If you asked me what General Motors heaven was, I’d probably point you to 1961-65. It was the last period that GM seemed to have everything right, while at the same time sowing the seeds of its ultimate destruction. And my favorite cars from The General during this period were the Corvair and its half siblings, the Pontiac Tempest, Oldsmobile F-85 and Buick Special. While the Chevy, Pontiac and Olds have been covered at Curbside Classic, we look today at the most pedestrian, and the most haughty of these odd ducks.
When the coupe versions of the original General Motors compacts were introduced after the sedans, they all presented nice blank canvases to attach the tinsel that would make them leaders in the sport compact race, which directly led to the Pony Car explosion. The Special, by mimicking the contoured bullet front end of the full sized 1961 Buicks, foreshadows the long hood/short deck look that would be popularized by the Mustang in a few short years.
Adding more formal blind C pillars (like a mini Thunderbird), as well as just the right amount of chrome trim in all the right places transformed the mundane Special into the reborn Skylark, ready for flight. The transformation (on looks alone) was more successful at making it distinctive than Oldsmobile’s efforts of making a Cutlass out of the F-85 or Pontiac making a Le Mans out of a Tempest. The Skylark (with plenty of help with advertising) looks every bit the part of a downsized personal luxury coupe. The elegant choice for the young lawyer or ad executive that might feel a little silly with a Corvair Monza.
After the surprise success of unloading over 12,000 of the pillared coupes in 1961 despite a mid-season introduction, Buick went whole hog and offered a genuine hardtop coupe and convertible for 1962. And in my favorite color combination of all time: Buick Canary Yellow with some type of red vinyl or leather. Nearly 43,000 of these luxuriant little Buicks found their way to driveways in 1962, now with 190hp burbling from their (misunderstood) aluminum V8s.
In 1963, the body sides became more slab sided, and the ends were brought into line to reflect the changes to the larger LeSabre/Wildcat/Electra 225. The Skylark in particular has more than a passing resemblance from the back to an Electra 225 of the same year, much in the same way the Cutlass that year could pass for a miniature Starfire.
And many car mags at the time mentioned that one didn’t give up much for taking your Buick in a smaller size. The interior detailing, ride quality and sound deadening was good enough to give quite a close approximation of that traditional Buick feel (for better or worse, depending on what you think of what traditional Buick feel means).
It’s hard to believe, but there was once upon a time when General Motors actually knew how to do a small car right. But the market didn’t flock to them in droves. Sure you could characterize the aluminum V8 as troublesome. I put the blame more often at the hands of customers not used to new technology, just as a Corvair could get someone into trouble because they weren’t familiar with the handling characteristics.
Although I can understand from a price point why they might have been hard sell. With a decent set of options, they bounded into that “Well, I could get a pretty decent Impala or Catalina for this money” zone. It might have been a little harder to sell that concept of “bite sized luxury” to a wider audience when one could get a roomier, well optioned Fairlane 500 Sport Coupe with a pretty decent 289 V8 for hundreds less.
Offering answers to questions the market didn’t ask was a foible General Motors would foist upon itself repeatedly. And time and time again when it seems they get the formula just right, they’d go off and kill it and start all over again, more often than not with something that satisfied the accountants.
The solution for Buick (and Olds and Pontiac) was the bone conventional 1964 A bodies. Although the Skylark was able to keep a great deal of its suave elegance for the first two years, by 1966 it had also morphed to include a fender skirted four door hardtop.
And that brings up another odd parallel to the Thunderbird’s trajectory in the 1960s: although the Skylark pulled an “Impala”, and moved down from strictly coupes and convertibles to workaday sedans, the be-skirted Skylark four-door hardtop was one of the most Brougham of all Mid Sized cars of the 1960s. In size, there wasn’t much that separated the Skylark Hardtop Sedan from the Thunderbird four-door Landau. Both cars ditched all pretenses of sportiness and deferred that responsibility to other cars in their respective families (Thunderbird to Mustang, Skylark to the GS and its eventual Stage Packages, and to a lesser extent, the Riviera).
It’s more understandable why Ford took the Thunderbird this route. It was never really a “sporty” car; more a boulevardier with sporting pretensions. And a Thunderbird probably never drove sporty until the Turbo Coupes of the 1980s. But it’s more than a little bit sad to think how GM walked away from the market that is now dominated by German and Japanese near-luxury compacts after (kind of) creating the field and not realizing it in the early 1960s.
Then again, this particular market didn’t really exist yet. The BMW 2002 was still 5 years away from making headway on these shores. The Corvair opened the door, and each of the half sister half heartedly walked through the door, trying on Turbos (Jetfire), downsized big motors (the 326 in the Tempest Le Mans), as well as the details of each brand that (presumably) made them worth the extra cash over the competition.
Then they just threw in the towel, and took the easy way out. Bigger bodies supported by frames and larger profit margins became the name of the game. You can probably sense my palpable sadness that the B-O-P luxury compacts (along with the Corvair) didn’t become permanent compliments to GM’s ever growing standard sized cars. I love this whole family of oddballs, and wish I could have an example of each. I wish everyone could drive one that fits their particular driving tastes (from soft cushy interstate cruiser to fire breathing turbo), to see how they were almost the perfect American Car.
I’ll take mine in my favorite shade of Canary Yellow with the Red Vinyl, please. You say you have a Skylark in that exact combo?
Paul, is this a repost? I would love to see new posts & photograph from Laurence.
Yes. We are now often reposting old ones “as new” because it allows them to be seen on Google Discover, which boosts their readership substantially.
We are looking at an era I associate with my grandparents in my nascent life. My mom’s father the physician had bookends to the subject car: a ’62 F-85 (red on black) coupe which I distinctly remember had static discharge straps dragging on the ground (under the oil pan and the passenger door rocker panel), and cursed with the aluminum block engine (I remember it, hood up, in a mechanic’s bay at Royal Olds near downtown Decatur). It did not last long and the next car was a ’64 Cutlass (light blue on light blue), with a center console (I thought the automatic gearshifter was a neat feature on the console rather than seeing it on the steering column or like my dad’s MGA manual on the floor). I liked the look of that car more than the later ’68 Cutlass (as bone stock as they come, with A/C) that turned out to be his last car. The early ’60s design of longer lower wider was a huge departure from the bulbous ’50s but was in decline with the Forward Look Mopars starting in 1957. Because the designed changed enough each year everyone could identify any of these American cars by year, unlike today which nowadays noticeable changes occur with a generation shift in design. These were among the most attractive cars. This also is peak Laurence.
While the ’63 4 door X-bodies may look similar size to a ’63 T-Bird… the scales and MPG Meter beg to differ…2700 lbs. vs 4200 lbs… 25 MPG vs 12 MPG…
I daily drove a ’62 Jetfire back in the day… red w/ white top and two tone red interior… they really move with the boost restrictions removed… 300+ HP:
My mom wanted the baby blue 62 Skylark convertible from the New Car Show.
Image caused my Dad to say no. A fan of Vance Packard with good taste. Not just no. Hell No. We were not to be average.
Her sister gave their common brother $3200 and told him to find her a car.
An F-85 (Cutlass?) red, white bucket seats, white top.
Sharp.
With the 215 it ran good in my cousin’s hands.
A neighbor had a sharp ’62 Skylark convertible, metallic burgundy, black top and interior as I recall, 4 bbl. 215 V8, 4 speed manual, posi… it was spirited…
Two things that V8 did really well: Get rid of the sewing machine sounds of the Pontiac slant 4 banger and cure the V6 sensations which ran like a V8 with 2 bad spark plugs in those days.
I’m not much into blue, but I could live with the metallic silver blue on the Jetfire that Mike P posted below.
I agree. I love these early luxury compacts. Back in the day, my father had a 63 LeMans coupe with the 4 bbl Trophy 4 engine, bucket seats and the rare floor mounted gear selector for the 2 speed automatic…quite a nice little car. My aunt had a 62 F-85 Cutlass, also nicely equipped with the bucket seats and floor console, and the 4 bbl 215 aluminum V8. An uncle had a 63 Tempest that he drove across the country several times, and a family friend had a 61 Special coupe. The 61-63 Skylark offered Electra 225 style interior trim in a tidy size with good performance from the 4 bbl 215. I currently have a 62 Jetfire with a working 215 turbo. These cars were ahead of their time and the market didn’t fully appreciate them; with further development and refinement, they could have really grown into market leaders as the environment caught up and appreciated their uniqueness.
My 62 Jetfire…
Trying again to post pic…
Very nice, like the color. I haven’t seen one outside a car show in decades.
Beautiful Buick and pic.
She’s a beaut!
Ignore the late 1950’s, and Buicks are some of the most attractive, best styled, domestic cars of our lifetime.
They were too low, too small, and too unprofitable to be the “perfect American car”, particularly in an era of 3.2 kids. My grandma had a ’63 Special, a nice little car for her but not for the typical family,. GM had it right in ’64, those cars were abut the size of a ’55 Chevy, which imo was the right size for most people.
Never thought of it this way these were essentially in the same market space a C Class Benz is now