I'm going to talk about the Buick stage cars a bit here, now Buick had a reputation as a company that built cars for doctors and business men, or low performance dull cars that could not hang with the big boys in the muscle car era, but this couldn't be farther from the truth, the GSX stage car were nothing to laugh at, even though it happened a lot, until you raced one of these things.



Buick was every bit the muscle car that any other manufacture was, and you could learn this very quickly if you didn't already know about it, these cars were designed to be sleepers, and Buick did a good job of what they set out to do, which was to build a muscle car that could compete with the big boys, these car beat Buick's wildest dreams in that respect.

Their were three stages of these cars, which Buick had taken a Skylark and beefed it up, the stage 1 car was where this all started, Buick had taken a Skylark and added a 455 CID engine to the mix, and the camed it up, the Stage 1 setup added the bigger cam and ram air induction in the hood, and could also have a tach in the hood, now the Stage 1 had 360hp@4600 rpm and a whopping 510 FTLF of torque @ 2800 remand if you still don't think this is muscle then go ahead and compare it to you favorite car from that year.

The stage 1 option would also upgrade the heads, from the standard Buick big block head to an all new stage 1 head, which basically meant that you got larger valves, and tougher valve springs, the carburetor was also 1/18 larger on the stage models then a regular production car, with the stage 1 option you could get an upgrade to a 4-speed standard transmission, and you had added option for your rear end gear ratios.

These included 3.08:1, and 3.42:1, also positraction, front disk brakes, heavy duty front and rear sway bars, and rear control arms and bushings, firm ride rear springs and GSX ornamentation. The hood-mounted tach was specific to the GSX model, and the four-speed transmission came with a Hurst shifter of course.

The car also carried a special graphics package, with hood stripes and side panel stripes, for 1970 there were only two exterior colors produced, Saturn yellow and Apollo white, Buick built 491 of the Saturn yellow cars and 187 of the Apollo white cars. Other special features were: distinctive padded steering wheel, a trunk tension bar designed to support the rear spoiler, and a baffle incorporated in to the rear spoiler.

Of the 678 cars manufactured, 278 had the standard 455-cid engine-cid 315 HP engine, and 400 had the 345 HP Stage 1 option. All of the cars for 1970 were built between February and May of 1970.