In 1973, Buick made its re-entry to the Detroit compact class with the Apollo, a restyled and upgraded version of the Chevrolet Nova.
Buick’s first entry into the Detroit compact class in 1961 was an ambitious project with a new General Motors platform, an advanced aluminum V8, and a unique automatic transmission. For the division’s re-entry to the category in 1973, Buick took a far more modest approach.
The Apollo, all too obviously, was a mildly disguised Chevrolet Nova with an upgraded interior, a facelift, and a few more standard features. The name, we may assume, was suggested to the product planners by the NASA Apollo program in which 12 Americans walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972.
Same as the Chevy Nova, the Apollo was offered in three basic body styles: two-door Coupe, two-door Hatchback Coupe, and four-door Sedan, above. The base engine was a 250 cubic-inch Chevy inline six, but the optional V8 was a genuine Buick product with 350 cubic inches, a two-barrel carburetor, and 150 SAE net horsepower. The base price for a two-door, six-cylinder Coupe was $2,628, around 300 bucks more than its Nova sibling.
For the extra cash, Apollo buyers did recevieve a nicer interior with finer fabrics and nylon carpeting on the floors. But while the front-end styling nicely duplicated the look of the Buick Century and LeSabre, there was no disguising the Apollo’s Nova X-body origins. The Hatchback Coupe was actively promoted and it narrowly outsold the standard Coupe in the first year, but its volume quickly trailed off. The Coupe was usually the Apollo’s sales leader, outselling the Sedan by a comfortable margin.
For 1975, Buick gave its X-body compact a makeover with revised styling and a reshuffling of the model lineup. The four-door was still called the Apollo, but for the two-doors the Skylark name was revived. The Buick V6 was now back in production at GM and standard in the Skylark, while the Apollo continued to use the Chevy straight six. The optional V8 for both was now a 260 CID Oldsmobile-sourced powerplant with 110 hp. For 1976, the four-door Sedan also took the Skylark name, and that was the end of Buick’s Apollo program.
The four variants of the Nova were named Nova, Omega, Ventura, and Apollo. As many noticed, the initial letters spelled NOVA, a message from GM of what all four really were.
As if we couldn’t tell
It’s a neat coincidence but it’s doubtful there was any intention on GM’s part. They did their best to differentiate the four X-bodies.
Those were some decent cars for what they were, rebadged Chevys. My Grandma bought a hatchback coupe to replace her beloved 67 Nova that got totaled, it was never as good a car as the 67 was. It was only a couple of years old when she got it, and rust had already set in, unusual for a southern car. By the time she sold it a couple of years later, the back glass was about to fall out because the hatch was eaten away. Hers had the small V8, but I don’t remember much more than that.
I’d love to see and hear a deep dive into the 1973 facelift. Why did they bother spending so much money on so little improvement on the rear side window profile of the 4-door, making it resemble the just-superceded ’68-72 A body?
How did the Nova end up with those filler panels either side of the grille and why couldn’t those spaces be used for sidemarker lights? As an aside, in Mexico and possibly other markets where Chevrolet was the only active GM brand the ’73-74 Nova used the Skylark front seen here.
’75 was yet another reskin. This time they got the 4-door right with a Hofmeister kink but decontented away the opening rear quarter windows on 2-doors.