regal.
If you want to show why you should wear a seatbelt, why not show a watermelon flung at the inside of a windshield in a low-speed impact? People think they will “fly clear” of an accident. Just show them the most obvious barrier to that idea.
And even if they somehow did “fly clear”, what then? What soft compliant object do they think will arrest their forward momentum?
You can splatter against the windshield. Or splatter against the opposing car. Or splatter across the pavement. It’s the land of freedom and choice!
I think nearly everyone knows someone with the anecdotal story of someone getting thrown from the vehicle in and accident “AND IT WAS THE ONLY REASON THEY SURVIVED!!!!1!!1!” I’m pretty sure all those stories are bullshit
Yeah, not a fan at all of these and their cousin the Olds Achieva, although the Achieva is a little more cohesive design than…this. Compare the interior to a 1992 Accord and you see plain evidence how far off-track GM had gotten in reading the market. The straight edge lines over the rear wheels kills the side view. This is an old person’s LeSabre shrunken down, and their catastrophic sales (certainly compared to the relatively popular ’85-’91) showed GM had lost the plot for yet the Nth time.
I tend to gravitate tot he 1965 Buick Riviera. there were some cool ones later as well and the GSX/GNX acronyms indicate some killer Buicks too, but I really only want the 65 Riviera, preferable the Gran Sport model….though I would probably end up upgrading to a 6.0 LS with a 4l80E so I could feel better about daily driving it, and then swap the stock stuff back if I were to ever sell it.
This came out when I was finishing Art Center studying automotive design, my classmates and I called it Skypig. That is not a happy memory generator. Considering Wayne Kady did the ‘67 Eldorado, arguably one of the coolest cars to come out of GM at the time, this had to be the low point of his career.
That does explain his love of pointy noses.
I totaled one of these. 4 door, kind of a mint-ish green, bought as the best option I could afford off of a used lot. The only thing I can really recall about this car is that the airbag worked well.
How many miles/years of Ned Flanders vibe did you enjoy before the ‘Hawk left off for the parking lot in the sky?
When I think of Skylarks I think of my 1961 Coupe- 3.5L aluminum V8 – red with a white roof.
When I think of modern Buicks I think of the late 90’s Riviera coupe with the supercharged 3800.
A parent of a kid on my brother’s soccer team had a a 8th Gen Riviera, and I remember being enamored with it leaving games or picking him up with practice. We thought it looked like a spaceship, and after my dad told us it was supercharged (and then explained what that meant) it might as well have been a damn Lamborghini.
Of course, every time we saw it, it would also result in my dad telling us how he felt similar as a teenager lusting after boattail Riveras back in the day.
No Rivera made today to continue that cycle with my kid unfortunately.
Same here but the supercharged 3800 owned by a friend’s dad was a Pontiac Bonneville. Between the supercharger and projected heads-up display it was a technical marvel.
I think of the Buick Station wagons of the 90’s. A roadmaster wagon from 96 is kind of special I suppose.
In my opinion, GM did a pretty bang-up job of differentiating the Achieva, Grand Am, and Skylark in terms of styling and branding. Their predecessors were pretty difficult to tell apart, with mainly just badges and cladding setting one apart from the other.
I never really found the 1992-1998(?) Grand Am especially attractive, but I kind of adored the Buick, and will die on the hill of the Achieva’s styling. The Achieva’s styling has really held up over time which, sadly, cannot be said of the mechanicals.
In my dream garage, there would be an Achieva SCX, Sentra SE-R, and Neon ACR, all keeping each other company. Maybe An Escort S/R too, but they kinda ugg.
I was strong in my auto enthusiasm when these came out. I didn’t understand the Achieva or Skylark styling. It just doesn’t feel cohesive, more like people stuck a bunch of design elements together with no thought about whether they work.
I’ve never understood why the 3.3 LG7 V6 existed, when they had the 3.1 L82 60 degree v6 in production at the same time, and they made the exact same power and torque. The 3.3 was a cut-down (lower deck height) 3800 90 degree v6 with the balance shaft removed (!!!) and batch-fire injection so they could get away without using a cam position sensor. I’m generally a fan of the 3800 family of engines, but I wouldn’t want to be the owner of a 3.3, I don’t think…
because it was a Buick motor and in theory anything derived from the 3800 was bound to be a better engine than the 60 Degree V6’s from Chebby.
The 3.3 was actually a very good engine. Very reliable, good power, more efficient than the 3.3 (removal of the balance shaft helped with that) and still pretty smooth.
I knew someone who had a Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera with that engine. It was a very solid, reliable and durable car for them.
In practice, it was a better engine than the Chevy 3.1L of the same era.
I had an Ciera with that engine as well, a long time ago. I remember it being unobtrusive, very torquey, kinda quick for the time, but very slow to rev through that archaic godawful 3 speed automatic. No tach in that Olds, so it was hard to tell what it was doing.
If you had no tach, then you had the more impoverished spec. The person I knew had the Mr Fancy spec that had a tach, among other things.
Impoverished? My good sir, may I point you towards my electric window and door locks, my powered seat recline, powerful AC Delco AM/FM cassette audio, and velour of the bluest and deepest of dreams? No sir, I believe the word you are looking for is Deluxe. A gentleman has no need for a tachometer.
Your acquaintance must have had that crass International sporty trim. Because undoubtedly he was a mannerless Philistine.
A Philistine… just like me!
LOL.
Hey, why isn’t that sandwich pic in your avatar here?
“why isn’t that sandwich pic in your avatar here?”
I dunno what you’re talking about…
https://media.tenor.com/mD_CYM0h6q8AAAAM/nervous-shifty.gif
Not at first though I think? The 3.1 eventually made the same power when it replaced the 3.3 in a lot of cars.
I’m guessing the 3.3 was a quicker way to get a V6 between the 3.1 and 3800 especially as Chrysler introduced their 3.3 at the same time and the Quad 4 had its NVH rep. Maybe it was always supposed to be a stopgap; the 60-deg 3400 followed a couple years later too for an ‘in-between’ engine.
One application that seems like it would have been perfect for the 3.3: the APVs. That would have been a healthy power bump, rather than the 120hp 3.1 as the only engine those first couple years. Sure they had a standard V6 vs. the Chrysler’s standard I4, but Chrysler had 2 V6s with more power available by then.
There’s one of these in my condo garage. It’s a later model so it has a smooth nose and not the beak, but it is in a period color of green, a sedan, and in excellent condition.
GM used that poor kid on the bike in a LOT of owners manuals over a long period of time.
Good old Brain Injury Brian.
I thought it was baton roue at first: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/baton-roue
Before watching it (and maybe it still is the implication) I thought the big balloon ad was going to be how ABS is important for accident avoidance over an airbag, which many of the imports had in 1992 but the N-bodies didn’t get until ’94. There were some Grand Am vids I came across that had that word track, but they may have been dealer training vids.
The only connection I have with this car is back in the 2000s when my then girlfriend’s roommate complained that her Skylark kept stalling when stopping at a traffic light. I “fixed” it by unplugging the defective transmission torque converter lock up solenoid.
This exact issue happened with my ’90 Calais (handed down from my FIL). I was ready to give up on the thing at about 140K, until my mechanic implemented your fix. It lived another 50K or so, and only died when the subsequent owner managed to set it on fire while working on it.
I’m pretty sure my Ciera had that issue, but I ended up selling it before it became frequent enough to diagnose.
I went to the San Francisco auto show when this was launched in the 90s. They had one just like the teal one in the hero image above on the show floor, and I was immediately struck by how hideous it was.
The reaction to the car was palpable. The glare from the ugly caused showgoers to vomit, pass out, and turn their children’s heads away in fear that they would be permanently scarred as they walked by. Others simply screamed and continued on their way. Okay, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but everyone was talking shit about it. It’s so bad that I will never forget seeing it and will never stop wincing every time I see one pass by.
There’s one still rolling around town here, and I’m always afraid I will see it, have my day of errands ruined, and have it haunt my dreams for weeks to come.
Oh, I was there at that Autoshow too.
Took months to get the smell out of Moscone Center….
This reaction is… fair lol. I look at it fondly now, but if I was to be honest, we all made fun of these GM cars when I was a kid lol. Especially when you consider what else was available in the early to mid-90s…
Grand Am for N bodies, I liked seeing that nod late in the MW review. As y’all know I had a 2 door ’93 GT with the HO Quad 5 and the mandatory stick. I miss that car, even with 2 blown head gaskets lol
I think the Grand Am pulled off this styling the best. The Achieva had potential, but something still seemed off to me. The Skylark was just weird, and not in a good way.
I was always an Olds Achieva man when it comes to this platform. The styling is likewise unique (and still holds up IMO), the interior is surprisingly hip, and they could be had with manuals.
Was just queueing up the comment box to mention the Achieva when your comment posted. Both strange cars from usually restrained brands for sure, and yeah the Old definitely seemed to pull it off better.
I owned the more conventional Beretta myself, but I always noticed these on the streets, probably b/c of your observation that they were such departures from their brand identity.
I had one as my first car. It was a coupe and I liked that it was sporty looking but not overdone like the Grand Ams tended to be. I forgot how odd the interior was for the Buick. The Olds was fairly driver centric for a 90’s GM product, let alone an Olds.
The c-pillar is what really does it for me…so futuristic for GM. Still looks sharp to me.
There’s an Olympics special edition one that lives in my building’s parking lot. Makes me happy that someone’s still driving these.
My uncle had one of these when I was a kid. It was a white 2-door with an “oops, all red” interior. That very same red coordinated well with the Marlboro Reds that were chain-smoked into every fiber of the upholstery. Despite the overwhelming smell, good memories.
The 3.3 always seemed like a bizarre engine for this size of a car.
A neighbor had one of these when I was growing up. I remember thinking it looked pretty cool at the time. It still does.
Anyway, that kid on the bike can’t swerve because he’s riding on a walkway with a canal full of tar next to him. First, he wasn’t allowed to ride there, and second, he should have just stopped. Did he really think those cinder blocks would just get out of his way?
Also what parent gets their kid a full-on rams-horn-bar road bike in the ’90s? I’m not so sure this act wasn’t deliberate so as to talk his parents into a Dyno freestyle BMX with the chrome frame and plastic mag rims.
Good point. That bike was probably his dad’s hippie cruiser in the ’70s.
“You’re gonna ride this Peugeot, and you’re gonna like it!”
Thanks for the laugh of remembering my brother.
In about 1970 my brother had a black Peugeot 3 speed. He was about 9.
Then he caught Easy Rider at the movie theatre…
One day I came home and he had cut the front fork off his bike, and was trying to fab a chopper fork for it, including using the tubing from one of Mom’s chaise lounge chairs from the back porch.
That failed of course. Eventually he stole the front fork from other bros Stingray bike…
It worked great but the reduced front clearance caused the pedals to dig in the pavement when he tried to pedal and turn at the same time.
Lots of good wrecks ensued.
Eventually he got to where he would just ride a wheelie to prevent crashes. Got to where he could ride a wheelie for close to a half mile at a time.
Wish I had a photo to share…thanks for the reminder of better days.
I love the creativity and the absolute willingness to sacrifice practicality for style! Sounds a little bit like he got out ahead of the lowrider bike trend!
Yeah, he was- still is a lunatic.
Forgot to add this: in order to “obtain” the fork from bro’s Stingray he smacked the front pedal sprocket really hard with a hammer which made the chain fall off with each revolution unbeknownst to the other brother. After a couple days older brother said screw it and quit riding the bike.
But that bike looked so weird with a 26 inch frame and a 16 inch front wheel and fork.
I do occasionally see these…usually in sad condition with many hard Midwestern salt-filled miles behind them. But when I think of Buick, it’s usually the Century that immediately followed this car, and other round-era Buicks like the Park Avenue. Even glory cars like the GS of the ’60s and turbo Regals of the ’70s and ’80s don’t come to mind before those do.
I am not even sure I know when Buick stopped using the stick on fake ports on the front fenders. I also often forget Buick still sells cars and then I see one of the little egg shaped ones drive by.
It’s especially hard to tell because a lot of buyers put them on aftermarket even if they didn’t have them from the factory. I saw it so often at the Buick Dealership I worked at