Don’t confuse this 1965 Oldsmobile Starfire
with roly-poly land yachts like the Jetstar
88, Dynamic 88, or Ninety-Eight (each
of which could be equipped with the big
425 but lacked the muscular image of the
Starfire). Since its 1961 debut, the Starfire
was Oldsmobile’s answer to bucket-seated
bankers’ hot rods like the Chrysler 300 letter
series, Ford Thunderbird Sports Roadster,
Buick Riviera GS, and Pontiac 2+2 421.GROOVY FACTOIDS
- As the United States reeled during the 1973 energy crisis, Buick was in a
deep bind. They had nothing smaller than the 350 V8 to offer to small-engine
shoppers looking for maximum fuel economy. Buick’s chief engineer, Phil
Bowser, came up with the idea of reviving the old V6 program to solve the
problem. Bowser was playing golf in Florida when the idea hit him in 1973. To
get GM President Ed Cole on board with the idea, used Buick V6 engines
were purchased from junkyards, refreshed, then installed in Skylark test cars
for his evaluation. Cole liked what he saw, and by the summer of 1974, Buick
was back in the V6 business, this time for keeps. - After GM reacquired the V6 license and manufacturing equipment from
AMC in the summer of 1974, a priority task was designing an even-fire crank-
shaft to get rid of the rough behavior of the previous odd-fire configuration.
Along the way, displacement bumped from 225 to 231 to allow the V6 to use
the same 3.80-inch cylinder boring machinery then in place for making
Buick’s 350 V8. Waste not, want not. Further displacement juggling included
a 196-incher for base models and a 252-cuber for fullsize family sedans and
station wagons in need of torque. Neither of these was ever turbocharged
from the factory.
68 CAR CRAFT AUGUST 2019
T
oday, every time you see an SUV
in traffic, pretend it’s a fullsized
family sedan. That’s how popular
big cars used to be in the 1950–1985
time frame. They were everywhere,
and to make sure they appealed to
high-performance shoppers, many of
these fullsize models could be had with
two-door bodies, special trim, and big
engines as king-size muscle cars—even
in the smogged-out ’70s.
In this edition of Junkyard Crawl, let’s
explore a pair of king-size GM muscle
cars, with a twist. One—the 1965 Olds
Starfire—was born during the open-
ing years of the supercar ’60s, when
zero concern was paid to the smog
factor, as its fascinating exhaust sys-
tem proves. The other—a 1979 Buick
LeSabre Sport Coupe Turbo—had the
misfortune of being hatched into aTwice Pipes and Turbos: GM Sells Fullsize Muscle
By Steve Magnante / Photos: Steve Magnante
JUNKYARD CRAWL
world of supercar shame and emis-
sions ennui. It’s specially engineered
large-diameter exhaust system had to
get its job done via a single tailpipe,
and without so much as a chromed tip
to call unwanted attention to the dirty
little matter of emissions.So while this pair of jumbo-sized GM
muscle movers might be separated by
15 years, their presence validates the
fact that upmarket muscle was part
of the overall recipe. Ignoring these
big brutes would be a crime. Let’s stay
innocent.