Learn all about Buick’s great leap forward, the 1980 Skylark, in this original General Motors dealer film.

Not to belabor the obvious, but the 1980 Skylark was a critical product for the Buick Motor Division. Based on the General Motors X-body platform shared with the Chevrolet Citation, Pontiac Phoenix, and Oldsmobile Omega, the Skylark was the first Buick to use the transverse-engine, front wheel-drive configuration, a setup that was rapidly becoming commonplace in sedans around the world. By global industry standards, the X platform could hardly be called revolutionary. After all, BMC had pioneered the layout back in 1959 with the original Austin Mini. But for General Motors, it was a leap into unfamiliar territory. Except for the Skylark name, which was first used on a limited-production luxury convertible in 1953, nearly everything on the car was new and untested.

As the dealer film below explains in complete detail, the Skylark was offered in two body styles and three trim levels. And while it used the same mechanical hardware as the rest of the GM X-family, including engines and drivetrain, the Buick version used better quality interior fabrics and plastics to avoid the cheap-ish look and feel of its lower-priced siblings, especially the Citation. (See our feature on the Chevy Citation here.) Nevertheless, the Skylark was plagued by the same mechanical issues and seemingly endless recalls as the rest of the X-cars.

In retrospect, the 1980-85 GM X-cars did not enjoy a great reputation, Skylark included. But it’s fair to add that the A-body intermediate cars (Buick Century, Pontiac 6000, etc) that followed in 1982 were closely based on the X-body hardware, and they enjoyed a long and successful production run through 1996. Anyway, here’s the 1980 Buick Skylark story.