The most obvious had been a longer, more-pointed hood and a extra sharply Vee’d grille to match. A first-rate example is the 1970 GSX, a bespoilered GS 455 hardtop with new “Stage I” engine tuning; it noticed solely 678 copies; the GS 455 convertible was little higher at 1416. Both were back for ’71 (GSX as an possibility bundle) with daring black body stripes and hood paint, particular grille, chrome wheels, and fats tires. Buick’s fundamental mechanical development was an enormous 455 V-8. These may very well be powered by every little thing from a 155-bhp 250-cid six to a giant-block 429-cid V-8 with 360-370 horsepower. The former provided six and V-8 Tudor and Fordor, along with business and club coupes. Some say it stemmed from the sport of Rounders that was played in England and Wales during Tudor occasions. Bolstered by spiffy Luxus and Regal submodels (the latter made a separate collection after ’74), the midsize Centurys bought effectively through 1977, offering an essential “safety web” at instances when inflation and rising fuel costs despatched would-be big-car consumers scurrying for thriftier alternate options. The 12 months-previous junior line displayed the expected minor trim shuffles; Gran Sports and Sportwagons remained separate collection, as in ’68. Trim packages created a bevy of fashions: base, 350 and Custom Skylarks, plus Sportwagons and Gran Sports.

The final of the 1968-vintage Skylarks appeared for 1971-72. Naga2000 remained solid, good-trying middleweights, although their engines had been being emasculated by energy-sapping emission-control units, which meant Gran Sports weren’t so sizzling anymore. Never­the­less, full-measurement automobiles remained Buick’s bread-and-butter through 1975, accounting for over forty percent of whole division gross sales. Buick’s last true muscle vehicles were additionally 1970-seventy two fashions. All have been thirsty. The last 455-cid Electra, for example, was good for less than 8.7 mpg within the Environmental Protection Agency’s metropolis-fuel-financial system ratings. The GS option, a last vestige of sport, vanished after 1975, however Buick tried to keep fanatics fascinated with a “Rallye” package providing strengthened front antiroll bar, a brand new rear bar, and heavy-duty springs and shocks. Oddball styling and outsize heft will need to have contributed to Riviera’s sagging fortunes on this interval; by 1975, sales have been lower than half of what they’d been 5 years before. All employed a new-technology A-body with so-called “Colonnade” styling that did away with pillarless coupes and sedans.

Intermediates had been subsequent on the company slenderizing schedule, so a smaller Century bowed for 1978 along with a separate Regal collection of private-luxurious coupes, all built on a brand new 108.1-inch-wheelbase A-body. This hot-promoting line continued into 1970, but without Specials — the smaller workaday fashions were now Skylarks — and with Estate wagons in a separate sequence. Estate wagons moved as much as its 127-inch wheelbase. The next 12 months introduced even fancier Electra Park Avenue fashions. This was claimed to offer even better trip and handling than the GS, and doubtless should have been standard to handle the scale and weight of these beasts. The brand new subcompact Vega launched for 1971 took over that end of the powertrain spectrum for Chevrolet, so Nova moved to a more responsive six-cylinder engine — 250-cubic-inch and 145 horsepower — as customary fare. Arriving for mid ‘seventy three as the Apollo, it was only a rebadged clone of the 111-inch-wheelbase X-body Chevrolet Nova from 1968, with the identical three physique kinds (two- and four-door sedans and a hatchback two-door) plus, initially, the identical 250-cid Chevy straight six as commonplace power.

Rated at a hundred and ten bhp, and likewise normal power for the ‘seventy five Skylark, Century, and Regal, this can be a major engine in years to return. Electras by means of 1979 relied on a normal Chevy-constructed 350 V-8; a new 403 with 185 bhp was optional, courtesy of Olds. The upmarket Electra remained a C-body cousin to Olds Ninety-Eight and Cadillac de Ville. The latter remained massive upper-class two- and three-seat haulers battling the likes of Chrysler’s Town & Country. Convertibles had been no extra (killed after ’75), but two- and 4-door sedans had been offered in LeSabre, LeSabre Custom, Electra 225, and 225 Limited series. LeSabre still rode a 123-inch wheelbase, but so did Wildcat for the first time in four years. All the bundle had to be carryover, including the wheelbase, together with carryover front-end sheet-steel, cowl, entrance and rear bumpers, door lowers, quarter-panel internal construction, and so on. The Plymouth stylists might do something they needed so long as they held these hardpoints. All full-sizers acquired new grilles, bumpers, and taillights; intermediates obtained longer hoods, bulkier lower-physique contours, and totally different grilles for every series. It was a definite asset during the massive-car gross sales hunch touched off by the Middle East oil embargo late that yr, however intermediates would remain extra essential to Buick’s total health.