I’m not really sure what’s going on when it comes to Switzerland and cars, but there’s something happening there. Something weird. And, for the most part, I applaud this earnestly and enthusiastically. For example, if you can find a better six-wheel drive falconry car than a Swiss Sbarro Windhawk then by all means, buy it, with all your bigshot falconer money. But you won’t, because the Swiss built the best one there is. But the Swiss also seemed to have another strange automotive fixation, namely taking mainstream American cars and re-making them into peculiar sorta-luxury versions that, as far as I can tell, no human ever asked for, ever. That’s the kind of Swiss car I want to talk about today, and it’s called the Felber Pasha.
W.H. Felber Automobiles SA started in the 1960s as a dealer for fancy cars like Rolls-Royces and Ferraris, but got into the customized car business in the 1970s. Like the other famous Swiss weird-ass car maker, Monteverdi, Felber took other mass-produced cars and modified them, using cars as varied as Ferraris and Lancias and International Scouts and Pontiac Firebirds and the one I want to focus on now, the Buick Skylark.
Yes, the Skylark! But before you get your hopes up, not any of the cool Skylarks: this was the X-body front-wheel drive Skylark, the fifth-gen one from 1980 to 1985 — cars that you haven’t seen on the road in decades because, let’s be honest here, no one really gives a shit about preserving them. Because they, charitably, kinda sucked.
Here, let’s let the magic of Magic Johnson and some jockey remind you about this era of ‘Lark:
I’m sorry, that’s not just some jockey; that’s Willie Shoemaker, one of the greatest jockeys ever, but I suspect more people know about Magic Johnson. That’s just another example of the media’s anti-horse bias, but this article isn’t the place for that. Let’s get some more time with the X-body Skylark via this dealer training video:
I think the takeaway here is that the Skylark was, above all things, a pretty boring car. I remember these quite well from when I was growing up; my family even test drove one back in 1980 and I think found it pretty soporific. They weren’t particularly great at anything: boring looks, comfortable ride but not exactly engaging to drive, just okay fuel economy — really nothing to write home about.
I’m disparaging the otherwise nearly-forgotten X-body Skylark to such a degree because I think understanding the base car used for the Felber Pasha is important to understanding what this car was. And what this car was is just baffling.
What we have here is essentially a stock Skylark with some body modifications, especially to the front end. The entire front fascia is gone, replaced with a full-width black grille and with another grille placed centrally atop that, a shield-shaped grille that seems to have been Felber’s big visual trademark. The grille also came with a central hood lump that seems to have just been stuck atop the original hood, because I’m pretty sure Felber wasn’t stamping new body panels.
The headlights I think are especially odd, but I think I know what the re-designers were going for here. They’re Euro-style rectangular units, larger than the rectangular sealed beams the original Skylark face used, but what makes these especially odd are the strange trivet-like tripod things that sit over the headlights. I think what the designers were trying to do here is reference headlight designs from classic cars, specifically the Lucas P700 headlight, which featured a tripod-like metal structure inside that was used to hold a reflector to shine more light on the road:
This feels like what Felber was going for, as the whole car is a sort of half-assed slapping-upon of details more associated with classic cars onto the bland rectilinearity of a 1980s GM design, and the result is as ungainly as you might expect.
Around the back, we’re greeted with similar feats of phoning it in:
All that looks to be changed is some sort of extra stamped metal panel applied to the trunk lid, with some little louvers stamped into it that allowed air either into or to escape from, what, the inch or so of space between the stuck-on bit and the original trunk? Or was this just a clever way to let water get in there?
Literature about the Pasha suggests that there were a lot of luxury upgrades, but the pictures I’ve seen just don’t look all that different than any other Skylark of the era, really. You got a different steering wheel and I think a center console with an additional audio head unit, like an equalizer or something, and, well, that’s about all I can tell?
They made 35 Pashas, and this is one of those cases where I feel like the production numbers vastly overestimated the target market for these cars, which was composed of who, exactly? Who were these cars for? Who was out there hoping for an ever-so-slightly more luxurious Buick Skylark that drove the exact same but weighed just a bit more and had a much more weird-looking front end?
Were there such people? Were there people who would have bought a Skylark, but it was too cheap and the front didn’t resemble an owl enough for them? And were these people Swiss?
I’m absolutely baffled by the Felber Pasha. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered a car with so little reason for existing as this one. I guess nobody at Felber had to approve pitches? You could just get some idea and run with it, no questions asked? Because this is not a car that could have withstood even that shortest and most basic of questions: why?
I do, however, consider one of these a Glorious Garbage representative, because even though the car is quite definitely garbage, the rareness and madness and just wild improbability of its very existence grants it some degree of glory. I mean, I know I’d wet my pants with glee if I ever saw one in person.
The Original Scout Had Some Really Half-Assed Special Editions: Glorious Garbage
Porsche Once Tried To Celebrate Its Racing Victories With Their Slowest Car. It Shared An Engine With The AMC Gremlin: Glorious Garbage
I Can’t Decide If This Jaguar V6 Made By Blanking Off Two Cylinders From A V8 Is Genius Or Just Lazy
oh, come on. This is clearly an EUDM pimp mobile, the headlights tripods are a dead giveaway. Superfly for the old-continentaly minded.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/5f/f4/dd/5ff4dd9e3dff31beddce38e00a2a989b.jpg
Ok, so I’m not good enough with numbers and not criminally savvy in finance, but this had to be some kind of money laundering scheme of some sort.
This thing looks honestly worse than anything else I’ve ever seen marketed!
I want to meet the 35 people who bought these new. That HAS to be an extremely “interesting” group.
I would not be surprised at all if they hand beat new hood and trunk lids for these things. No big deal in small numbers like this.
I did a number of high school shenanigans with a buddy of mine in the football-shaped Pontiac version of this car (known due to shape and metallic purpleish-brown color as “the Dungmobile”. With a 4spd stick no less. Amusing feature of these cars with a stick – the rev limiter *shuts off the engine*. And of course, there was no tach. Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeev – nothing. Coast to a stop shitting twinkies that we blew his dad’s car up. Started right up like nothing. Completely repeatable. Fun!
You can’t improve upon perfection; ergo, the X car was perfection.
I would prefer a Felber Rubis (Autobianchi A112 with opera windows and those metal curlicues on the vinyl roof) – but I have loved the Pasha since I first saw it when I was like four. I sorta learned to read via old issues of Automobil Katalog, and the Swiss section was like heaven to me.
This looks like something Clark Griswold would drive if they had made a Vacation 2.
My parents had the Omega version of these, purchased as part of a three car bundle for $700 in 1994 or something like that. My Mom came home from running erands and asked me to look at it, because “I think it’s runing hot.”
I pooped the hood and was greeted to a softball sized hole on the side of the engine block and a piston hanging out. I was schoicked she got it into the driveway.
The second vehicle was a Chevy Truck that I never figured out what year it was, I don’t even recall the third car.
I mean, I have to imagine from the interior photo that the burled wood dash trim, steering wheel, and gauges are new/custom? Which is…neat. I guess.
Burled wood dash (which is actually plastic) and gauges were standard for the high-end Skylark, IIRC.
I remember one of these in my neighborhood getting rear-ended and being turned into sort of an El Camino-ish thing.
My father-in-law bought one of these in 1980.
2 options.
V6 and A/C….and poverty caps.
It was actually pretty damn quick for 1980…..
Power walking was pretty damn fast for 1980.
Regarding the shape of the hood, I’m thinking these might’ve been delivered to Felber with (or alongside a shipment of) Citation or perhaps Omega hoods, the styling details of which would fit under that schnozz-cap.