{"id":39810,"date":"2023-01-07T12:03:41","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T17:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=39810"},"modified":"2023-01-07T12:03:41","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T17:03:41","slug":"junkyard-gem-1985-buick-skyhawk-coupe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=39810","title":{"rendered":"Junkyard Gem: 1985 Buick Skyhawk Custom Coupe"},"content":{"rendered":"

General Motors<\/a> began building cars<\/a> on the compact J Platform<\/a> in 1981, and J-based machinery stayed in production all the way through the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier<\/a> and Pontiac Sunfire<\/a>. The best-known of the J-cars in North America was always the Cavalier<\/a>, but The General’s Pontiac<\/a>, Oldsmobile<\/a>, Buick<\/a> and even Cadillac<\/a> divisions each sold their own Js here. The Buick version was the Skyhawk<\/a>, built for the 1982 through 1989 model years. Here’s a sporty ’85 Skyhawk coupe, found in a Northern California boneyard<\/a> recently.<\/p>\n

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The Custom trim level was the cheapest version of the Skyhawk in 1985, and the two door was the most affordable configuration (midgrade Skyhawks were Limiteds and the T-Type was at the top of the Skyhawk pyramid that year). The MSRP on this car started at $7,512 (about $21,220 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars), making it the least expensive new Buick offered for sale in the United States in 1985.<\/p>\n

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The Skyhawk name had been used on the Buick version<\/a> of the Chevrolet Monza<\/a> during the 1970s.<\/p>\n

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The Chevrolet-badged sibling of this car was much cheaper, with the list price of the base ’85 Cavalier<\/a> coupe set at $6,872 (around $19,410 today). There\u00a0were<\/em> cheaper new Chevrolets<\/a> that year, of course; a new Chevette<\/a> cost just $5,470, while the Isuzu-built Spectrum<\/a> was $6,295 and the Suzuki-built Sprint<\/a> a skinflinty $5,151.<\/p>\n

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The base engine in the Custom and Limited was this 2.0-liter SOHC straight-four rated at 86<\/a> horsepower. A turbocharged 1.8-liter version<\/a> with 150 horses was available for an extra 800 bucks ($2,260 now).<\/p>\n

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A four-on-the-floor manual transmission<\/a> was standard equipment in the 1985 Skyhawk, but the buyers of most of these cars insisted on automatics. The price for this one was $425 ($1,200 today). A five-speed manual cost just $75 ($210).<\/p>\n

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Velour-ish upholstery in Bordello Red<\/a> (Buick didn’t use that name) was all the rage during the 1980s and well into the 1990s. This car’s interior looks pretty nice, considering where it’s parked.<\/p>\n

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Community Buick GMC in Iowa<\/a> is still in business today.<\/p>\n

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The five-digit odometer means we can’t know how many miles were on this car at the end.<\/p>\n

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I brought a Chicago-made 1950s Pho-Tak Foldex 30 film camera<\/a> with me to the junkyard that day, as one does, and I photographed the Skyhawk on Kodak Portra 160 film.<\/p>\n\n

The irritatingly perky Skyhawk owners in this TV commercial appear to be about one-third the age of typical mid-1980s Buick shoppers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

General Motors began building cars on the compact J Platform in 1981, and J-based machinery stayed in production all the way through the 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier and Pontiac Sunfire. The best-known of the J-cars in North America was always the Cavalier, but The General’s Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and even Cadillac divisions each sold their own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}