Car Of The Day: November 4, 2010

Today's car of the day is GreenLight's 1969 Buick GS 350.

The Buick Gran Sport or GS was a high-performance option package available on a number of Buick models, including the Riviera, Skylark, Century and Wildcat. A special version of one model was given the package's name as its model name.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Buick GS 350

A great realistic looking casting of what is a rather ungainly looking car.  All those polls that name the AMC Pacer as the ugliest car of all time have apparently never laid eyes on one of these.  This is one of those cars that looks like it was designed by a committee- in this case, I strongly doubt the person responsible for desigining the sides of the car was on speaking terms with the people responsible for the front and rear fascias.  Just to clarify- I'm not knocking the GreenLight casting- they made an awesome replica.  I am, however, knocking the real car.  Absolutely hideous in my opinion.

The 1965 Skylark Gran Sport was the intermediate Buick Skylark with the Gran Sport option added. Although a 300 cu in (4,916 cc) V8 was already offered in the Skylark, the Gran Sport had the largest engine permitted by GM - a 400 cu in (6,555 cc) Buick V8. This engine was actually 401 cu in (6,570 cc), but called a "400" by Buick because that was the maximum engine size limit set by General Motors for the intermediate body cars. This engine produced 325 hp (242 kW) and 445 ft·lbf (603 Nm) and was known as the "nailhead" engine. Buick sold more than 15,000 Skylarks with the Gran Sport option that first year, and almost as many the next. It was renamed the GS 400 in 1967, and the Gran Sport became its own model in (about) that same year along with a new "400" engine quite different from the notoriously reliable but growingly obsolete nailhead engine design that was first introduced in 1953. Sales fell somewhat in the face of increasingly higher-performance and more popular muscle cars from other marques when compared to those from the more stodgy and expensive Buick. Buick, however stepped it up a notch when introducing the Stage 1 option in 1969. This limited production (less than 1,500 cars in 1969) version delivered 340 hp (253 kW) and 440 ft·lbf (597 Nm).

The name Gran Sport replaced the GS moniker with the 1973 Gran Sport, and was again revived in the late eighties on the FWD Skylark model with various performance options added.

Among other variations, GreenLight has also released this car in GS 400 and GS California versions.