Posts Tagged: Buick Grand National
Buick called its 1986 Grand National’s turbo V6 ‘under-rated’ in its own brochure — then proved it a year later by handing 547 cars over to an outside shop for a transformation the factory couldn’t build itself. The result, badged GNX, put up numbers that worried owners of contemporary Ferraris and Porsches. Officially rated at 276 horsepower, independent testing suggested Buick was still underselling it. Read on to see exactly what changed under the hood.
Buick spent most of the 1980s making comfortable sedans and then, in its final year, built a turbocharged six-cylinder that ran a 13.2-second quarter and beat V8s that cost far more. The 1987 Grand National and the 547 GNX units that followed it were the last of the line, assembled in part by an outside performance house, and factory rated at a number almost nobody believed. Read on for what separated a WE4 from a GNX, and what a $35 option got you.
The 1987 Buick Grand National made 245 horsepower and 355 lb-ft of torque from an intercooled, turbocharged 3.8-liter V6, with peak torque arriving at just 2,000 rpm. The intercooler that arrived for 1986 is the single component separating these cars from the largely forgettable 1984 and 1985 versions. Roughly 20,193 were built in the final model year, and the famous Lamborghini comparison actually belongs to the 547-car GNX. Read on for what to verify before buying one.