Posts Tagged: BUICK
Buick’s 1970 GSX Stage 1 carried a horsepower rating that barely budged from the base engine, a number built for insurance adjusters, not drag strips. Decades later, owners and historians are still fighting over whether it really deserved the Hemi Killer nickname, or whether a mismatched magazine test built a legend that never quite held up.
A 1970 Buick GS hid an engine most muscle car fans have never heard of: an 11.0:1-compression 455 built for Super Stock racing and estimated past 500 horsepower, that Buick scrapped before a single customer could order one. Only two prototypes ever existed, and incoming emissions rules buried the program before it ever reached a factory build sheet.
Buick built the 1965 Riviera as a luxury coupe, then quietly optioned in a 360-horsepower 425 V8 for buyers who wanted it both ways. Fewer than 3,500 people checked that box, making the Gran Sport one of the rarest true muscle cars of the era. Decades later, Bill Burr got behind the wheel with Jay Leno – and left convinced it might be the meanest car he’s ever driven.
A rare 1970 Buick GSX Stage 1 — one of only about 400 ever built — just resurfaced after years hidden away, its wheels rusted solid and its Saturn Yellow paint buried under dust. The Stage 1’s 455 V8 once held a 33-year American torque record, and the man who rescued it is now working to prove this is the real thing, part number by part number. Here’s the story behind one of Buick’s rarest muscle cars finally seeing daylight again.
Buick spent two decades disguising some of the fastest cars General Motors ever built as luxury sedans. The 1970 GSX Stage 1 hid a 510 lb-ft big block under a car built for church parking lots, and the 1987 turbocharged GNX blew past that year’s Corvette in the quarter-mile. Here’s how a brand nobody feared became one of muscle car history’s biggest sleepers.
Only 81 Buick GS 455 Stage 1 convertibles were built for 1971, and just 72 of those got an automatic transmission — making this triple-black example one of the rarest muscle car convertibles GM ever produced. A magazine once claimed a car just like it could beat a Hemi Plymouth GTX in the quarter mile. Here’s the story behind the numbers, and the Jim Morrison ad campaign that almost never happened.
Buick built the 1969 GS 400 Stage 1 to out-punch flashier muscle cars while wearing a luxury convertible’s clothes. This triple-black four-speed survivor is one of the rarest option combinations Buick ever built, hiding 345 horsepower and 440 lb-ft under a completely understated shell. Here’s the story behind the numbers most people never notice.
A 1970 Buick GSX in rare Apollo White just went through MCACN’s five-hour Vintage Certification process — one of only 187 built in that color, and one of just 32 with California emissions. Host Dan Vasic walks through what separates a genuinely original survivor from a car that’s been quietly refreshed. The GSX’s story turns out to be as much about engineering as paint.
Buick Built Only 7,850 of These 1964 Wildcat Convertibles – And Hid a 360-HP Nailhead Under the Hood
Buick’s full-size 1964 Wildcat looked like a country-club cruiser, but the option sheet hid a 360-horsepower dual-quad 425 and a four-speed stick behind that formal grille. Only 7,850 convertibles were built that year, and a rare survivor with the full performance package still turns heads six decades later.