(first posted 2/5/2016) Another vintage review is up, this time of possibly the best Muscle Car of the Eighties.
This is also from R&T’s 40th anniversary issue from 1987. And think back to previous issues I posted here, published during the Malaise era- who could’ve dreamed such cars would be available once more?
Still one of my all time favourites. I’ve spent countless hours starting at them in car shows.
This made my Friday. Still an awesome car. For some reason I’ve always liked this era of G-Body, especially the later refreshes, and the Regal the best out of all of them.
Grand NASTY.
I’ve seen enthusiast t-shirts with the slogan “BUICK – Go Fast with Class!” I would have loved to see that as a Buick slogan and mantra.
I love these cars. Now I’m gonna have Judas Priest’s “Turbo Lover” stuck in my head all day…
I like them so much I have an HO scale one for my train layout. Not bad for the second fastest 80’s car.
The 245 hp was a GM lie to keep it under Corvette specs. Stock they made 300 hp in the GN version. C/D got theirs 0-60 in 4.9 seconds. Ignorant people disparage these things because they claim these cars didn’t handle well, but for a chassis that dated back to 1978, and some good shocks and springs and a few upgrades, they can be made to handle decently. Oddly, although the GN FAR outperformed the Monte Carlo SS and was fuel injected to boot, the GN didn’t sell anywhere close to what the Monte Carlo did until GM announced it was to be discontinued, at which point demand skyrocketed and they built them into ’88 as ’87 models.
Up to 84 they were carbed, which did not work well, the 84 and 85 were fuel injected, which did work well, and then the 86/87 added the intercooler and relocated the turbo which gave it a whole nother level of performance.
There’s not a whole lot you could get until about 2008ish which had a back seat, a trunk, and idiotic levels of horsepower and daily usability. Nowadays of course a V6 camcord has 300 odd horsepower, but meh.
I love my GN. The X adds a whole lot of X pense without really adding that much horsepower, and last I checked, they went for about 90k, at which point, I would be afraid to drive and enjoy it.
“C/D got theirs 0-60 in 4.9 seconds”
Pffft!
That was bone stock, no 4wd, no traction control, and crap tires.
Take it to a real drag strip and put some real tires on it and you will get it a half second quicker without any mods.
Look at how flaccid the per production W-body regal looks at the end, talk about bookends. Or more accurately the Buick everyone in the new commercials expects
+1!
I love all of these later G-Body cars.
As a boy growing up in Germany I never made it to spot a Grand National, Grand Prix 2+2 or a Olds Cutlass 442, but the Monte Carlo SS was very popular among the American soldiers stationed at nearby military installations in Nuremberg, Fürth, Erlangen or Bamberg, so at least I saw some of these.
I haven`t seen a GNX in the flesh yet, but on a family-vacation to the USA in 2008 at least I finally saw a Grand National.
On the evening we arrived in Charlotte/NC we drove our Trailblazer rental to a Wallmart and on the parkinglot I spottet a Grand National.
I parked the Trailblazer and showed the Grand National to my wife and kids, explaining that it had taken me more than 20 years before finally seeing one.
It was a special moment for me, but my wife was more interested in entering the Wallmart, because this didn`t seem to be the best part of town and it was getting dark.
Haven`t made it to visit the USA again yet, but maybe next year….
Also, the best looking factory wheels of the decade.
Always was a big fan of the Grand National and GNX, one of the cars from the 80s I would genuinely love to own that can be acquired (For now at least)
Funny story, my dad had a guy in his car club who said that he had an 87 Grand National that he needed to sell and he would give it to my dad for 16k. My dad thought about me for a second since I was still looking for a new car and he turned the guy down when it came to the GN. Good choice if I must say since while a Grand National would be an awesome first car, I would’ve wrapped that thing around a lamppost pretty damn quick.
These still remain somewhat mystical to me as I have never seen on in person and they didn’t really have any direct competition so comparisons weren’t often done.
I do not understand how a person can drive on American roads for the last 30 years and NEVER see a Grand National. They are pretty hard to miss. In the 80s I would see one on the road at least once a month.
They really disappeared in the last 10 years since they’ve become so collectible, as the auction prices of GNXs in are INSANE, the GN and Turbo T types are riding that wave, so private collectors are hoarding them or putting them in museums, even shunning cruise nights(the more valuable Muscle car era cars are the same). I remember them most commonly as a kid in the mid 90s, and that was a once in a while occurrence, and fairly easy to miss when there were still tons upon tons of tired G-body Regals on the road. GNs didn’t really stand out until jellybean styled cars hit cheap car/beater status by the 00s
GNs stood out like like a 60s vintage Mustang fastback or a primered Nova with traction bars.
GNX is what I was talking about.
Never seen one, the engine turned up over here in a Commodore but they hardly set the world on fire the standard V6 would top out at 230 kmh once broken in and we still had rear drive V8s for real fun off the line, nice car I guess but RWD V8 cars are only now just starting to be withdrawn from the local market if you really want one.
“Another vintage review is up, this time of possibly the best Muscle Car of the Eighties.”
Possibly??
there was no “possibly” about it
The fuel injected intercooled turbo Grand National was the best straight line accelerating car you could buy. PERIOD. Then there were aftermarket upgrades for it making it even faster.
Agreed, I struggle to think of any other car I’d even christen as a Muscle car in the 80s besides the LX 5.0 Mustang
There were a few others with the muscle car image but with less muscle car ability.
Plymouth Volare Duster
Ford Fairmont Futura (with the factory fake hoodscoop)
Chevrolet El Camino
Chevy Malibu 2door
chevy monte carlo
hurst olds
That’s all I can think of.
Thunderbird Turbo Coupe.
The Mustang was prolly the best pony car of the 80’s. Muscle car has to be the GN. Not awarding the best sports car to the early C4 Corvette. Not when there was the Rx7, P 944, and Toyo Supra that were more resolved than the Vette was at that time.
IF Darth Vader owned a car; this would be it.
We had an 86 T-Type in Dark Red Metallic and loved it. Bought it brand-new from Qua Buick kept it until 2000 when it was stolen and trashed. Like others have said, it didn’t take much to really jazz these cars up. The only option that I wished I had gotten that the car did not have was T-Tops. That was the last truly old-fashioned muscle car made by GM.
This is why I still have my 82 regal, and have for 24 years. It’s one of the best looking cars GM made in the era.
The neat thing about GM as Generic Motors, I’ve been able to source braces brackets and sway bars off of other cars in the junk yard to put together a car that handles well and has a stiffer body.
Some day I’ll be able to afford a good crate motor,I hope that they’ll have a turbo 6 of some sort available then.
I have May 86 issue of Hot Rod that said the GN beats the 1986 Vette. Another article is about a 84 crossfire Vette that had some mods. You’d be surprised at the 1/4s.
86 GN 14.30 @ 98.4.
84 Vette 14.15 @ 95.53. It had larger throttle bodies & headers. They did no porting to the intake, which is where the real power is gained.
Just possibly my favorite car of the 80’s, definitely top 5. What a great way to send off the G-body.
What a weird place GM was in the 80s! “We’ve made a car that’s faster and has more HP than the car that’s supposed to be our ‘best’ car, so we better lie about it and say it’s slower and less powerful”.
We’re these REALLY used by the FBI, as stated near the end of the article? The “muscle car as undercover police car” seems mostly mythical, especially since 5.0 Mustang patrol cars were very common by 1987. Though I did see a Ford Raptor last week a few miles from the Mexican border, in full Border Patrol livery.
I don’t know how accurate that specific claim is(I’m quite skeptical) but that’s definitely not mythical. I saw first hand unmarked Marauders in Florida going down to spring break in the mid-late 2000s
A fantastic car that used the same body as a 1978 Regal your grandparents drove a decade earlier. It was such a strange styling combination that GM felt a need to produce the SS Aero coupe for Chevrolet and the Grand Prix 2+2 coupe for Pontiac.
Kudos to Buick for making it work.
The Aerocoupe wasn’t styling…it was a ringer for NASCAR.