The RNZAF strike wing may have disappeared, but Tim finds an early ’80s Skyhawk still going strong near the airport runway
When I think of Buicks I usually think of huge, ambling straight-eights from the era when gangsters had some semblance of style. There’s even imagery from the ’70s and early ’80s of long, sleek road cars, or the successful Buick Regal NASCARs of the early ’80s as run by Junior Johnson’s Mountain Dew team — with cut-back rear body styling and 358 cubes (5867cc) of bent eight. NASCAR historians refer to those years as the Buick Era, so successful was the marque on American ovals.
Buicks were represented not only by Johnson’s team — headed by Daryll Waltrip — but also by the fast Miller Beer-sponsored Buick Regal of Bobby Allison. These were the cars to beat in 1983.
However, my own imagery of big, bad Buicks was altered somewhat when I was recently invited to drive a relatively compact 1983 Buick Skyhawk Limited. This left-hooker is the only one of its kind I have seen thus far in New Zealand, as most imported Americans tend to be in the luxury or muscle car genres.
It is probably not surprising, then, that my first glance at this car as it passed me one day had me thinking early Holden Camira, until it drew closer. Indeed, the rear side area of this car has a certain GM family look of the period, confirmed when I hit the textbooks and viewed other small and similar GM cars such as the Chevrolet Chevette, Chevrolet Citation Coupe, Pontiac Phoenix and the Oldsmobile Omega Brougham.
All these downsized GM babies — as part of the company’s ’90 horsepower team’ — were available with the general’s reliable 2.4-litre (151ci) four-cylinder engine at a time when the world was going through one of its seemingly cyclic fuel crises. But as with the Chevy Citation, our featured 1983 Buick Skyhawk has the 2.0-litre engine mounted east-west and powering the front wheels, as if a certain Mr Issigonis had infiltrated the nightly dreams of Detroit’s designers.
Monza lineage
Owned by Mrs Kaye Southcombe, this Skyhawk indeed belongs to the ‘compacts’ like the Citation, but also has its origins in the earlier Skyhawk models which were versions of the Chevy Monza, as raced here in Godzone by Red Dawson. In fact the Buick Skyhawks of earlier 1980 vintage were just that, Chevy Monzas with different grille or frontal treatments and, at times, decorated B-pillars and added body trim to try and set them apart from the Monza. Oldsmobile’s Starfire Firenza was a similar slope-backed badge-engineered Monza.But by 1983 Buick’s Skyhawk model had been downsized further so that it no longer resembled the Monza, and fitted into a less powerful but more economical niche than the 90hp (67kW) engine.
One of my own vehicles is an American V8 of the same era, so I was very keen to drive Kaye’s Skyhawk to see how what the USA referred to as ‘compacts’ would stack up against bigger American cruisers.
Kaye refers to the Skyhawk simply as a ‘ladies’ car’ because of its ease of driving and parking, with adequate power and refinement. She enjoys how she can shop and park anywhere in her home town, or whizz off to another city for the day without worry. ¨She has owned the car for 14 years, and has rarely had a problem with it.
Easy driver
At times Kaye rues the left-hand-drive aspect when wanting to overtake — something not helped by the Buick’s lack of up-front V8 grunt — but even though she is thinking of selling it after all these years, she is indeed enamoured of it and would be sorry to see it go, especially if it fell into the wrong hands.
I have to agree, because as soon as I sat in it, I noticed how clean and immaculate the interior is, with all its original badging and seating material intact. The three-speed automatic T-gearshift is a chunky box affair, based centrally below a stylish dash area which was still well ahead of what most Japanese or British cars of the era were offering. Tasteful in black, with some bespoke stitching that linked to both Buick’s more grandiose past and to the involvement of Fisher coachbuilders on these Limited versions, the Skyhawk was still standing up and claiming its Buick heritage.
The Skyhawk started without qualm, and I simply selected D for drive and moved away with a wave to Kaye.
On the open road I found acceleration to be lacking compared to modern punchy twin-cam 2.0-litre cars, but it was smooth and generally very quiet, with sound deadening and driver comfort paramount. If floored, the sturdy GM engine would certainly rise audibly but unobtrusively, but this isn’t a sports car and I was off to the shops and the airport to check out all-round driveability in a Reagan-era, Stateside classic.
Words and photos: Tim Chadwick
