Buick came out with its hot Gran Sport package for 1965 as its first foray into the exploding muscle car segment. Ironically, Oleg Shmuylovskiy wound up with a ’65 GS because he wanted something civil and subdued.
One man’s muscle machine is sometimes another man’s family cruiser — perhaps that was part of the secret to the Skylark Gran Sport’s success. It could fill many roles well, and was a darn nice car no matter how you sliced it.
Shmuylovskiy, a resident of Round Lake, Ill., found that out after he had to get rid of his 1967 Chevelle because his wife wasn’t fond of its personality and manners. “She stopped coming for rides in it with me, and she got kind of quiet it about it,” Shmuylovskiy says. “I said, ‘What’s wrong, you don’t like the car anymore?’ She said, ‘Well it’s loud, it’s fast and it’s a stick shift.’ And I said, ‘What does that have to do with it?’ She said watching me shift all the time was freaking her out and she didn’t like it.
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