Buick used the Skylark name on its midsize cars from 1964 through 1972. These were on the same GM A-body platform as the Chevrolet Chevelle and Oldsmobile Cutlass. After a brief hiatus, the nameplate returned on the smaller 1975 Skylark, which rode on the Chevy Nova/Pontiac Ventura X-body platform.
It made the jump to front-wheel drive in 1980 as the Buick flavor of the Chevy Citation and then spent the final years of the Eighties as an N-body compact, along with the Pontiac Grand Am and Olds Cutlass Calais.
For 1992, the fifth generation Skylark appeared, riding on a stretched and widened N-body. It had a weird sort of "beaked" chrome grille and came with either a SOHC version of the Olds Quad4 motor or the 3.3L GM corporate V6. The styling was weird and somewhat off-putting to Buick's normally stodgy buying demographic and so for 1996 it received a mid-cycle styling refresh with a more conventional snout, like the Bright White 1996-'98 Skylark Custom sedan in the picture above.
Available in two trim levels, Custom and Limited (the slow-selling Gran Sport got the ax), the refreshed Skylark had a more conventional dashboard, shared with its Olds Achieva stablemate, to match the more conventional nose. The base motor was now the 150bhp DOHC 2.3L balance shaft equipped GM corporate version of the Quad4, and either trim level could be had with a 160bhp GM 3100 pushrod V-6.
The Skylark name was retired after the 1998 model year, as was the entire idea of a compact sedan offering from Buick, unless you count the short-lived Verano model of the 2010s.
This one was photographed with a Fujifilm X-T2 and XF 16-80mm f/4 R WR OIS zoom lens in May of 2024.
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