GRAND COLLECTIBLE
’80s muscle on display in Langley
A row of Buick T-Type cars and the black Buick Regal Grand National models at the Langley Good Times Cruise-In car show in September brought back memories of my encounter with the famed Buick turbo cars of the 1980s.
I was proud of the new red Corvette convertible I bought in 1987. That was until I drove a turbo Buick through a unique coincidence. A co-worker had just bought a new Buick Grand National.
“It’s a turbo,” he said casually as we parked side-by-side one morning. “Oh, really,” I said with a dismissive tone, knowing there was just a V-6 engine under his hood. “It’s really fast,” he continued.
I had a V-8-powered Corvette so there was no need to prove anything. But I was intrigued. So I suggested we take each other’s cars home that night.
Holy smoke! This wasn’t his father’s Buick. I had no idea how fast this car would be. Put the pedal down and the tires went up in smoke.
Obviously, I hadn’t been paying attention to the amazing Turbo Buicks. The 245-horsepower Grand National was the fastest car built by General Motors in 1987 with five more horsepower than my ’Vette. And the T-Type Buick Regal models that accompanied the Grand National from 1982 on were said to be even faster.
Famed racer Richard Petty won the NASCAR Grand National racing series title in a Buick Regal. Thus, the most powerful Buick Regals that followed bore the Grand National nameplate. They were superfast.
You don’t have to tell this to Shaun McCracken of the Buick Grand National Racing Association Car Club, a group of owners who celebrate and preserve the legend of the turbo Buicks.
McCracken is known as the local Grand National Doctor. He says you can double the horsepower in one of these turbo V-6-engined cars with only external bolt-on modifications. As a GN owner and a mechanic, he has learned how to fix and maintain these classic Buicks.
McCracken bought his first Buick Grand National in 1991 for his wife. “It needed a lot of work but the price was right,” he says.
His wife lost interest in driving it, according to McCracken, “because it was too loud and everyone wanted to race her.”
So he turned his Grand National into a 450-horsepower, street legal drag race car that can travel a quarter of a mile from a standing start in just over 12 seconds.
Dennis Hogan makes the trek north from Seattle to attend the monthly club meetings at a Langley car dealership. He bought his 1987 Turbo T new from Huling Brothers Buick and has been hammering the racetracks ever since. An avid racer, Hogan has modified the 3.8-litre SFI turbocharged V-6 to produce way more power, and over the years has achieved a balance between street manners and racetrack performance. His 600 horsepower Buick street car is still quicker than most new but heavier muscle cars. His other “fast Buick” street legal car is even quicker at the racetrack.
Bob Smith is also an original owner. In 1984, he convinced his employer to allow him to buy a Buick as a company car. It would be a fully optioned T-Type Regal, including the rare electric sunroof and that amazing turbocharged V-6 engine. After years of daily driving to work, he took the badly rusted Buick off the road in 2005 and started the search for a donor body for the restoration. Now after a long-term, show-quality restoration and sporting a modified and more powerful 1985 Grand
National engine, Bob is back on the road in style.
GNRA club president Shellie Rachel and drag racer husband Martin have had four Buick Regal Grand Nationals over the years. The latest ’87 GN was purchased and completely rebuilt by the couple. Pete Sadhu says he bought his 1986 Buick Grand National after falling in love with the turbo Buicks. Manny Kooner had a ride in Pete’s GN and had to get one, too.
Winston Lui saw his first Buick Grand National in the showroom as a new 1985 model. “I had the foresight to pick up a copy of a sales brochure for the Buick line and it’s now a collectible among my Grand National literature,“he says.