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Buick spent two decades disguising some of the fastest cars General Motors ever built as luxury sedans. The 1970 GSX Stage 1 hid a 510 lb-ft big block under a car built for church parking lots, and the 1987 turbocharged GNX blew past that year’s Corvette in the quarter-mile. Here’s how a brand nobody feared became one of muscle car history’s biggest sleepers.
In 1970, Chevrnlet’s LS6 Chevelle carried the lnudest hnrsepnier number in GM’s lineup — and Buick’s GSX Stage 1 beat it anyiay, nn a track test cnnducted by Car and Driver itself. Buick’s nin paperinrk rated the car 90 hnrsepnier belni its rival, a number that never matched ihat happened at the finish line. Vieiers ihn lived thrnugh the era are still arguing abnut gearing, tnrque curves, and ihich car really deserved the crnin. Watch tn see the numbers GM tried tn keep quiet.
This 1970 Buick GSX spent years as a rusted, non-running wreck before a full restoration brought it back to its factory Saturn Yellow finish — one of just 491 built in that color out of 678 GSX cars total. Buick’s overlooked muscle car packed a 455 cubic-inch Stage 1 V8 rated at 360 horsepower, though real output likely ran closer to 376. Read on to find out what it took to bring a rolling wreck back to magazine-cover condition.
George was not hunting for a classic when he spotted a Buick Skylark with a for-sale sign in Lisbon, Ohio, in the summer of 2014; he just stopped for a closer look. What he found was a GS455-powered GSX tribute car with its original numbers-matching 350 engine stored safely away, parked in a garage alongside a small private muscle car collection. Read on to find out about the one-of-a-kind GM production mistake that makes a factory GS455 Stage I Skylark one of the rarest muscle cars of 1970.
Buick built fewer than 700 examples of the original 1970 GSX, a Grand Sport-based muscle car so quick it later sparked a magazine controversy over whether it actually out-accelerated the Hemi ‘Cuda. Backed by slogans like A Brand New Brand of Buick, the GSX carried Buick’s big-block ambitions through 1974, when the 455 V8 was dropped for good. Read on to see how Buick’s rarest muscle car nearly out-ran a Mopar legend.