(first posted 7/30/2017) We all know that cars are inanimate objects, but if they were capable of feeling emotions, I would nominate this 1979 Buick Skyhawk Road Hawk that I spotted at a recent car show as the saddest car of all time.
Paul has already gone on record calling the Buick Skyhawk “The Saddest H-Body. ” I will go a step further, and call the Road Hawk special edition of the Skyhawk one of the saddest cars ever. Here’s what I see when I look at this car:
William Stopford has already covered this limited (presumably by demand and not supply) edition Skyhawk here, but it is worth briefly recounting this car’s tortured lineage. The Road Hawk was a special trim package of the Buick Skyhawk for the 1979 and 1980 model years. The Buick Skyhawk shared its 2+2 bodywork with fellow H-Body stablemates Chevrolet Monza and Oldsmobile Starfire. The H-Body, in turn, traces its origins back to the 1971 Chevrolet Vega, so sadness is deeply imbued in the Road Hawk’s DNA.
While the Road Hawk included genuinely useful upgrades such as better tires and wheels, as well as improved front and rear suspension, the package is unfortunately overshadowed by the crudely integrated rear spoiler and bodywork. Pay particular attention to the panels affixed to the rear fender meant to widen the rear, but only widen the top half of the body and partially cover the tail lights. A Ruf 935 this is not.
50 Shades of Sad
The Road Hawk also had the added burden of carrying Buick’s performance banner during a relative low point in Buick’s performance offerings. The Wildcat, GS, and GSX (and their associated Stage 1 and 2 455 V8s) were distant memories by 1979. Yet the Grand National, GNX, and various T-Type models of the ’80s renaissance were still over the horizon. So Buick was left with an H-Body in drag to carry Buick’s performance mantel.
I’m not sure what Buick was really aiming for here: They missed so badly that it is hard to tell what their original target actually was. In any case, I am genuinely embarrassed for this car.
The buying public apparently agreed with my assessment and stayed away in droves. In the two model years the Skyhawk Road Hawk was available just over 2,000 were sold.
Related Reading
Automotive History: Shockingly Low Volume Production Cars – The Buick Edition
Top 10 Obscure Special Editions and Forgotten Limited-Run Models: Buick Edition, Part I
Road Hawk? WTF is a Road Hawk? Hawk sees mouse. Hawk launches for mouse. Hawk doesn’t see Semi truck just as he is pouncing on mouse. That is a Road Hawk. As someone said in a previous post, dead duck. The worst part of this is that some over educated meatball came up with this dead duck and was well paid for his efforts. The wrap around tail lights that aren’t wrap around anymore because of tack on body panels which make separate side marker lights necessary is especially stupid on a monumental level.
What a GM “piece of crap” jitney. This POC has the name of Roger Bonham Smith all over it, whether or not Smith had anything to do with it. Alfred P. Sloan could probably generate a goodly amount of NYC’s electric power if Con Edison attached a generator to his casket as he spins in his grave, pondering what to the colossus that was once General Motors Corporation.
Smith and those who thought like Smith were not car men; they were bean counters. Bean counters are hacks and butchers by nature and this vehicle is exemplary of the what happens when the bean counters have any say in the design or manufacturing of an automobile.
The Cimarron is the ultimate example of GM’s plunge into the world of road apples in the 1970’s, coincidental with the rise of Smith at GM. Putting garbage like this rickshaw exemplifies why GM died. I can’t say enough bad about bean counters who tried to pass this garbage off on the motoring public. They thought they knew better but did not understand the buyer.
GM produced some very dishonest cars, and these Monza-based sporty cars are among the most dishonest. These cars are like junk mail – there’s more on the outside telling you that it is not junk, than there is on the inside. Or – a ’58 Packard.
I actually remember seeing some of these “back in the day” ( I can’t believe I’m old enough to talk that way now )
Even as a car-crazy late teen ( and a liker of GM cars ) I thought it was super hokey. Ironically, I wasn’t bothered as much by the tacky and tacked on cladding as much as by the sleekness of that fastback look was ruined by the rear quarter window’s pointy aft section was “cut off” by the louver panel. UGH.
My fav was the “Oldsmobile , cousin, ride. (Firenza)
It’s the Cadillac of H bodies!
I’m reminded of the Beavis and Butthead episode from this most recent season where Beavis will be getting into a fight after school and those two geniuses strap everything they can find in the gym to Beavis as “protective armor”.