When GM made the decision to kill or sell half of its brands, many were shocked when Buick wasn’t put on the chopping block. This entry-level luxury brand has strayed far from its roots as a once-bold and aggressive car company. Among the many muscle car offerings from Buick was the Skylark, available with the once-legendary Nailhead V8 engines.
While we doubt the Skylark will be coming back anytime soon, we did stumble across a ’66 Skylark with a turbocharged 401 Nailhead V8 on Pro-Touring.com. Hearing that old Buick motor purr brings back some good memories.
It’s not often that you stumble across a classic turbocharged Buick, though back in the day Buick racers were known for adding superchargers to help overcome the smaller valves of the Nailhead engines. This particular car is owned by Paul Estrella, or “66larkgs,” from the Bay State, and he has owned this Buick since age 14 (though just recently got around to restoring it).
Among the many improvements and restorations is a rear-mount T67 turbocharger mounted to the cleaned-up 401 Nailhead. This old engine combined with the modern rear-mount turbo makes for a brutal one-two punch, and it sounds absolutely awesome (as the video above shows.) According to Paul this is a setup Buick experimented with back in the day, but never went through with.
Being that this is Pro-Touring.com though, there is more than just a fancy engine under the hood. QA1 coilovers, C5 Corvette brakes, tubular control arms, swaybars, a QuickPerformance Ford 9” rear end and many other parts all help bring this muscle car’s archaic suspension into the 21st century. While there’s still plenty of work left to do (including a paintjob) we’re glad to see that a new generation of muscle car fans are taking it upon themselves to leave their own mark on an American classic. Want more pictures? Check out Paul’s photo album and drool over this cool project car.