Junkyard Find: 1980 Buick Skylark Limited
We saw a Cadillac and an Oldsmobile as our last two Junkyard Finds, so how about another member of the General Motors family? Yes, it’s a rare example of the Buick sibling to the Chevrolet Citation, the first of the front-wheel-drive Skylarks.
The Skylark name had already endured the 1975 through 1979 model years on Buick-badged Chevy Novas, but that humiliation was nothing next to the misery of the Iron Duke engine. The worst car I have ever experienced was the Pontiac version of this car, so I admit having some anti-X-Body/Iron Duke bias.
They spell it this way over there in England, so Detroit switched to the “litre” spelling on its displacement badges during this era. Those 2.5 litres produced 84 horsepower in the ’80 Skylark’s Iron Duke, by the way.
Inside, much blue and purple Nearly Velour™ fabric, much aggressively fake wood, and many LIMITED badges.
The MSRP on a new 1980 Skylark Limited sedan was $5,306, or around $16,500 in 2017 dollars. A Duked Citation sedan was just $5,153, the Oldsmobile Omega version was $5,266, and the Pontiac Phoenix listed at $5,251. Fortunately, the rear-wheel-drive Nova-based Skylark was available through the 1988 model year … in Iran.
This car managed to outlive 95 percent of the Hondas and Toyotas sold for the 1980 model year, so there’s that.
“They made their efficient smaller cars luxurious, and their luxurious larger cars efficient!”
“Skylark also gets a lot of votes for its stand on the economy.”
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Limited: "restricted in size, amount, or extent; few, small, or short" To me a car that brags that it is limited has never made any sense.
This is one of the very first rental cars I remember riding in. My Dad was working out of town and we went to visit him. It was certainly an Skylark in this color. These cars were everywhere in Pittsburgh, all X bodies were, and then suddenly they weren't. But every once in awhile, you'll see one that has survived.