Buick’s full-line brochure for 1989 calls the Skylark their “little limousine.” I’ll let you take a second for that to sink in. Setting aside the marketing hyperbole, this Skylark Custom Sedan is the kind of car that’s exciting because almost all of them have gone to their great mechanical reward, wherever that is. It’s the kind of car that could probably only exist in Arizona, and that’s where our friend T.J. found this one on craigslist in Mesa. It is being advertised as a 33,900-mile original that “looks, runs & drives like new,” and the asking price is cheaper than when the car was new: $7,500.
Here’s an image of the odometer for the perusal of our good Barn Finds readers.
I will say that although the interior doesn’t look like any limousine that I’ve ever seen, it has a nice layout. Consider the dashboard of whatever 21st-century vehicle you’re driving: It’s undoubtedly huge, so huge that cleaning the windshield is difficult. This one is trim, almost elegant, with almost nothing for the passenger to do but be reminded that this is indeed a Buick Skylark. The “champagne burl woodgrain” was new for 1989 (as were composite headlamps on sedans out front), and there’s no doubt (to me) that this is a lightly used anomaly from 36 years ago. It looks fantastic in here.
One of the fascinating things about GM’s N-Body platform (Grand Am, Calais, Skylark, etc.) is the number of engines that were crammed into the engine compartment. In 1989 alone, Skylark buyers could choose the base 2.5-liter “Tech 4,” this 150-horsepower 2.3-liter Quad 4 (a $660 option), or a Buick-built 3300 V6 (a $710 option that was based on Buick’s wonderful 3800 V6). I personally would have spent the extra fifty dollars for the V6, but the seller says that the Quad 4 returns high-20s, low-30s for mileage, and that’s with a three-speed automatic. The air conditioning blows cold, and the battery is newer.
The tires are nearly new as well, and they’re of the 13-inch variety; tires in any 13-inch size are getting hard to find, but the original size (based on what my materials say) was P185/80R13. As far as I know, only Maxxis makes a tire of that size right now (I have them on my Corvair), but these P175/70R13 tires seem to be more readily available. They are, however, quite a bit smaller in diameter, which will affect the speedometer reading and RPM on the highway. If there are any original 1989 Skylark owners who had a set of tires this size on the car from the factory, please let us know in the comments.
Obviously, the tire size is a minor issue when looking at a car that would make a perfectly acceptable daily driver, even 36 years later. No, it won’t set hearts afire, and it’s certainly not a “little limousine.” It is a nostalgic little car for anyone who was around in 1989 and might have seen these fairly regularly (over 42,636 Custom Sedans were sold for 1989), and I hope the new owner continues to take care of it, even if they start racking up many more miles on the odometer.
Enjoyed the car, and write-up Toth 👍 thank you.
This is another one of those cars that you’d see all over the place. And now you don’t. Its in remarkable condition too. Aaron brings out a very good point about those 13 inch tires, another thing that was still very common in the 80’s. Great write up Aaron.
This looks like a good car for the new driver in the household – or for use as a grocery getter and all-around errand runner. It’s a cut above the N-body Grand Am I was buzzing around in during that era.
This old Buick looks nice, but I don’t get it. These were run of the mill vehicle’s at the time. This one’s even the sedan. It’s not worth that type of money no matter what the mileage. These cars were a long ways from spectacular. They were the product a badge engineering and nothing more. I just don’t get it!
Ordered some of these as our service loaners after using Centurys exclusively since `82.
Same model & equipment.
Customs with roll up windows.
Just not with that light interior.
They proved much easier and quicker to sell after their service.
Our dealership sold the following year, and then closed in `92.
Fun write-up, Aaron! Yet a “generic”-looking car of its time — hardly noticed back then — and whose more recent absence isn’t even noticed now. If I were to buy this and drive it, no-one would give me the “thumbs-up” signal for driving a “classic” — it still looks virtually “anonymous” even in 2025. I suppose that only shows us how “modern” cars had arrived by 1990, and things haven’t changed all that much since — cars had entered the “boring” stage of sameness and utility on the outside, even if we didn’t yet have the bloated instrument panels that practically ride out over your lap and the sense that the steering-wheel is way out in front of you. But I like the fuel economy and NO AIR BAGS! still, I would have to get the correct tyres. And I would have to justify both the price and a trip to-and-from Arizona. But this was when Buick had a reputation for excellent and reliable vehicles. Good grocery-getter and church-goer for the 96-year-old retired school-teacher up the street.
My boss from my second job out of college wanted this exact car back in 1989. (The one she wanted may have had a landau top, though). She saw it at a now defunct Buick dealer in Huntington Long Island. But she didn’t like their attitude, and caught them in a couple of lies. So she refused to do business with them and went to another now defunct Buick dealer in nearby Nassau County, who tried to trade one of their cars for the one my boss wanted at the other dealership. But the first dealer apparently knew there wasn’t another car like that one anywhere else in the tri state area, so they wouldn’t let the car go. They must have also suspected that my boss was after the car through the other dealership, because they called her a couple of days later and tried to make nice. She would have none of it, however, and ended up buying another Skylark at the second dealership, this one being a burgundy 2 door Gran Sport version with the V6. Her husband talked her into buying it, but lived to regret it. She liked the acceleration and handling, but what she was really after was a soft riding mini limousine type of car, and the stiffer suspension of the Gran Sport version made for a much harsher ride than what she liked. Plus, there were problems with the car from day one. Water leaked into the back floorboard with every rainfall, and the dealer never could find out why. But worse still, the car would stall without warning seemingly out of the blue. One time at 60 mph on the parkway. Another time in the left hand turning lane into a shopping center on Hempstead Turnpike, on a day when it was pouring rain. Remember, there were no cell phones in those days, so she got slopping wet trying to cross 3 lanes of speeding traffic to get to a pay phone to call for a tow truck. And this continued to happen, always without warning. Very dangerous situation. After several attempts to fix the problem over a period of months, the dealership finally replaced the engine computer, which solved the problem. But it didn’t matter to her. She HATED the car, because of all the troubles, but couldn’t afford to take a beating on trading it in. So she continued driving it. Meanwhile, her former car, a 1983 Subaru station wagon she had sold to a friend of her son, was still traveling along merrily, with no problems, at well over a hundred thousand miles. (With no car payments, either, she made clear!) Finally, 5 or 6 years later, the Skylark’s head gasket blew, and it was just the excuse she needed to get rid of it. She GAVE it to her nephew, who had offered to buy it from her, but she said she couldn’t in good conscience take any money from him for a car she’d had so much trouble with. Last I heard, she had bought a 95 Nissan Quest minivan, and drove it for years afterwards with no problems. But not before she wrote a letter to the president of Buick division expressing her displeasure, and her intention to NEVER buy another American car.
I don’t remember if she ever got a response…