Maxim Vintage Car Shopper: 1967 Buick Skylark Sport Wagon
This is the car for cool dads.
The Year: 1967
The Model: Buick Skylark Custom Sport Wagon
The Drivetrain: A 340 cubic-inch V8 routed to the rear wheel through a two-speed (two!) automatic Super Turbine 300 transmission.
Favorite Five Points:
- This is a nine-passenger automobile. Nine-passenger.
- The Skyroof: it doesn’t open, but that huge expanse of glass lets light filter through into the huge cabin, and allows anyone relegated to the rearmost seat to get a decent view.
- Factory-correct Buick five-spoke mag wheels look great with whitewall tires and allow that, despite the big tush, this is a V8-powered rear-drive quasi-performance car.
- The length. As if the standard Buick Skylark wheelbase were somehow not long enough, the Sport Wagon was gifted five additional inches between the wheels for a staggering total of 120.
- Roll-up windows: cruising in this car through a warm climate would leave you with naught but tone in your forearms.
Quirks:
- A true family-minded performance addict would search out the big-barrel, 400 cubic-inch V8 for easier tail-swinging.
- The interior’s a little gothic for such an otherwise exuberant chunk of sixties Americana.
- AM radio is a pretty impoverished sound system these days.
Good Buy?
Yes. Pure yes. The car is in mint condition, the color is right, the wheels are perfect, and the only other way you’re going to get nine passengers in a vehicle is if it’s a 15-passenger van which, rightly or wrongly, are beyond uncool, edging towards institutional and murder-y. For the price of a new Honda Civic, you’ll have the hands-down best family mobile in the Montessori parking lot. [catch this swaggin’ wagon at http://www.hemmings.com/]
Photos by from Hemmings