For 1970, GM had an A-body road burner for whatever your personality type happened to be. Straight-up, no frills and ready to kick ass? LS6 454 Chevelle. As wild and flashy as you wanted to be? GTO “The Judge” with the Ram Air IV mill. Splitting the difference between sporty and traditional, but don’t want to seem out of touch? Hello, 442 W-30. Like your muscle to be useful? Yeah, they did it: GMC Sprint SP. There was no Cadillac A-body, so you’d have to settle for an Eldorado (like we’d have to twist your arm, right?) but even Buick, the staple of the soft, comfy car crowd, was in on the action. It wasn’t a one-year thing, either…Buick had been cranking out the Gran Sport series of the Skylark for a few years at this point and had really made a name for themselves in 1970 with the GSX, a 510 ft/lb smackdown from the Dear Old Dad Brand, but it had one flaw. A minor one, but a flaw nonetheless. The GSX only came in two colors: Saturn Yellow and Apollo White. Eh…
It’s not like the regular Skylark GS was a step down. Buick’s A-body was subtle but well done, the interior was nice and dressy, the hoodscoops very clean, the spoiler purposeful. The 455 could be optioned in, so the rear tires would never have a chance. It wasn’t as monstrously outrageous as the Judge or as ballistic as the Chevelle, but the Buick wasn’t for the guy who was trying to race everyone in town. It was for the guy who waited for the smack-talker to actually follow through with his threat to race. Bring your Dodge, put your money down, and line ’em up. You had better hope that you do everything right, because if you didn’t, that tidal wave of torque is gonna drag your hide back to your burger joint parking space. And in the morning, it’ll just be another Buick. 
Making an analogy of this Skylark GS is difficult. I want to imagine a successful man in his fifties, well off, well-dressed and managing to hide the felonies of his youth very well. He can throw down, but only if you’re stupid enough to provoke him.
I tried to buy one of these as my first car back in ’78. Dad saw right trough that. Got a six cylinder Camaro instead.
one thing about buick families back in the day was the parents would buy an electra or riv for family use and then buy the wife a skylark/gs for in town use. a lot of times those in town cars were a gs350, gs455 or a gs stage1, naturally with an automatic. that’s why the buicks are around longer than the other cars. they weren’t abuse.