A Buick could mean wire wheels and whitewalls, a station wagon full of luggage, or a black turbo coupe that made the next driver reconsider his Corvette. That was the beauty of the badge: comfort didn’t always mean surrender.
Buick built some magnificent cars—and made some expensive wrong turns. These ten standouts helped shape its identity. The ten flops that follow show what happened when the engineering, timing, or sales pitch went sideways.
The Ten Cars That Defined Buick
These are editorial picks for design, engineering, performance, and the way people remember the brand. A low-volume showpiece can earn its place beside an everyday family hauler.
1. 1987 Grand National: The Buick That Wore Black
You didn’t need to read the badge. Black paint, a square-shouldered body, and that little bulge in the hood announced a Buick with very different plans for the evening.
The Grand National made turbocharged V6 power a centerpiece of American performance. It delivered the surprise in a comfortable Regal coupe, with a back seat and the everyday conveniences buyers expected from Buick. The shape looked familiar; the acceleration changed the conversation.
Then came the GNX, developed with ASC and McLaren Engines. Only 547 were built for 1987. It was a special development of the Grand National, not another name for every black turbo Buick.
Together, they gave the division an identity no amount of chrome could buy. Decades later, a black Regal still gets a second look before anyone decides it’s just another old Buick.
2. 1963–1965 Riviera: When Buick Learned to Dress Italian
The first standalone Riviera looked expensive before you noticed a single emblem. Its crisp roof, long hood, and carefully controlled trim offered something rarer than another layer of chrome: restraint.
Inside, bucket seats and a center console made the driver feel like the reason the car existed. The standard 1963 engine was a 401-cubic-inch V8, with a 425 available. Buick had plenty of muscle to go with the tailored body.
The Riviera Owners Association records 40,000 built for that first model year. This was a distinctive personal-luxury car people actually bought, not a motor-show fantasy that disappeared after the photographs.
The famous concealed headlights arrived for 1965, giving the final year of this generation its own personality. But the original ’63 had already done the important work: it made a Buick look entirely at home outside the nicest restaurant in town.
3. 1970 GSX: The Day Buick Quit Being Subtle
A Saturn Yellow GSX with black stripes was not interested in blending into the country-club parking lot. Buick finally put the personality of its big engine on the outside of the car.
The standard 455-cubic-inch V8 was advertised at 350 horsepower and a towering 510 lb-ft of torque, using the period’s gross-rating system. The optional Stage 1 package made the proposition more serious still. GSX and Stage 1 were different things: the appearance-and-handling package did not automatically mean the upgraded engine was underneath.
Front and rear spoilers, bold graphics, and a hood-mounted tachometer made this a very different kind of Buick conversation piece.
Only 678 GSXs were built for 1970, in Saturn Yellow or Apollo White. It was a small production run with an enormous afterlife—the car that keeps turning up whenever someone insists Buick never built real muscle.
4. 1953 Skylark: An Anniversary Present With Wire Wheels
Buick turned fifty in 1953 and celebrated as though the company had just inherited a mansion. The Skylark convertible was the birthday present.
Built on the Roadmaster chassis, it combined a lowered, flowing appearance with lavish equipment and intricate Kelsey-Hayes wire wheels. The usual Buick look had been edited into something lighter and more glamorous, even though there was still plenty of automobile between the bumpers.
Under the hood sat Buick’s new 322-cubic-inch V8. That mattered: the Skylark wasn’t just a styling exercise wearing last season’s machinery.
GM records only 1,640 sales for 1953, but this was an expensive halo car, not a compact expected to fill every driveway. Its job was to make people want a Buick. Seventy-plus years later, the long sweep of the body and those wheels can still perform that job without a salesman saying a word.
5. 1965 Wildcat: Big-Car Comfort, With an Attitude
The Wildcat name promised something less domesticated than the average family Buick. In 1965, the car had the length, stance, and available convertible body to make good on the suggestion.
Its standard 401-cubic-inch “Nailhead” V8 carried the Wildcat 445 label. Here’s the detail that still starts arguments at car shows: 445 referred to the advertised torque, not the engine’s displacement. The factory listed 325 gross horsepower and 445 lb-ft.
This was full-size performance, with room to take friends along instead of asking them to fold themselves into a tiny rear seat. It could look formal in one color and downright rakish in another.
The Wildcat captured a Buick strength that is easy to overlook: selling speed to people who still wanted a substantial, comfortable automobile. You could enjoy a strong engine without pretending the commute was a qualifying lap.
6. 1936 Century: The Fast Buick Before the Muscle-Car Era
The Century was working the big-engine, smaller-car idea while the GTO was still decades away. Buick paired its 320-cubic-inch straight-eight with a lighter, shorter package than the senior models carrying the same basic engine.
The 1936 version was rated at 120 horsepower. That figure needs its own era for context: this was a prewar family car with a long hood, separate fenders, and a genuine appetite for covering ground.
The Century name advertised the ambition to reach the century mark—100 mph. It helped establish the enduring image of a Buick that could be respectable and unexpectedly quick.
Look at one today and the engineering story makes the elegant body more interesting. It was not simply a smaller luxury car. Buick had noticed that the engine didn’t have to shrink just because the rest of the package did.
7. 1949 Roadmaster Riviera: The Roof That Changed the View
Roll down the side windows of an early Roadmaster Riviera and the trick becomes obvious. There is no fixed center pillar interrupting that wide opening, yet a solid roof remains overhead.
Buick’s 1949 two-door hardtop joined Cadillac and Oldsmobile in bringing this glamorous body style into GM showrooms. “Riviera” described this special hardtop body, long before it became the name of Buick’s standalone luxury coupe.
The Roadmaster’s big straight-eight and smooth Dynaflow automatic kept the experience unmistakably Buick. But the roof treatment made an ordinary drive feel a little more like arriving in a convertible, without asking the weather to cooperate.
The newly introduced VentiPorts along the front fenders supplied another visual signature. Between the open-looking cabin and those little portholes, Buick was creating details people could recognize from across a street—an advantage no horsepower chart could measure.
8. 1961–1963 Special: A Small Buick With Big Ideas
Not every important Buick needed enough hood to land a light aircraft. The compact Special showed that the division could think smaller without giving up on interesting engineering.
The 1961 version offered a lightweight aluminum V8. For 1962, Buick added a 198-cubic-inch V6, rated at 135 gross horsepower. Its uneven firing rhythm was less polished than the silky Buick ideal, but the basic V6 idea would have a remarkably long future.
A convertible also joined the Special range for 1962. GM records Special sales climbing from 86,865 in 1961 to 148,770 the following year—evidence that buyers were willing to consider a different-sized Buick.
The Special matters because it challenged the easy assumption that prestige required bulk. It could fit a smaller garage while carrying an engine story far more interesting than its modest dimensions suggested.
9. 1997–2004 Regal GS: The Supercharged Family Secret
The Regal GS looked like the sensible choice. Four doors, a useful trunk, restrained trim, and the sort of cabin that would not alarm anyone’s accountant.
The supercharged 3800 V6 supplied the part the styling politely kept to itself: 240 horsepower and 280 lb-ft of torque. In its original 1997 road test, Motor Trend recorded a 6.6-second run to 60 mph. That was real performance hiding inside an ordinary-looking family sedan.
Front-wheel drive and a four-speed automatic made it a different animal from the Grand National. There was no need to pretend otherwise. The appeal was getting a strong rush of acceleration without buying a loud, stiffly sprung attention machine.
It carried Buick’s old talent into a new shape: making the comfortable car quicker than strangers expected. For owners who preferred a surprise to a spoiler, the GS was an awfully convincing answer.
10. 1994–1996 Roadmaster Estate: The Family Wagon’s Last Big Swing
The Roadmaster Estate was a rolling reminder that America once packed for a vacation by bringing nearly everything it owned. Woodgrain sides, a long roof, and generous glass gave it a personality a tall gray crossover cannot easily imitate.
For 1994, the wagon gained the 5.7-liter LT1 V8, rated at 260 horsepower. It belonged to the same engine family as the Corvette’s LT1, but Buick used its own application with iron cylinder heads and different tuning. It was not simply an unchanged Corvette engine dropped into a wagon.
Rear-wheel drive and a huge cargo area preserved the traditional family-hauler formula while the engine made it unexpectedly entertaining.
The Roadmaster Estate ended after 1996. It left behind a particularly Buick sort of legend: practical, comfortable, faintly excessive, and much more interesting once you learned what was under the hood.
Ten Buick Flops and Expensive Wrong Turns
“Flop” covers different failures here: disappointing sales, a misjudged product, or damage to Buick’s reputation. Some were genuinely appealing cars. One was a minivan trying very hard to be called something else. None of this means Buick disappeared—it learned, changed direction, and kept going.
1. 1980–1985 Skylark: A Promising Start With a Long Hangover
On paper, the new front-drive Skylark made sense. Smaller dimensions, efficient packaging, and a modern transverse-engine layout looked like sensible answers to a world worried about fuel.
People bought the idea. The Skylark was initially popular, so calling it a car nobody wanted would miss the point. The failure was the experience and reputation surrounding GM’s early X-body program.
Brake complaints and recalls turned the architecture into a long-running controversy. A federal investigation examined rear-wheel lockup in 1980 X-cars, including the Skylark. The later government effort to force a sweeping recall failed in court; the history is more complicated than saying every example had the same defect.
For Buick, that distinction did not erase the awkwardness. A badge associated with relaxed, reassuring transportation was now caught in arguments about braking behavior. An ambitious technical change had become a confidence problem.
2. 1980 LeSabre With the 5.7-Liter Diesel: Saving Fuel, Spending Goodwill
A big, comfortable Buick that used less fuel was an easy idea to like after the gasoline shocks of the 1970s. The optional 5.7-liter diesel promised to preserve the living-room experience while stretching a tank.
The engine came from Oldsmobile, and its troubled early reputation followed it into other GM showrooms. Head-gasket and fuel-system problems helped turn a sensible-sounding option into a source of expensive frustration.
It was a purpose-developed diesel sharing dimensions and manufacturing ancestry with a gasoline V8—not merely a gas engine with spark plugs unscrewed. Later improvements also matter. But neither nuance changes the damage done when early buyers expected dependable economy and got repair bills instead.
This entry is about the diesel choice, not the whole LeSabre. The comfortable body was doing its job. The powertrain gamble was the part that made Buick owners reconsider the bargain.
3. 1986–1988 Riviera: Less Car, More Money
Buick had just enjoyed a strong year with the Riviera when it decided the next one should be dramatically smaller. The timing was brutal.
The 1986 redesign lost the long, imposing proportions many buyers associated with personal luxury. Its base price nevertheless climbed from $16,710 to $19,831. The Riviera Owners Association records production dropping from more than 65,000 in 1985 to 22,138 in 1986.
There was worthwhile technology inside, including the remarkable Graphic Control Center touchscreen. It could handle functions that modern drivers would recognize immediately. But an electronic novelty could not give the shortened body the presence buyers missed.
The car was not devoid of comfort or engineering merit. It simply asked loyal customers to redefine what they were paying for. Buick lengthened and restyled the Riviera for 1989, a fairly visible sign that the first version of the smaller-car argument had not landed.
4. 1988–1991 Reatta: A Lovely Answer to a Very Small Question
The Reatta deserved more than a shrug. A low, cleanly shaped two-seater with pop-up headlights was a brave thing to find sitting in a Buick showroom.
Its problem was explaining the purchase. Buyers who saw a sports car found front-wheel drive, an automatic transmission, and a normally aspirated V6. Buyers who wanted traditional Buick comfort had to accept losing the back seat. The handsome little coupe occupied a very narrow patch between those expectations.
A convertible arrived for 1990, but the project never developed the volume needed to justify its special production operation. The entire four-year run totaled fewer than 22,000 cars.
This is a commercial flop that remains easy to like. Buick built something distinctive and carefully considered, then discovered that admiration and a signed purchase contract were not the same thing. The Reatta was memorable; the business case was not strong enough.
5. 1958 Limited: Too Much Buick at Exactly the Wrong Time
If chrome could cure a recession, the 1958 Limited would have saved the economy by itself. Buick revived the prestigious name on an enormous, elaborately decorated flagship.
The body stretched beyond the length of a contemporary Cadillac Series 62. A grille packed with bright little squares, towering rear quarters, and distinctive side trim made sure nobody mistook it for the inexpensive choice.
Then the recession arrived. Buick was asking premium money for maximum visual extravagance just as buyers were becoming more cautious. The Limited lasted one model year in this revived form, with fewer than 8,000 built across its body styles.
Today that excess is a large part of the appeal. At a show, the Limited is magnificent theater. In a 1958 showroom, however, its size and price asked a nervous buyer to make a very confident statement. Too few people wanted to say it.
6. 1985–1987 Somerset: The Name That Couldn’t Settle In
First it was Somerset Regal. Then it was simply Somerset. By 1988, the coupe wore the Skylark name. Even before considering the car, the showroom explanation was becoming a workout.
The Somerset was Buick’s compact N-body coupe, related to the Pontiac Grand Am and Oldsmobile Calais. It offered the familiar small-car engines and front-drive packaging of its corporate relatives, wrapped in Buick’s more formal presentation.
It was not an overnight sales disaster: Buick built roughly 86,000 for 1985. But coupe production fell to about 46,500 in 1987, and the new nameplate failed to become a lasting part of the brand.
The letdown was an identity that never really took hold. A compact Buick needed a persuasive reason to exist beside its GM cousins. A succession of trunk badges could not supply the missing sense of occasion.
7. 1975–1980 Skyhawk: A Small Coupe in the Wrong Showroom
A sporty little hatchback was a surprising departure for Buick. The original Skyhawk shared GM’s rear-drive H-body family with the Chevrolet Monza and Oldsmobile Starfire, with a shape that looked eager to escape the formal sedan aisle.
Buick gave it a 3.8-liter V6 rather than the Vega’s four-cylinder. That distinction matters: the Skyhawk should not inherit every engine accusation aimed at a car with related underpinnings.
Still, the division never turned this generation into a major hit. Roughly 125,000 were produced across six model years. Small sporty cars had buyers; persuading those buyers to start their search at a Buick dealer was another matter.
The result was an interesting experiment that never established a strong identity. A Buick badge added prestige in the big-car market. On a compact hatchback sharing so much with cheaper-looking corporate relatives, the advantage was harder to explain.
8. 1976–1979 Opel by Isuzu: Three Names, One Confused Sales Pitch
Imagine explaining your new car to a neighbor. You bought it from Buick. It said Opel. It was built by Isuzu in Japan. The badge story required more geography than the commute.
This compact replaced the German-built Opels Buick dealers had been selling. It was based on Isuzu’s Gemini, with roots in GM’s international small-car program. There was nothing automatically wrong with that arrangement, but the connection between the familiar name and the new product had become rather tangled.
U.S. sales fell after the 1977 peak, and GM ended the import program in 1979. This was a Buick-sold import, not a big American Buick shrunk in the wash.
Its failure was largely one of position and momentum. The car never became a durable answer to the Japanese compact competition. Buick’s imported-small-car detour ended before the nameplates had much chance to make sense to casual shoppers.
9. 2005–2007 Terraza: The Minivan Wearing an SUV’s Nose
Buick called the Terraza a “crossover sport van.” The sliding doors had a less complicated explanation: it was a minivan.
That did not have to be a problem. Families needed space, and Buick knew how to build a quiet, comfortable cabin. But the Terraza shared its basic design with the Chevrolet Uplander, Pontiac Montana SV6, and Saturn Relay, while trying to stand at the more luxurious end of the group.
The useful details exposed the compromise. Its third-row seats did not disappear flat into the floor, a disadvantage against increasingly clever competitors. A taller-looking nose and nicer trim could not make an older minivan package feel entirely new.
After just three model years, it was gone. Buick had dressed up the wrong answer to the family-vehicle question. The brand’s next direction would favor actual crossovers, leaving the sport-van terminology to the old brochures.
10. 2016–2019 Cascada: Sunshine Wasn’t Enough
The Cascada was a perfectly understandable temptation: lower the soft top, find a pleasant road, and enjoy a Buick that did not look like it was headed to a committee meeting.
Imported from Opel, it offered four seats and a 200-horsepower turbocharged 1.6-liter engine. The folding roof gave it a clear purpose. Unfortunately, carrying all that convertible structure meant the modest engine had a substantial car to move.
U.S. sales went from 7,153 in 2016 to 4,136 in 2018, and the Cascada ended after 2019. Its brief run also unfolded as GM and Opel went separate corporate ways.
This was a small-market car without enough room to grow. Owners could enjoy the sunshine, and the styling still has admirers. But a pleasant convertible was not enough to create a lasting new chapter for Buick’s American passenger-car business.
The Buick That People Still Argue About
The best Buicks made comfort feel like an advantage, not an apology. The mistakes usually came when the badge was asked to cover a weak proposition—or when a good idea reached too few buyers. That contrast is what makes Buick worth talking about: the same showroom history can give you a Grand National and a Terraza, and neither story is boring.
Photo Credits
Photographs appear in article order. All were resized and JPEG-compressed; none was cropped. Individual Creative Commons licenses remain applicable to the photographs. The Grand National photograph is also used as the featured image.
1987 Buick Grand National — Greg Gjerdingen / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
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1963 Buick Riviera — Joe deSousa / Wikimedia Commons; CC0.
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1970 Buick GSX in Saturn Yellow — Mopar89 / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0.
1953 Buick Skylark Convertible — Greg Gjerdingen / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
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1965 Buick Wildcat convertible — sv1ambo / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
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1936 Buick Century coupe — Don O’Brien / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
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1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera Coupé – Flickr – exfordy — Brian Snelson / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
1962 Buick Special — Vetatur Fumare / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 2.0.
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1999 Buick Regal GS, rear right, 08-03-2024 — MercurySable99 / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0.
1995 Buick Roadmaster — NZ Car Freak / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
Buick Skylark Limited — Dennis Elzinga / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
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1982 Buick LeSabre Limited diesel sedan front — Mr.choppers / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0.
1986 Buick Riviera T-Type in Maroon, front right — Accord14 / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0.
Buick Reatta coupe — IFCAR / Wikimedia Commons; Public domain.
1958 Buick Limited – 01 — Oleg Yunakov / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0.
Buick Somerset — Bull-Doser / Wikimedia Commons; Public domain.
1975 Buick Skyhawk — Bradley L. Conley / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0.
1976 Buick Opel – 90,000km — TuRbO_J / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY 2.0.
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2005 Buick Terraza CXL, front right, 06-16-2021 — MercurySable99 / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0.
2016 Buick Cascada Premium — MercurySable99 / Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 4.0.
