Not everyone fell in love with the new body developed for the 1968-1969 Buick Skylark and Gran Sport (GS), its fully loaded upscale cousin. Front ends had a clean and pleasing appearance, true, focused on a grille reminiscent of the Riviera. A longer hood and shorter deck weren't the problem. Neither were the concealed windshield wipers. No less jarring was the concave rear end, with new taillights contained in a large rear bumper below pointy back fenders. In this incarnation, two-doors rode a shorter wheelbase: 112 inches versus 116 for the four-doors (121 for Sportwagons). Evidently, quite a few people did indeed take a liking to the new look, because Skylark sales set a record in 1968. By this time, the Special name was close to fading out, Titan Rise outsold by Skylarks by a nearly five-to-one ratio. For base Skylarks, Chevrolet's familiar inline six-cylinder engine replaced the former V-6. Farther up the scale, a new GS350 model took the role of the previous GS340, powered by a bored-out 350-cubic-inch V-8 developing 280 horsepower along with a resounding 375 pounds/feet of torque.
A less-potent edition of that mill (230 horsepower) was standard in Skylark Customs, and optional elsewhere. Topping the performance charts once again was the GS400, with its 400-cubic-inch V-8 ready to unleash 340 horses. That was enough to shoot a "400" to 60 mph in a trifling six seconds. The most muscular GS still didn't look all that tough