(car pictured is a 1981; the story is about a 1980)
(first posted 10/26/2012) My GM’s Deadly Sins Series has generated more than a bit of controversy. I called the Citation “GM’s deadliest Sin” Of the over 200 comments, maybe a few disagreed with the Deadliest-Ever judgment; and so it is. Nevertheless, it’s good that nobody ever asked me about my personal experience with an X-Body, because I drove one for two years and it really wasn’t all that bad. How ironic is that? Now, mine was a Buick Skylark, and maybe there’s some magic to that name. It also might just have been luck. Or that I’ve sold out and now get paid to write nice things about GM? Maybe my benefactors will be willing to kick in a little extra if I called this one a GM’s Greatest Hit?
The X-Cars were GM’s most important automobiles ever; they were the platform from which the company would vault into the modern era. They were the third, final and most-important step in GM’s massive downsizing program of the late ’70s (in fact, that program represented the largest investment by an industrial corporation since WWII). Despite being considerably smaller, lighter and more efficient, each newly downsized GM car was mandated to maintain or expand the interior dimensions of its predecessor.
The first step resulted in the excellent and beloved B-Bodies, in 1977. By slimming down so painlessly, these full-sizers got big American cars back on the track they rather foolishly abandoned in the late ’50s.
New A-Bodies replaced GM’s mega-midsize Colonnade cars in 1978. There was some considerable toe-stubbing with these: Unloved Aerobacks, undersized transmissions, non-opening rear windows, feeble engines…but the coupes were a hit, and when the restyled sedans appeared, they became a staple of the American automotive diet. Neither a Greatest Hit nor Deadly Sin, this A-Body was merely a snooze.
Step Three was the X-Cars. Here were GM’s first modern front-wheel drive cars, internationally sized and configured, which were to be the giant leap forward into a future that would usher in an endless stream of GM front-drivers. The rather bold, modern and cleanly styled Citation hatchback (as well as the fairly rare Citation notchback coupe), looked quite unlike the rest of the Chevrolet family.
In contrast, the Skylark broke no new stylistic ground. Essentially, it was a compressed version of Buick’s bigger, rear-wheel drive sedans. Overall, it really didn’t work out so well, but all the traditional Buick stylistic cues (except portholes) were present and accounted for. And, of course, there was its size. In a rather remarkable feat of downsizing, the new Skylark was 19″ shorter and almost 800 lbs lighter than its predecessor (below), but had bigger interior dimensions in virtually every category. Of course, the RWD NOVA X-Bodies were hardly paragons of space (and weight) efficiency.
The Skylark not only looked quite unlike the ill-fated Citation, its sales trajectory was decidedly different. as well. The Citation had an explosive first (extended-length) year, but sales quickly wilted in the face of numerous glitches, recalls, cheap materials and a quickly-spreading word-of-mouth reputation. All in all, it was nowhere near ready for prime time.
The Skylark was the second-best selling of the X-factors, with the Pontiac Phoenix and Olds Omega a rather distant third and fourth, respectively. But unlike the other three, all of whose post-1982 sales fell off a cliff, the Skylark hung in there reasonably well, almost tying the Citation in 1982 and beating it thereafter. But why? Maybe it’s the demographic: Let’s face it: Unlike the other X-hausters, the Skylark’s mini-Electra styling clearly targeted an older demo. So what was I doing in one?
As some of you might recall (it’s been a while since my last installment), in 1977 I found myself in LA, working in various production department capacities for KSCI, a new TV station owned and run by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s TM organization. I was driving a white Peugeot 404 sedan, and Stephanie drove a 404 wagon.
One of the station engineers was a GM true believer, and had bought various GM cars for different TM organizations as a fleet purchaser. In 1980, he ordered four almost-identical white Skylark Limited sedans–probably unlike any other Skylark Limiteds ever built–for the use of a bunch of TM twits that were “running” the station and living in a couple of expensive rental houses in Brentwood.
The option box had been duly checked for every possible heavy-duty and performance item, including the 110 hp, 2.8-liter V6, automatic, heavy-duty suspension, higher-effort power steering, wide wheels shod with plump 205 70R-13 “performance” tires, transmission cooler, HD cooling system and anything else that caught his engineer’s fancy. They were loaded; not in the usual way, but well-equipped for both drivers and passengers, with cruise control, tilt wheel, A/C and other amenities. I shudder to think of how much they must have cost–they might have been the most expensive Skylarks built that year.
The extravagance was ironic, given that the station was falling into financial distress. The TM movement’s headiest days had ended in the late ’70s, and the station really couldn’t afford to broadcast Maharishi’s lectures and the daily “good news” anymore. The station had been cut off financially and told to swim or sink: It was sinking fast.
I had an idea, one that sparked a palace coup. The outcome was that one day in the spring of 1981, I found myself the General Manager of KSCI, and I had my choice of the Skylark harem. I tried them all out, and one clearly ran lustier than the others, so that became “mine”. Hey; it’s a free car! And with air conditioning, no less. I duly sold the 404 to the GF of a coworker, and aged 28, became a Buick driver. Not exactly the typical demographic.
Mine had a blue interior like this one, but seeing it was a Limited, it had a much plusher one, with “loose pillow” upholstery and such.
Like this, actually. Its superficial similarities to the Citation were not nearly as obvious, but underneath that tufted upholstery hid a Citation seat, including a wicked steel bar that crossed the seatback near the lumbar region. I never took the Skylark on any really long trips, but it made itself noticeable all-too soon. The Skylark was about as different as a car could be from the Peugeot, the seats being perhaps the most extreme example.
This example has the Iron Duke 2.5, not a 5 liter. Bad choice; its agricultural ways were all wrong for what should have been a world-class new car. It was just one of the many shortcuts that cut away at GM’s market share in the eighties. Anyone who had ever driven (or just heard) a Honda Accord’s sewing-machine four could only chuckle (or cry) when first encountering an Iron Duke.
I drove the roarty but smooth-enough V6 Skylark hard, and never failed to be impressed by its torque-steer on my daily full-throttle run on the Santa Monica freeway on-ramp after the staging lights turned green. Actually, it was more than that; call it “front sub-frame steer”. In an effort to give the X-Bodies that traditional quiet GM big-car ride, the front subframe was mounted to the body with a number of very elastic mounts, might have been Silly Putty. The whole front end shifted to one side, but it picked up its skirts and hustled right along, given that we’re talking about 1981. The V6 X-Bodies were brisk for the time.
And with its quick steering and HD suspension, the little Limited surprised a few folks I engaged with to make the miles go faster and the smiles come faster. It was essentially a Citation X-11 in Buick drag; only the fat tires gave it away. Never seen one equipped that way again.
And oddly, our Skylark fleet didn’t have the common malady of abruptly-locking rear brakes, which was dangerous, and threw quite a few X-Bodies into the ditch, if not the rear end of the car in front of it. Did it have HD brakes? Was it the big tires? Or?
For that matter, I don’t remember the Skylarks suffering from any particular typical Fragile-X Syndrome issues. Now, I didn’t have to deal with any service or maintenance costs, and I’m not really sure of how trouble-free the whole fleet was, but for the two years I had mine, I have no lasting memory of any memorable problems or issues. Not paying for anything may have colored my memory, but you know if it had been a POS, I wouldn’t have waited all these years to write it up, eh? It struck me as a typical new American car at the time: not exactly lovingly put-together, but seemingly reliable enough. Have I lost credibility in my GM-railing ways?
The Skylark really was impressively roomy for its stubby length, and anyone that’s ever sat in an A-Body from 1982 to its long-overdue end all-too recently will confirm that they’re adequately roomy. Yup, the A-Body is nothing but an X-body with more glass, longer front and rear end, and European-influenced styling. If you can’t fight ’em, join them. I mean, try to look like them. It sure lost that stubby look pretty effectively. And as we all know, these cars eventually ended up being indestructible; it just a decade or two to get there, in typical GM fashion. Who’s in a hurry?; “bankruptcy is not an option”.
Although I had some fun in the Skylark, it being my first somewhat “fast” car, I never developed the slightest bit of genuine warmth for it. I fundamentally hated its mini-Electra styling, and its faux-plush interior was only skin-deep. By 1983, the station was making lots of money to fill Maharishi’s coffers, so one morning on the way to work, I decided I needed and deserved a change. I was done with the dorky Skylark, and when I pulled into the office parking lot about an hour later, I was behind the wheel of a new 1983 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe, one of the first in West LA.
Now you all be nice in the comments; I don’t want that check from GM to bounce.
I liked the look of the Skylark. At first glance you could tell it was a Buick. In fact I thought all the X-cars were nice looking. It’s too bad they developed such a bad reputation. It would have been nice if GM had made the same effort to differentiate the J-cars for each division as it did with the X-cars.
To this day I can still remember the advertising jingle Chevrolet used when introducing the Citation.
I grew up in a Ford family (my father worked there) but liked a lot of what GM was bringing to market – starting with the ’78 Cutlass Supreme coupe with that upright rear window. I know history would eventually decide otherwise but they always “appeared” to be more polished than anything from Ford or Chrysler.
I always noticed that each one was styled like a baby version of that division intermediate car, baby Regal, Cutlass, LeMans/Grand Prix and Malibu.
Buick took the greatest interest in the luxury interior of the Skylark, silver gauges with pillow top seats and red & white door courtesy lamps like an honest to God Jr. Electra.
I remember the jingle too. “It’s the first Chevy of the 80’s…”
I’ll go you all one better – I remember not only the ’80 Citation jingle but also the “New Chevrolet” ’77 B body jingle!
I miss jingles…..
Since we’re on the 70’s Chevy jingle kick… I still remember, the Monza Spyder jingle from back in the day…
“It’s a MONZA, by Chevrolet… It’s a MONZA, by Chevrolet…” 😛
So is it safe to think the Skylark is like an aunt who is annoying as hell but you just can’t help but like?
At least it didn’t have the stupid “sideways” radio that the Citation did.
I thought that the vertical radios were kind of cool, reminds me a bit of the 1949/50 Chevrolet radios.
A college buddy had one (in the mid 1990s) the transmission went out on his, he still remains the only person I know who had trouble with a Hydramatic 125.
That was a very good transmission from my experience.. I hardly ever encounter a bad one & I don’t exactly deal in “nice cars”.
the 125 was pretty stout.
I tried to kill it in my 86 Pontiac 6000-STE so I’d have a good reason to swap in an a 440-T4 to gain overdrive, as the 2.8 six was buzzing along at a good 3500 rpm at 70mph. Top speed was red-line limited to 125mph. I imagine it’d be good for at least 10mph more on the big end as the the six was still pulling.
It even survived a mis-shift once, getting onto I-20, foot nailed to the floor forced a 3-1 downshift and while I was paying attention to the two 18 wheelers behind me, it forgot to upshift at 55mph into second gear, only when I noticed that it was a bit sluggish on gaining speed, did I look at the bar-graph tach and noticed that it had gone all the way across to 7,000 rpm and I was doing nearly 70 in first gear. I let off, and wondered if the 6,000 shift point was a hard limit, it is. as soon as engine speed dropped below 6k, it slammed into 3rd, shook the whole car.
the 20,000 mile rebuilt 2.8 was happy as a clam, and the TH125 never misstepped after that.
That was probably the torque converter lockout switch that caused the trans to feel like a manual left in a higher gear when it came to a stop. Common problem. It happened in my 84 Citation and 86 Olds Calais. Easily disconnected. I stupidly replaced a transmission because of it when it could have simply been repaired or “hacked”.
I used a 1980 Buick Skylark 2.8 Limited as a daily driver from 2009-2011. I drove about 250 miles each week with it. It never failed me, anything never went wrong with the car. It was dead reliable, and had over 200.000 miles on the odometer. I was very suprised with the car, it was very quiet, comfortable and reliable. It didn’t use a lot of gas either. It used about 1 litre each 10 km.
I remember when it was under 30 degrees celsius in the winter here in Norway. A lot of new cars like Audi A6, VW Passat, Merecedes E 220 cdi, and a lot of Volvo V70s with D5 engine did not start, my old Skylark fired right up. These new European cars was diesel motor. But all of them, especially the Volvos was not reliable. It seems like its always something wrong with the european cars when they get older than 5 years.
my first car was the 80 Skylark, identical to the one in the brochure, the Gold one. I loved that car. I got it from my Dad in 1984, after he got sideswiped on the drivers side. The insurance wrote it off for cash and he took the money and bought a new car and left me to repair the skylark. That was cool, and after a couple of spare doors and a new fender it was “almost” like new. It was the 4-door limited edition, 2.8L v-6. If I could find one again, I’d buy it! If anyone finds one, let me know please.
It seems like, around my area, the Buick Skylarks have the highest survival rate out of all the X-cars.
Still see plenty of pristine examples being used as daily transportation.
This a 1981 model. The grill pattern is different from the ’80’s egg-crate and ’80s had amber rear turn signals.
Having said that, I had one of these. Bought as a 2 year old used car with 13,000 miles in early 1983 and excruciatingly endured for 5 years until circumstances (read money) enabled me to trade it in a lightly used Jetta in 1988.
Looking back, the low miles should have been a tip-off. The POS likely never ran long enough for the original owner to rack up any distance.
The Iron Duke rattled like marbles in dishwasher, and numerous things failed early. (lifters, trans, heater core).
I had an extended warranty from a shady outfit called International Warranty that refused to give me a new engine when piston slap was diagnosed, paying only for replacing, piecemeal, 3 out of the 4 over a 1 year period!
These X-cars, along with the anchor division poster child Citation, were the turning point for GM. This platform marked the descent of a once great company into the mediocrity it is today.
I can barely look at this without reaching for the bottle, the worst car of my life that I had to put up with in the worst time of my life.
I did point out that it was a 1981 at the very top. Couldn’t find a 1980.
Remember the ES2800 ? I wonder if it was a better driving experience.
GM today is hardly a mediocrity. Buick, the subject at hand, makes a line of Opels with Buick front ends or just grille stuck in the Opel opening. The only ones that aren’t Opels are the big SUV and sedan, and they aren’t bad and are about to be replaced.
My mom had an 82 2.5L Limited from 84 to 89 and the only thing that really went wrong was the torque converter on the trans constantly acted up and stalled the car.
Even though our mechanic said the mileage would drop once we disconnected it, the car ran fine and mileage really didnt suffer.
Even in1989, the body was rust free and paint was still shiny [a sort of minty aqua blue green hue]. And it still ran well.
The only reason she got rid of it is that she was t-boned by a Dodge Van and the poor Skylark was bent like a V.
She replaced it with an very low mileage 87 Celebrity which also ran very well but had a paint job that after 2 years looked like the car was peppered with rock salt!
My Dad had a green ’80 Skylark company car with the 2.8. He never had trouble with it, though it was gone in barely two years when he struck out on his own. The only memorable moment I had with that car was when it was new, and he was showing it to an uncle who always bought GM, nothing but big barges up until that point.
As they walked around it, 7-year-old me followed. I pointed out that there was a 2.5 Litre badge on one side, while the other said 2.8! The emperor’s new clothes, I guess, my Dad hadn’t noticed.
This reminds me of the very first 1974 Chevelle our local dealer got in stock. It was late August and I was doing my usual car crazed kid thing…riding my bike to the local car dealers to try to get a glimpse of next years models. There sat a brand new 74 Malibu Classic Landau Coupe, that pewter-silver color that seemed to be on a lot of 74 GM cars. It had a red interior and red Landau roof. I really liked the front end better than the outgoing 73, and the opera windows were so much micer than those triangular monstrosities. The rear was not as nice as the 73, but not terrible. As I looked at this car and made a mental note of all the changes from 73, I noticed that there up on the front fender, above the body side molding, on both sides, resided an El Camino nameplate. The front and rear nameplates said Chevelle by Chevrolet, and the steering wheel said Malibu Classic. I was completely puzzled.
It’s really amazing what came out of the assembly plants back around ’80. Wrong badges, different pinstripes from one side to the other on a car I had (though that was a dealer flub), supposedly-impossible option combinations….. I remember once in Car and Driver when they got a car with mismatched bucket seats – in a press car!
But having said that, you’d think in a luxury car like the Buick we’re looking at here, you wouldn’t get this kind of assembly gaffe. Or am I expecting too much? 🙂
The 2 in the 2.5 liter badge is worn off
Rented one with red loose pillow seats on a trip from Mass. to Montreal and back to see the F1 race. The previous year my POS Saab on the same trip leaked most of the oil out near Montpelier and I needed 3 quarts added. I didn’t trust that car anymore and the rental was also an audition. While a fairly decent highway car, the car interior was cheesy. I ended up buying a Honda Accord 4 door with a stick.
The X-Cars were the last nail in the coffin for me, which finalized my GM hate until 2004.
The 1973 Colonnades with their fixed rear glass and the impending death of the pillarless hardtop was the first and second nail in GM’s coffin for me, followed by my less-than-stellar ownership experience with my 1976 Chevy truck was the third, although I admit that was my own fault.
Man, I hated these things.
Need to get off this website and article for a while, as my glasses are steaming up and it’s getting warm in here…
Don’t go to TTAC then, the story about “Product Specialists” might make you sweat… 😛
It did…but in a good way!
The lack of roll down rear windows on the “Colonnade Coupes” was never an issue for us here in New Orleans as we can use our car’s air conditioning just about year ’round.
The 1976-77 Cutlass & Regals are still a personal favorite. Each division’s 350 4BBl engine was a treat to drive.
I never had firsthand experience with one of the Buicks, but I used to see a lot of older nice ones plainly owned by older folks who kept them for a long time. They all seemed to be in that metallic brown. I suspect that Buick had one of the most brand-loyal ownership demographics around at that time.
I test drove an 80 Omega when my mother was on the verge of buying her Horizon. It surprised me that she was not interested enough to go with me, and when I reported back with the sticker price, she crossed it off the list. I can’t say that I retained any strong feelings about it, one way or another, except that as a Mopar fanboy at the time, I was rooting for the Horizon.
A law school roomie had the nicest car of the 4 guys in our apartment – an 83 Phoenix that his dad sent him to school with. I do not recall any real problems that they had with it, and it struck me as a decent car, if that was the kind of car you liked.
While the Citations here generally died early these Buicks seem to last forever. There are still a decent number kicking around. Not sure if they are fundamentally better than a Citation in some way or just better cared for due to the … errr … demographic of the owners.
Same here. Perhaps they’re built out of Buicktanium.
Funny that the feature car’s wheel covers look like steel wheels with hubcaps. They looked a lot better with the mini Buick road wheels–or were those wheel covers too?
FWIW, I rather liked those wheelcovers, compared to many around at the time. Pretty unobtrusive. And mine had blackwalls too, thankfully.
I’m not sure those “road wheels” were available in 1980.
Actually, I like the standard Skylark wheel covers too. It’s just that the classic Buick road wheels are so timeless. They should bring them back on the current Buicks!
Yep the road wheels were available in 80. Plenty of mention about the X-11 but nothing of the Skylark Sport Coupe or Sport Sedan? It was basically your typical 80’s decal package. No extra chrome body side moldings, black window reveal moldings and a tiny decal by the quarter panel side marker lamp that said Sport Coupe/Sedan. Along with a snazzy body stripe and unique front grille panel. Here’s a pic with it’s optional polycast wheels but I think the road wheel was standard on this model. Oh and the suspension was the upgraded F41 with stiffer springs and a bigger front sway bar but nothing special for the brakes. In 1983 Buick changed the name to T-Type.
You know I still see a few X-Cars roaming the streets where I live. I’ve been trying to pin down a certain Omega I’ve seen terrorizing my local shopping mall with what looks like to be a very young boy behind the wheel for a CC Cohort. The Omega is what I think is the rarist of all the X-Cars. And there seems to be an influx of them showing up in the boneyards I frequent. So you know right away I think it’s status as a DS should be downgraded further on down the list. Here’s why I say that. OK the experts say your average car today is 13 years old. That means if they sell for example 14M cars this year and they sold 14M cars 13 years ago there should be at least 7M cars that are at least 26 years or older still out on the road. Yes I know my math is fuzzy and illogical. But for every year old car I see in the boneyard that should mean that another car made it to it’s 13th birthday. Just keep playing with the percentages as the car gets older and you’ll see why something that was popular, as in sold a lot of them, starts arriving as frequently as it does. Case point the Citation. If these were such a DS than why do we keep seeing them out driving around? Oh and the number one used part that I can’t seem to keep up with the demand, on my internet used parts store are the urethane bumper fillers for a Citation. Seems there is a large group of people responsable for keeping them on the road anyway.
Another pic
I’ll tell you though, an X-car has become a pretty rare sight down here in FLA. The was an old lady owned black 80-81 Phoenix coupe I used to see every once in a while that I have sadly not seen in a few years, it even had the little snowflake wheels like a TransAm. That would have been one to snag, but its vanished, haven’t seen it at the u-pick yards so, whos knows it may still exist.
There’s also been a clean 83 or so Citation hatch that shown up on Craigslist a few times, along with a later Omega coupe that someone was selling as another “grandma” car, they wanted a bit too much.
There’s a mint 84/85 Olds Omega, a few miles from my area.
I think the Pontiac Phoenixes, are the rarest of the X cars… Most of them were extinct around New England by the early 90’s.
Always liked the SJ coupes.
Phoenix coupe? Now that’s a car whose existence had totally departed from my brain. I’m sure I saw them years and years ago but when I see that photo it’s as if I’m looking at a strange new model….
Those are real wheels.
My father ordered a 83 Skylark Limited Coupe, 2.8L H.O. (135 hp) V6, Gran Touring suspension, Chrome Road Wheels, A/C, HD cooling, HD Alternator, Gauge package and 205/70/13 white striped “high performance” tires and the uplevel stereo, sand gray on gray with a maroon landau top I still have all the paperwork, it cost over $13000.00 in 83!
It had a really mean (and loud) factory dual tipped muffler and everyone always wanted to know what he did to it…
It was his X-11 in sheeps clothing.
Not sure why he didn’t buy a 6000 STE at the time because they ended up being very close in price…I guess he didn’t want a 4 door yet.
Wow, that car is definitely an oddball — I’d love to have it. Not too many have the HO version of the carbureted 2.8.
I’ve owned some oddly optioned X-bodies over the years. One was an ’81 Omega Brougham (2.8) fully loaded with power options, gauge package (no tach) but it had the 4-speed manual. I never did get it running.
Another was an ’80 or ’81 Citation 2-door hatchback with 2.5 engine, 4-speed manual, tilt, sunroof, delay wipers, gage package with tach, etc.
Hopefully nobody has hauled this X-11 off — it was a $50 special courtesy of the City of Birmingham.. I never got it running either.
X-car #4 is a POS beige ’82 Citation 4-door 2.5 I got off Craigslist for $250. It was running supposedly but I had nothing but trouble with it. When I finally did get it running the front main seal blew out (?) which necessitated removing the timing cover, etc. I saw chunks of stuff in the oil so I pulled the engine & found a piston skirt in the sludgy oil pan. Funny because the engine didn’t make much noise despite the fact that it lost 1/4 of a piston.
I took the 2.5 out of a semi-crispy Fiero (the engine was originally in a Celebrity!) & finally got the car running. Of course the alternator belt would not stop squealing/burning/breaking probably due to a pulley misalignment. After sittting a few months the electric fuel pump went out & now the decision is….do I pull the engine before I scrap it or……
That’s one hell of an expensive Skylark. The sticker on my parents ’83 Delta 88 Royale Brougham was $13,257.
$13,000 in 1983 equals $31,057.08 in 2015.
I owned a 1980 Skylark-2dr sport coupe-2.5 4 cyl engine, manual trans and a few other accessories-a fairly basic car. It turned out to be a real P.O.S. even worse than the Vega I owned and that’s saying something. When I picked it up at the dealer, the torque steer was so pronounced I thought the wheel alignment was off-it did run relatively well until the warranty expired then the troubles began. The Skylark was the only car I owned that had the bolts attaching the starter to the block break four(4) times, twice I had to have it towed to the dealer for repair work. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say it spent more time in the shop than on the road. In 1984 I got rid of it and have never owned another GM car. General Motor’s death spiral really began with the X-cars and accelerated from there.
Ha, on mine the bolts holding the alternator backed themselves out, causing the alternator to literally fall off, leaving me stranded with a dead battery.
I see you also had the 2.5, my theory is that these effing paint shakers literally shook themselves apart.
My Iron Duke (1982 Celebrity) had to be rebuilt at 100,000 miles because of bad compression. Dealership told my dad that the cylinders were no longer round but “egg shaped”!
refer my earlier post on my piston problems-
That is funny! My brother had the exact Buick that you are speaking of, blue in color. That car was ABSOLUTELY bulletproof and ran 300,000+ miles. He traded it for a 250 six cylinder engine for his ’66 Chevy van when the clutch went out. That Iron Duke was an anomaly, in that it felt way more powerful than its rated 90ish hp! I remember it spanking a 85 0r so Fiero handily. The guy thought he was lying about that engine until he raised the hood. What a great car!
I had an 80 Citation. My first car. I had it for 4 years, put 60K miles on it. Never failed me. It was a 173 with a stick. Fast enough for it’s time. Engine was fairly torquey. Unlike most other emissions strangled cars of its time, it actually revved . It did have an awful gearbox, better to call it a gear-bag and the stick had a bizarre bend in it. It wasn’t horizontal. The vertical space saving radio was a retarded idea. But the car did make it to 150K miles before rust and maintenance work made it cheaper to move on to another beater. Also never had a brake lockup issue with it. Good memories of it, warts and all.
Edit.
My experience with X-Cars does not mean it was not a deadly sin. I had a good experience with an (singular) X-Car. As they say your mileage may vary.
There is a complete, unmolested 1980 Skylark 4dr here at my local Pick-N-Pull; I was shocked to see how complete it is, then I realized who needs parts if there are none still on the road? From ’89-94 I had a second job as a mechanic at a friend’s used car lot, just as most of these were hitting the used car circuit… the nightmares still haunt me to this day
Where is this salvage yard located? I cannot find these cars in salvage yards anymore and I still have one of these.
I had a loaded V-6 1985 Skylark as a rental during a two wee trip around the eastern part of Canada. By this time, most of the obvious bugs were worked out of the car. My daily driver back in Victoria was my 1978 LeSabre and it was obvious that GM was using this a model for the Skylark. The interior was quite nice for the time as it was the top model. I recall the seating position was quite good as the driver sat high. The ride was soft and the handling not half bad. I do remember thinking it was a little hard on gas. There were no rattles or squeaks and the whole thing seemed quite tight. Typical for GM, make the car better after its reputation has been tarnished.
Of course we saw plenty of X Bodies in our shop. The early ones were disasters but by 1985, they had most of the problems worked out. The Iron Duke was a nightmare to work on (which it frequently needed) but the V-6 was good.
Problem was these cars, even the later ones, couldn’t hold a candle to the stuff coming from Honda and Toyota, which was selling (in Canuckisan, anyway) for similar money. A loaded 1985 Skylark was pusing CP (Canukistani Pesos) 17,0000 at the time and this was Accord money. One could buy a Camry or Accord and be reasonably assured it would last ten years. The same could not be said for an X Car.
I think I drove one of these in drivers’ ed in 1985. That and the J-body Skyhawk. I don’t recall much about it but these cars were part of the landscape for a long, long time.
Also part of the landscape: The RWD Century in the 4th photo down is essentially my mother-in-law’s car; she had an ’81 Century (in “turd brown” as my wife put it), the last car my father-in-law bought before he died, as her daily driver for 20+ years. Then she got an Olds Achieva. Now THAT was a Deadly Sin. And the A-body FWD Century was my grandma’s car, which she also kept for 10-12 years, IIRC. A good car, possibly the perfect grandma car.
My dad bought a new 84 2-door Phoenix, which turned out to be a really excellent car. No issues what so ever other than it being a 2 door and my mom hated the big doors.. To this day I still think it has one of the best dashboard designs.
His customers at his Restaurant warned him not to buy an X-car but he never believed fully what everybody says, He’d make 4 trips to Montreal, 500 miles away and that little Iron Duke never missed a beat. Excellent engine and gas milage too, to bad the same engine in his 88 6000 wasn’t as quite. But that car ran for 11 years with no real issues.
By ’84 they had the TBI instead of that abomination of a Rube Goldberg carb.
Admittedly helped a lot, which is good because the Duke needed all the help it could get.
I remember it as resembling a Quadrajet sawn in half lengthwise, so it had one primary and a bigger progressive secondary. It always jerked and surged for a second when it started to open.
Never did better than 26 MPG highway, plus not so great memories of no-starts, remedied only by opening the hood, taking off the air cleaner lid and jamming a pair of pliers down the throat to get it breathing. Always seemed to happene in more “demure” areas of town, too, like right downtown or in front of the homes of friends. Yeah, your cool!
My mom borrowed it occasionally and it left her stranded a couple of times too!
I was surprised the Phoenix didn’t sell better than it did. I agree with you in that the Phoenix had a very attractive dash layout. Few had the optional tach but many did have the gauge package — nicely laid out — each gauge had its own “pod”.
Here is a photo of the Pontiac Phoenix dashboard. I agree; I had a 1981 model hatch, and I found the dashboard design easy to read at a glance.
When I was trying to decide between a Skylark and a Phoenix in late 1979, that dash tipped me over. My car’s interior was in exactly the same color as your image, Marky Mark. Only diff was I waited half a year for the hated 4-speed to be built 3 miles across the Hudson River in Tarrytown, a plant that was closed and dozed over years ago.
I don’t remember what the problem was, but I removed that center panel a number of times. The joke was that it was festooned with torx fasteners in little black holes, so I had to buy a new driver. I believe investing the dash with them was a fashion decision: In 1980 they looked racier than philips heads or hex, and were the latest rage. Only about half of the screws were real, however, the others moulded into the facia, and you would forget which was which until the next time you wanted to take it all apart.
I loved that dash too (even though the dash/console wasn’t nearly as well done as on the Grand Prix it was trying to imitate). Looked like it was nicked from an airplane cockpit. Many people I drove in our ’82 Phoenix commented on how cool the dash looked.
That pic is an ’80 model; each year had a slightly revised dash:
1980 – as shown. Note column-mounted shifter even with buckets and console
1981 – Top center section where the little round gauges and vents are now black instead of silver. Automatic shifter now on floor on console-equipped cars.
1982 – Dash and console woodgrained wherever possible. New steering wheels, one with more woodgrain on it.
1983 – This year marked the de-Broughamification of several Pontiacs including the Phoenix, so chrome and woodgrain were banished from the interior. New grey fascia without the fake Torx screws. New gauge graphics.
1984 – New 4-spoke steering wheels. Orange dash lighting replaces pale green.
Stuff you notice only if you own one! Here’s the ’82 interior with upgrade option, the best-looking year IMO.
Most of the 1978-86 Pontiacs had the “podded gauge” layout… They were on the Phoenix, Le Mans, Grand Prix and G-body Bonneville.
They had the vents you could turn clockwise, while some were just dummy vents… Depending on the options you bought.
I loved the dash layout in my 79 Pontiac Grand Le Mans coupe.
Also on the Grand Am (of course since it was another A body variant like the GP/LeMans). My ’82 J2000 LE used the same basic dash as the Cavalier and Cimarron so they couldn’t do the podded gauges, but at least each of the three vertically rectangular vents that were outside the main instrument panel were replaced with two stacked square vents so there were six altogether, and all the small square vents evoked the cluster of small round vents on other Pontiacs. That was as close as they could get to a Pontiac look without making major changes to the shared dash.
My dad and I went new-car shopping in the early 1980s and we spent a lot of time looking at the Skylark – even to the point of renting one for a trip from eastern WA to Portland (something was amiss on the rental car engine, as a lot of oil came out of the crankcase breather tube and completely soaked the air filter element). My dad really didn’t like FWD and how it hydroplaned badly, but the ride was nice and the interior plush.
I really liked the design of these cars, especially since blue is my favorite color and that dark blue interior was very common on the Buicks of that era.
Having gone to school in Flint, MI which is (was) the home of Buick, I will say that their quality standards were a bit higher than some other plants/brands (a lot of quality problems stemmed from poor labor/mgmt relations such as at the Lordstown, OH plant).
I had a new ’81 Citation with a/c which I bought in upstate NY. A/C was rare up there, but I needed it for rather frequent trips to D.C. The engine was a real dog, constant carb problems, stalling , etc. probably due to the primitive emissions system. Rest of car was OK, roomy, economical, etc. With the a/c running, could barely move…..should have gotten the 2.8 V6, I guess!
My only experience with an X was a friend’s Olds Omega I drove quite a bit. Seemed OK at the time (1984) good size, large interior, not bad looking IMHO……horrible torque steer, but I had a 5.0 HO Capri at the time….so with FWD I expected it.
Paul, I can verify your Skylark story 100%.
A friend’s father had one (I was around 17) he had ordered it himself as a company car for his business. Dark blue with pillow interior, V6, heavy duty suspension and wide tires.
Boy did that thing ever hustle, compared to my Dad’s Impala. It hunkered down, torque steered like mad and rocketed around corners. Many stoplight drivers were surprised by that speedy little box on wheels.
Also, my friend discovered that the Skylark could do impressive burnouts by neutral dropping the transmission. I can’t believe that he never broke it with the abuse heaped on that car. Three years later it got traded in, still running fine.
In all fairness mine didn’t handle that badly for what it was , I felt.
According to invoice that was still in the glove box. mine had
an option called a “Firm Ride and Handling Package”, but it cost something
ridiculously cheap, like 20 something bucks. So it couldn’t have been as all out as Paul’s.
Could have been just stiffer shocks, I suppose
The Skylark and Omega were certainly more attractive than the Citation and Phoenix, even if the notchback design was uninspired. I don’t know why for the life of me, why GM couldn’t make a decent fastback/hatchback style, when the perfect example of one, the VW Dasher and its sportier sister car, the Scirocco, was right in front of their eyes. Now THAT was a good-looking car, not in spite of being a fastback or because of it. VW simply wanted to create an attractive car.
The Phoenix also came as a notchback coupe, as well as a hatchback… So did the Citation, although the Phoenix coupe was more formal, than the “Mini-Malibu” coupe like Citation notchback.
“…and aged 28, became a Buick driver. Not exactly the typical demographic.”
Buick was not always “eldery drivers car”. The 70’s/80’s Regal coupes sold to 30ish Boomers. Also, the 1964-72 Skylark and GS had a youthful image. And who can forget the Turbo V6 Regal and GN?
It was after the GM was dropped the Grand National in 1987 that Buick shifted to “traditional” drivers, and got the “old” image that persists today and still joked about.
Maybe I should have said “in West LA/Santa Monica at the time”.
Yes, if one “worked the option sheet” correctly on any GM car in the 1970’s thru 1990’s; a very good car could be “created”.
Unfortunately, few dealers did this for their in stock cars.
If you tried to “special order” a car the result was a long wait and a smaller sticker discount.
Today Buick is still a last car maker. The Enclave currently has the lowest average age buyer of any Buick at 59 years old. I recall reading that the Chevy Cruze buyer has an average age of 53, which is very high for a compact. Maybe this is one of the reasons GM is achieving 18% market share and still falling.
A friend of mine in high school replaced his awful Chevette with a Skylark-X. It was immaculate and had a dark brown leather interior, which was its primary appeal to its owner. I don’t recall if it broke or not, but I do recall that my friend put a great deal of effort into maintaining the leather interior’s showroom fresh appearance. He claimed the girls appreciated it. Could be. I still remember a girl telling me she was aroused by the crushed velvet of the premium seats in my Horizon.
Three or four years ago, I had an elderly landlady with a 1996 Skylark. It looked much sillier than the 1981 Skylark, with pointy ends and oddly curved side panels. Sadly, it was as bad as any GM car ever aspired to be. She wore out her welcome with AAA. They canceled her after she’d been stranded a few too many times. I rescued her a number of times too, and could usually get the car started after it had sat for a few hours. When she drove her friends to bridge tournaments, she had to warn them not to roll down their windows, as the power windows only went down without the help of a mechanic. When CARB smog check time rolled around, she had to spend over a thousand dollars to get it to pass. The check engine light soon returned. The next time she needed it to pass smog, the Buick dealer told her they would replace the dashboard for $2,000 and then it might pass smog. She traded it on a Kia. The dealer gave her $500 trade credit for it sight-unseen. I offered to drop off the Buick at the dealer for her. As I accelerated onto the freeway, the heater core blew. By the time I got to the dealer’s exit, I was driving like Casey Jones, head out the window to see past the smoke. It had almost 38,000 miles, spent garaged in temperate coastal San Diego.
My father had not one, but two of these as company cars, both Iron Dukes and both before he turned 30. I think he had 4 or 5 Buicks overall before defecting to Honda/Toyota/Nissan.
After his ’81 Skylark tried to kill him a few times and started falling apart around him within a year, and then realizing that the replacement ’82 was drove like a bucket of bolts compared to my Mom’s two year old Toyota, he wrote GM off.
Dad was more or less a GM guy at the time, at least to the extent that he thought Fords, especially the Fairmont, were junky, and that Chryslers were unfit for consumption. Buicks, outside of California at least, still carried some prestige, even amongst Baby Boomers. Amazing what a difference one badly engineered, badly built product can make.
The old man’s been pretty consistently anti-GM ever since. A couple decades worth of lousy A/J/N/W rentals did a pretty good job reinforcing that bias. He occasionally forgets, though, like the time he nearly bought a new LeSabre about a decade ago. Go figure.
I had a 1984 Buick Skylark that I bought in 1995 with 14,000 miles and sold in 2000 with 88,000 mostly trouble free miles. It had the 2.8L and ran well with just basic maintenance.
It was a cheap car to buy and to own and served me well. It was not a glamorous car but it did the job.
For sure, by this point the V-6 cars were well sorted out and were fairly reliable. They made good used buys as nobody wanted to touch them with a ten foot anything.
The Iron Dreck was still awful. I wonder how GM thought the could get away with such a crappy base motor?
….and chose that same engine to power the Fiero. Bad move.
Tell me about it, but like the later V6 X cars… The Fiero was a pretty reliable car by 1987-88, when GM finally worked the bugs out.
Too bad, by 1988, the Fiero already bit the dust.
One very good thing about GMH, they never tried to sell these X cars here we got the Opel inspired Commodore and it was tough, reliable and handled and drove great.
Well I have to say that I am rather impressed at the (for the most part) positive comments on these little cars.
You see, my first car was a 1985 Skylark, the last year for the X. My parents bought it brand-new on Halloween, 1984. It was their first new car. I was intrigued by the electronic stereo in it. It had AC, tilt, power locks and those neat little flood lights on the dash. It stickered for $10.062.00 (I still have the window sticker).
It had the 2.5. which was really the worst part about it. It blew a head gasket at 14k, and after that it never really ran right.
However, it was well put together. The doors always closed with a solid thunk. Mom got rear-ended twice in it and it never hurt it.
Fast forward to 1991. I have my license and dad offered to get me a car, but I wanted mom’s old Skylark. It was long paid for and I didn’t want dad to spend money that he didn’t have to. I was thrilled with it! It was roomy, comfortable, and after a new coat of paint it still looked good. I found a Delco stereo cassette player at a junk yard and put in. I kept it spotless.
In 1993 it was beginning to give me some trouble, mainly with the front brakes, so dad made me sell it. I was heartbroken.
I found it in a junk yard in 1998. It had been trashed and banged up quite a bit. I got the radio speakers, the emblems and dad’s original set of keys out of it. Yes, I still have all that stuff. It impressed me that even as it was just weeks away from the crusher, the doors still closed with that same solid thunk that they made the day we picked it up from Serbay Buick In Ypsilanti back in 1984.
So, I miss that car. I almost forgot to mention that the car and I were “born” just a few miles apart in Ypsilanti 🙂
Lastly, in my garage right now are all four floor mats from that car, they too, still look good…
They do close pretty solidly on these, not a Mercedes “thud”, but more like a very serious “ka-whack”.
We never had one in my family, but I rode in several of these, even an Omega sedan.
For all its foibles in the ’80s, GM seemed to knock together one hell of a reliable car from time to time. The ’84 Cavalier wagon I had as my first car, growing up in California, ran like a top. Zero issues in 3+ years. Makes you wonder what the variables were.
My carpool driver’s parents had a 1981 or 1982 white on blue Skylark that she drove once in a while. I don’t remember its mechanical issues but I do remember that it had various weird gremlins in the instrument panel, for instance the radio would change stations by itself.
My favorite flavor of these are the Sport Coupes & T-types. The later ones had smoked taillights & interestingly enough, six brakelights instead of the normal four brakelights/two taillights.
The instrument clusters on these were also pretty cool. They were tachless but colorful nonetheless — the “normal” zones on some of the gauges had blue bands while the “danger” zones had red bands obviously. I’d attach a pic of one of these clusters but it’s in an unlabeled box “somewhere” in the instrument cluster department.
When the X-cars just came out (fall of 1979), we were car-shopping and were seriously considering them, given their fuel efficiency and space utlization. Well, one of my uncles had a ’78 Regal Limited (with the plush interior) & told my dad not to get one of those X cars and instead, get a Regal or Century like his. It was a little bit bigger than we anticipated, but we did end up getting a 1980 Buick Century sedan, the first year of the formal notchback style. In retrospect, that was a good choice, as we had that car for 15 years, and it was pretty trouble-free.
In high school, my friend drove his mom’s 80 Phoenix like a typical high school idiot. Neutral drops, getting “air” while going 70 mph over rail road tracks (Dukes of Hazard style) and generally trying to kill not only himself but the car in the process. Fortunately for him, neither one got killed and I was always amazed how well that car took the beat down that it was given every Saturday night. Perhaps Honda and Toyota employ a staff of teenage morons to test their vehicles. Could that be the secret to their success? The funny thing is that my father had a skylark of the same vintage that was babied and never saw a neutral drop or Bo Duke run in its life, yet it died an early death from a cracked iron duke head. Yet that damned Phoenix kept going and going and going.
These were pretty good looking cars and downsized quite well. I didn’t realize the A bodies were just front and back stretched versions.
Imagine where GM would be today if they hadn’t massively fumbled the X?
We used to call them the Buick Century Village (an elderly community in south FL). I would have kept the 404… These Buicks may have been reliable and well put together but bland-tastic..
The parents of one of my carpool members in high school had a 1980 Pontiac Phoenix sedan. It was white with red vinyl interior. We fit 5 people in that car plus books and tons of sports equipment in the hatch. I remember her complaining that it wouldn’t make it up a hill so she had to change the route to accomodate the car. I also remember her complaining that there was always something wrong with that car. One day she even said “Boy do I miss my Granada!” Funny what you remember, isn’t it? My other experience with an X-body is a friend of mine that had a 1980 Skylark Limited sedan, same blue as the feature car with the plush pillow interior. I always thought that car was cool as it was so loaded and very detailed for a small GM car. It even had the red and white door courtesy lights like the full sized GM’s did. I remember it being a solid little car. He loved it and had it for as long as I can remember. I know it had the styled road wheels too – he commented on it when he first showed it to me saying his little Buick wasn’t an old man’s car because it was sportier than all the other ones he had seen. He said he had never seen another one with those wheels and I remember trying to find one and don’t recall ever seeing another one with them. They almost always had the hubcaps like the feature car. I truly think the Buick and Oldsmobile versions had better build quality than the Pontiac and Chevy versions.
I liked your article because I still have an 81 Skylark Limited with the loose pillow type interior. Yep, this car’s been in the family for 31 years. It was bought new by my mother in 1981. I learned to drive on it, then it was my car through college. I drove from New Jersey to the Grand Canyon and back (making some stops in Rapid City and Denver) in 1998. It has the 2.5L 4 cyl in it. I remember going up over the Rocky Mountains in it in Rocky Mtn. National Park, and it was pretty slow going up those hills. But I did get about 32 mpg with it on highway trips. Around town is more like 24 mpg. It has 222,000 miles on it now. I don’t use it very much anymore, as it still has the original paint on it which is quite faded. Unlike the fuel injected Iron Dukes of later years, for some reason the carbureted versions of the Iron Duke are nice and quiet! I have never figured out how or why that is. Through the years it had various repairs and things it needed, but nothing so bad that we ever considered getting rid of the car. It did need the transmission rebuilt at 150,000 miles. But overall it has been a good car. It is comfortable and pleasant to drive, and it’s a nice size car, not too big or too small. In fact, I liked this car so much that I bought an 85 Skylark Limited in 1995 which had the V6 in it, I sold it in 2002. It had 155,000 miles when purchased, 230,000 when sold. The V6 version had quite a bit more power, and was not quite as good on gas. The 85 Skylark seemed to handle better than the 81. The seating position on the 85 Skylark Limited was higher than in 81 which I liked better. I can attest to the solid sounding doors as the doors and other sheet metal used seems to be heavier than other cars of this time period. Perhaps the styling is not outstanding, but I like the use of chrome outside (as opposed to black trim) and the nice contrast of wood trim, chrome and dark blue inside. A friend of mine remarked once that it is like a junior LeSabre. Overall though these cars had a few quirks, I really like them and would be happy to own another example. I remember all of the complaining about these cars back in the day, especially in various publications, and I never really understood what was so bad about them. People would often make assumptions and make rude remarks about owning an X car to me, assuming that I owned a lemon. I am sure there is a valid reason for their reputation, but my experience was good. I do think that the Buick and Oldsmobile versions were better, mainly in terms of the quality of the materials used in the interiors of the cars. The Citation interior in particular I remember thinking was cheap. My opinion has been that the mechanical problems were mainly an issue in the 1980 models, mainly those built early on. The Citation came out in April of 1979. I believe the Skylark, Omega, and Phoenix did not debut until September. Maybe by then most of the issues had been corrected. I remember going to the library in the mid 90s to look up old versions of Consumer Reports on microfilm (this was pre-internet) to try to understand exactly what it was about these cars that caused people to complain so much; I didn’t understand at the time. I think the problems these cars had early on were well publicized, which resulted in a poor reputation, which while it has truth to it, I would not classify as “GMs deadliest sin”. Maybe just the Citation, or even worse, the Vega. But not all of the X cars as a group. I think that is an overgeneralization.
The A body cars are mechanically the same, were produced for 4 of the X cars’ 6 model year run, and did not have this reputation.
The dark blue car you photographed is the base Skylark. The giveaway is the interior and the lack of chrome on the B pillar. But whoever originally bought this car did choose to purchase the chrome strip down the hood with the stand up hood ornament, chrome wheel lip moldings, and chrome rocker moldings. None of that was standard on the base model, but the Limited model came with those things (as well as a chrome on the B pillar).
Glad to read from the posts here that there was some good experiences with the X-Body Skylark. My experience with a 81′ wasn’t a positive one. I traded in a ’80 Toyota Tercel hatchback – a splendid little machine in its day for a mere $4,900 – for the Buick because of my expanding family. I also wanted to “buy American” and thought I’d give Detroit a chance as my car ownership to date before the Tercel was limited to VW’s and Volvos. I give high marks for the Skylark’s comfort, road manners and safety but I repeatedly had troubles with it overheating and electrical system woes. At 25,000 miles, the transmission went out along with both CV joints. Realizing I’d got stuck with a lemon, I traded it off for a ’83 Corolla sedan which provided me 275k trouble-free miles. The experience left me in the Japanese camp to this day; I’m driving a ’97 Camry with 225k on it.
Hmmm, funny I came across this. My very first car (1987 ) was an 81′ Skylark Limited. That little car saw me through my high school years, my 4 years of Air Force and first year of marriage. All told, about 7 1/2 years. In 1994, it gave up the ghost after my wife ( now ex ) had crashed it her 3rd time. It was by far, the best and most reliable of all the cars I’ve owned. Two years ago, I came across it’s near identical sister on E-Bay sitting out in Cali. With only 55,000 miles on it and with it’s vin# I did a Carfax and some background and got the entire vehicle’s history. I bought it. It was in great shape. Right now though it’s going through an engine overhaul due to an oil pump failure. Got it shut down before things went completely wrong and any block damage resulted. At 32 years old and almost none of them existing anymore, they are rolling museums of a dying breed.
FromRussia, Samara
I had this car as a family hand me down.
It was TERRIBLE. It was poor on gas and as a 3 speed auto it was terrifying to drive with really weak brakes.
I did miss the bench seat and chrome controls though….
My father had one in the early 80s (a Citation) when US-made cars still had cache in Israel; he bought it from a rental car co with low mileage and full service history (and before anyone says anything, those were executive class cars in Israel, the people who rented them were generally older managers who were not likely to drive like the proverbial 17 year old, so you could say it only had one gentle owner from new). It had an iron duke – it was pathetically slow, particularly if you switched the air condition. It was probably the vaguest handling car I ever drove, the steering was devoid of any feeling – you were never certain where the front wheels were pointing. How could GM have used a Lancia Beta as their example of what an FWD car should be and end up with this thing? Oh, the big-end bearings went at not a very high mileage. My father, who with one or two exceptions had US-made cars since the 50s never bought another American car until he died last year (he ultimately became a staunch Toyota believer) – ironically, the Citation was replaced with a… Peugeot 505.
Hard to believe that is even based on the same platform as the Citation. I guess what gave the Citation it’s ugliness was it’s fastback design.
Yep, looked like a turtle on wheels, but not as fast. Lol
Clearly you never drove a Citation with the V6 in it.
I was being sarcastic, of course. 😉
I’ve rode in both a 4 cyl notchback and a V6 hatchback version of Citations, back in the 80’s.
The 4 banger notch was driven like a dragster by a young friend, while the V6 hatch was owned by my mom’s friend, who drove it like Mother Teresa… So never really got to see it open up.
A friend of mine was gifted the very first 1980 Pontiac Phoenix delivered to Weddington Motors in Rockingham, NC. I remember it was a blue 2 door with wire wheel covers and outside of air conditioning, am/fm, automatic transmission, power steering and brakes, it had a tilt wheel and that was it.
In very short order, driving a 70 mile round trip to a part-time job and then later in the fall, a weekday, daily drive of 70 miles to attend the nearest community college, the mileage rolled on up close to 40,000.
For my 1979-1980 frame of mind and knowledge about cars, I always thought it to be a quiet riding, comfortable, basic piece of transportation. I do not recall any problems my friend had with his car – it was not abused, just driven – a lot!
An elderly neighbor of mine purchased a new 1985 Skylark Limited. It was the last car she bought. A very nice car – a little limousine if you will. I think it was even advertised as such for a time. Now, that one I would have like to have had…
Mr. Bill
Hamlet, NC
I had a chance to buy one of these on E-bay a few years ago. An 80 Ltd with a V6 and a 4 speed stick. That’s gotta be a rare bird, er Skylark. It looked great in the pics, but car was in upstate NY and I’m in VA, I wasn’t willing to make it happen because of the logistics. I may have passed up a once in a lifetime opportunity to drive an X-box Buick with a stick (sigh) my loss….
Having never sat on those “loose pillow” seats I wonder: are those things any good to sit on while driving?
Are pillow seats good for driving? Depends on how you define driving. For anything involving twisting roads at any speed, they’re terrible. However most American highways are pretty straight, and generally speaking, except for the coastal areas they are very straight. In these circumstances, you aren’t really driving a car, you are sitting on a sofa in a tiny air conditioned waiting room, listening to the stereo. Driving, if you have cruise control is (was before heavy power steering became popular) a one-finger affair. Pillow seats are very comfortable in this context. Note that they were much better in the days when most people didn’t bother with seat belts. You could move around and stretch out, especially as a passenger.
So, in a big American car, on a big American highway, they’re great!
Pillow seat comfort varied widely depending on the car. On some, extra padding was applied to the standard seats (including ’80-’82 X bodies). This reduced legroom and seat cushion length, but the thicker seat was sometimes more comfortable. In my family’s ’82 Phoenix with the upgraded seats (standard on the LJ model, optional on base and SJ), the extra padding definitely made the seats more tolerable and that steel bar across the back less noticeable. In other cars, only the edges/bolsters got extra padding which allowed for a loose-pillow look without losing legroom or cushion depth. These also wound up providing more lateral support as a result. On yet others, as in high-end ’80-’82 T-birds or ’85-’88 Maximas, the loose cushion outline was built into a standard-depth seatback and seat cushion such that the remaining thickness behind/beneath the pillows was very thin.
While on the subject of seats, it’s worth noting that ’83-’85 X-cars equipped with the optional bucket seats got completely revamped and vastly improved front chairs. Bench seats retained the basic ’80-’82 design except that the built-in headrests gave way to low-back seats with separate, height-adjustable head restraints. Bucket seats on the ’80-’82s were essentially bench seats with the center section missing. But the ’83-later buckets were completely different from the bench or earlier buckets, basically the new seats used on the J and A bodies (and I think the Camaro/Firebird too). They were more comfortable, thinner, had better lateral support, no more bar pushing against your back, and recliners that actually pivoted where they should rather than about 6″ up the seatback. At least on the Phoenix, there was some revision on the ’84 too, with larger bolsters and a smoother shape. These were actually quite comfortable, but I’ve only ever seen one ’84 Phoenix, and bucket seats were fairly rare in X-cars in general.
I see. I’ve sat on similar “normal” chairs though (typical grandparent furniture) and I wonder, won’t those buttons start poking into the back and bottom after a while? Particularly on long-distance highway driving?
On many cars with button-tufted seats, the buttons were recessed a bit – sometimes they were deeply recessed into the ridges the buttons were designed to look like they created. So you didn’t feel them and they didn’t pop off. On the seats below from a ’81 Bonneville Brougham, the buttons were in the middle of each “pillow” rather than buried in the intersections of the grooves (where they were in the same year’s Grand Prix), but they’re still recessed enough so you don’t feel them much.
The big tires on that Buick X-body probably made all the diffrence in the rear brakes locking up. More traction on the road, less brake locking! I experienced a little of this on a relative’s Citation. We put wider, stickier tires on it and the rear brake locking was very much better after that. Too bad it wasn’t as simple to fix the miserable engine and carburetion. Climbing steep city hills in San Francisco was a real chore. You’d floor the accelerator from the other side of the street at the base of the hill, and if you were lucky, the car would accelerate briskly (well, sort of…) across the street, start up the hill, and lose speed as it lost momentum. At the top of the steepest ones, a healthy 20-30 year old could run up the hill as fast!
If you were unlucky, when you floored it, the engine would bog and you’d start up the hill at a crawl…but at least it would be going at the same speed at the top of the hill as if you had successfully got a running start at the bottom.
Way back in my highschool days my best friend’s father bought a brand new ’81 Skylark for his commuter car. It was only two months old when parts from inside the transmission decided it would be more fun to be imbedded in the rear tire. At 110 km/hr of course. The engine survived the brief over-revving. With a new transmission the car was just as reliable as any of it’s competition. It did however do some strange things though.
The first real cold snap caused the horn pad to flex enough to wake the neighbours at three am. It got a repaint early in it’s life when the hood and roof began peeling. After that It was garage kept as much as possible which made cold winter starts easier and prevented a repeat of the honking incident.
It was a competant highway cruiser with it’s 2.8 v6 and everyone was surprised at how quick it was to boot around in. One night the oldest son was home from university and decided to race a Camaro in front of a donut shop. Bad Idea. He managed to talk his way out of a ticket aided by Mr. Camaro’s decision to lead police on a high speed chase. An even worse idea.
The car eventually shared the driveway with a low mileage 1977 Ford Custom 500 2dr that was picked up at an estate sale. We laughed at the difference in size. The Skylark eventually got traded in on something though I don’t recall what or even when that happened. It just wasn’t there anymore.
I was given a 1982 Skylark sedan in a hurry after some idiot put my beloved Alfa Romeo out of commission in 1986.
Three worst things had happened to my Skylark. One was the large bolt connecting the subframe to the chassis. Other was strange engineering decision involving the carburettor. My last straw was inaccessible spark plugs in the rear of V6 motor.
One day, I started to feel something rattling right under the pedals and poked around. I found a large bolt that connected the subframe to the chassis had broken in half. Ah, I can easily replace it. Well, no, it wasn’t that easy! The top part was encased in the sheetmetal: accessing to it involved cutting up part of firewall to remove the top half. Geesh!
I was replacing the fuel filter inside the carburettor and didn’t realise the evil engineering trick: the thread was reversed, meaning you don’t turn anti-clockwise to loosen the cover. You turn clockwise. That partially ruined the thread, leaking bit of fuel onto the manifold. Result: flambé special! Fortunately, a guy in old souped-up Camaro showed up all of the sudden with fire extinguisher. Just another lousy luck: no repair manuals showed me how to reconnect the spaghetti tubes for emission control. It took me three weeks of visiting the secondhand car forecourt to look at the similar car and trace the hoses. After I succeed in getting it fixed, the V6 motor had horrendous appetite for fuel. So bad that I had to fill up tank every two or three days. Like five mpg in city.
My last straw was those spark plugs in the most inaccessible place ever. I had to do it by feel and to be VERY careful turning the socket wrench. Changing angle of socket wrench slightly meant broken ceramic body.
I was so happy to get rid of it by selling it to a guy with dubious provence. Three months later, I received a letter from Immigration and Naturalisation Service (predecessor of post-9/11 ICE), stating that ‘my’ car was confiscated for illegally smuggling people across the US-Mexican border. I guess the driver failed to factor its vigorous appetite for fuel in its smuggling operation and was caught when its tank ran dry. It asked me to identify myself as the ‘owner’. I wrote back, stating once again that I had sold it and had nothing to do with it anymore.
Yeah, I had a soft spot for Buick Skylark, but…
I’d have to take issue with the ’80 X-bodies being GM’s first modern FWD cars….. do the downsized ’79 E-bodies not count for anything? Still a longitudal engine I know (and lower sales volume due to their price bracket), but these were a hit and in stark contrast to the X-body remained popular throughout their 7-year run. Some Rivieras even had a turbo V6 – seems modern to me.
Geez. Was the X-body really that much worse than a first-gen Escort or K-Car? I seem to remember several neighbors and family members with X’s that drove them into the ground and had them for years. Can the same be said of a VW from the same era? How long did those hold up as daily drivers, and yet they’re usually praised as being these wonderful icons of the 80’s.
Love the Xs. Thanks for the article. My Dad’s 84 Olds Ciera started my fascination and I wanted something similar. Yes, my interest in GM was directly because of the influence of my “Father’s Oldsmobile”. Suck it GM. Could you have gotten it more wrong ?
I had an 84 Citation 2 door notchback [“Club Coupe”] with 2.5, auto, two tone champagne and dark brown paint and mag wheels. Good looking car. The right size. Interior room was great. Ride was good and it was quiet.
It was my first “nice” car as I had been driving my 63 Valiant Signet for 10 years and it’s a 3 speed manual with non power steering and brakes as well as a non working aftermarket AC system. Plus I suspect the odometer had been around twice before I bought it with “13,000” miles.
Torque steer, yes, but it squatted down and handled LA freeways beautifully.
At 88,000 miles it was developing “morning sickness” common to the rack and pinion steering of both Xs and As. That meant that before you had steering boost, it had to be driving a bit before it started assisting the steering.
And then the torque converter lockup switch went, which, had my mechanic known would have been repaired or disconnected, rather than warranting the replacement of the entire transmission. When the TC switch failed to unlock, it felt as if one was driving a manual in the highest gear when coming to a stop: lots of bucking jerking and finally stopping and stalling. Feels pretty scary.
It also pinged whatever gasoline was put in it. There was even a disclaimer in the owner’s manual that said some pinging was normal and allowed for the best fuel economy.
The interior dimensions of the Xs have been the benchmark for what I look for in a small car, that and overall size.
As an aside,the Cruze has exactly the same rear legroom as the Citation did so long ago. The Sonic has more room inside than the ONION and it’s two feet shorter. Great packaging.
I loved that Citation. Sorry I traded it in. It was influential in the purchase of my first brand new car, a 99 Cavalier 2 door, because it was as close as I could get to that Citation in modern form. No problems with it and I’d still be driving it today if it hadn’t been totaled in a rear ender by a guy driving a BMW.
At least the 86 Olds Calais I traded it for is still in the family and driven and loved by my brother, so it lives on in a way.
So frustrating. GM had success and repeat GM buyers in it’s grasp. On paper. How many thousands of GM car buyers did they turn off with the Xs by taking the shortcut of making them unknowing beta testers of their not ready for sale end product ?
I’d like another one. One of each if I ever win the lottery.
They’re fascinating for me because of what they represent, like the Edsel, the Austin Allegro or the Morris Marina. They are a window into a pivotal moment in automotive, and GM history. Peak auto journalist BS. A Landmark Car on the isle of misfit automobiles.
With Gm badge engineered cars the buicks were always more reliable than the chevys and pontiacs, even when owned by the same demographic.
Many of the infamous X-body bugs were worked out after the first or second year; in typical GM fashion in that era, the later X-bodies were decently reliable and their brakes didn’t lock up that easily. 82 and later models got the new steering rack from the FWD A body that vastly reduced torque steer. By that time X-cars were selling poorly though, partly because of their poor reputation, but also because of new competition from the imports and Chrysler’s K cars, and GM’s own J and A bodies which were only slightly smaller and larger respectively and had more modern styling and a big advertising budget.
The three-step GM downsizing description omits the 1979 E bodies, which granted weren’t as big sellers as the B/C, A, or X bodies, but were very popular throughout their 7-year run and quite profitable.
I was working in Sacramento for BofA when the X cars came out. We had a small fleet of both the Chevy and Pontiac versions. My fondest memory was sliding backwards down an on ramp embankment after experiencing the famous braking ability of these. Quite an experience for a 19 year old. An experience that kept me away from anything GM until 2014.
The funny thing to me is that I knew another person who had one of these, with the 2.8, and also had a good experience with it (as you mention it seems to be the exception with X cars). Not sure if it was the Buick or the 2.8, or just the luck of the draw, but he had it quite awhile…such that he kept buying GM cars at least last I talked to him (more than 10 years ago) he had started a business and bought several Astro cargo vans, which he also liked.
You mention the seats in the Peugeot being very comfortable, I think they are known for it; I’ve only ridden in a 505 as a rental car some 36 years ago and don’t specifically recall the seats, but my Dad owned a new Renault 10, more than 50 years ago, and though they were vinyl, the seats were very comfortable in that car as well. Maybe they put some priority into seating which we don’t.
It just goes to show that there are good examples of any vehicle, maybe an outlier, but odd that Buick with the 2.8 seems (on admittedly limited non-scientific sample) to be the common element…wonder if others had similar experiences?
Thought about this after my prior comment…a coincidence but on a web query a 404 error is infamous for “not found”…maybe your “not found” Peugeot ended up being a Buick Skylark…they are quite different vehicles (despite at least one version of the 404 being a sedan like the Skylark was).
It is too bad that Peugeot pulled out of the US in the early 90’s not to return. It is our loss, I think cars like Peugeot and Renault could have a place here, but have not had much traction in the past, and it is our loss. The US used to be a prime market for consumer goods, but I understand that lots of companies aren’t even trying to market their products here any longer….maybe it is our demographics, or maybe we make it hard for them to do business here. We are losing the chance to try unique products, maybe it is our “homogenization” of products or specific US requirements for emissions, fuel economy, etc. that don’t exist in other markets. Or maybe we’re being too picky about having things “our way”…small example is the turn signal indicator on the dash of my VW, I have an A4 which has two (a right and left side indicator) but I think the A1 thru A3’s only had a single indicator, which suited the task, but isn’t like most other makes…do they change stuff like this just for the US market? This is a small thing, but if you have enough of them, maybe we’ll be bypassed in the world market, as being not worth the bother (partly due to our relatively smaller population versus other countries)?
Don’t mean to be too cute, but that could result in other products being “404” (not found) in the US market…might end up as our loss.