In , William C. Durant, who became the general manager for Buick, founded General Motors. General Motors later became the parent company and Buick became one of its divisions.
For Buick and Cadillac, their niche market focused mainly on the luxury class while Chevrolet and GMC aimed to produce vehicles for the working class. Once upon a time, the very mention of Buick was enough to make automobile enthusiasts sit up and peak an ear of interest as that was among the elite brands of North American automobiles that helped shape the American and Canadian nations with some of the most impressive lineups of vehicles ever made.
At the time, a Buick logo served as a status symbol. This applied to its lineup of luxury automobiles, as well as muscle cars. In , then from until , the Buick Grand National was among the hottest performant vehicles during the mids, an era where the production of automobiles was experiencing a tough time during the infamous oil crisis that began in The inter-cooled models of the and Grand National series were the cars that earned the most amount of attention, despite the fact it had already had roots going as far back as with the Buick Regal line.
This was a standard with all Buick models from until The most notable change came from the exotic turbo they received from MacLaren which featured a ceramic wheel instead of what was deemed normal at the time. Although in the GNX engines were introduced, Buick Grand National vehicles did not officially become a brand until The winning formula MacLaren is best known for in their own vehicles was poured into the Buicks during the s that ultimately made most of their vehicles so hard to beat, at least in speed tests.
Most of them featured a 4. At that time, this was considered very impressive. Overall, the number of the labeled Buick Grand Nationals saw models sold during this year as they were made as limited edition models. Though was a successful year for the Grand National, it also turned out to be the last time that such an iconic model would continue to be manufactured by Buick. Ed Mertz became Buick general manager in , and a year later GM's rear-wheel-drive mid-sizers ceased production in They were succeeded by brand new GM10 front-drive vehicles for The plan was to construct the quickest ever GM production sedan.
The official rating of the GNX was hp and ft-lb torque. Despite this, many industry experts put the output at hp and a smashing ft-lb torque. There was no way any of the GNX's competitors could compete with this beast of a car. Unfortunately, only GNX units were manufactured.
No wonder the vehicle costs so much. But Buick proved conventional wisdom wrong regarding V8 engines. The next buyer will also get exclusive signatures and other memorabilia from factory workers who built this ultra-rare Buick. You can read more and see some exclusive pictures of this Grand National being put together in this post from Hemmings. Source: Barrett Jackson. When he learned that the production of the Grand National was coming to an end, he had to have the very last one.
Its 3. They weren't performance-oriented, so they didn't know what to do with them. With just 34 This pristine example of the Grand National is the last one that Buick ever made back in Bob went to great lengths to preserve and retain the originality of this car as he had a dedicated space built out just for this beauty.
Out of the examples built, just 35 examples were powered by the turbocharged 3. For , the Grand National returned. This time the Buick muscle car was dressed in the shade it is well-known for - all black. A turbocharged 3. The GN conquered the quarter-mile in Modifications launched the GN into the second range.
The Grand National carried over specifications from the model year. The Buick Grand National was bumped up to horsepower thanks to the addition of an air-to-air intercooler and some boost tweaking.
This time, the GN could dominate the quarter mile in Exterior-wise, the GNX was given front-fender vents, black inch mesh-style wheels with VR-speed rated tires, and deletion of hood and fender emblems.
Inside, a revised instrument cluster with Stewart Warner gauges. For the debut model year, Buick planned to produce just Grand Nationals but produced examples with only 16 believed to have been turbocharged.
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