The Buick Grand National Is the Ultimate 1980s Muscle Car

this is a 1987 Buick Grand National and it is one of the coolest cars of the 1980s it was based on the boring old Buick Regal that they sold from 1978 to 1987 but this was no Regal it was really a muscle car and was a subtle performance car that you didn't realize was fast until it was beating you and today I'm going to review it first a little overview of the Grand National I've borrowed this one from a viewer here in Orange County California now like I mentioned the Grand National was based on the regular old Buick Regal which came out in 1978 and you could get the Regal as a coupe or as a sedan the Grand National came out in 1982 but the original version was really just an appearance package more than anything else but later as time went on they added more performance the performance came from a 3.8 liter turbocharged v6 which was a very unusual engine back when this car was new even though turbo v6 azar common now they really weren't back then now in 1984 the Grand National had 200 horsepower Buick bump that up to 235 by 1986 and then they added another 10 horsepower for the 1987 model year to get to 245 and torque was a healthy 355 pound-feet but most people think those numbers are all wrong anyway that the Grand National was underrated in horsepower from the factory because the Corvette at the time made 250 horsepower and General Motors reportedly had an edict that no performance car could have more power than the Corvette the best version of the Grand National was undoubtedly the GNX which was a limited-edition high-performance version made only in 1987 now the GNX was insane magazine tests at the time found that it was faster in a straight line than the Lamborghini Countach think about that imagine if newett today made a high-performance version of the Regal that was faster than the Aventador it was just that crazy back then too now this is just a regular Grand National and not a GNX but there's hardly anything regular about it because this car is just such an icon in the automotive world so today I'm going to take you on a tour of it I'm going to show you all of the quirks and features of the Grand National then I'm gonna get it out on the road and drive it and then I'm going to give it a dug score and for more of my thoughts on the Grand National click the link below to visit autotrader.com slash over steer where I've also rounded up a list of some of the best-preserved 1980s cars currently listed for sale on auto trader now I'm going to start the quicksand features of the Grand National with a discussion of its logo one of my favorite things about this car it had this cool yellow and red circle logo that turned into an arrow that was intended to represent a turbocharger since this car was turbocharged and that was a cool and unusual thing at the time now something I never realized about the Grand Nationals logo that the owner told me it was also intended to represent a six because this car had a v6 so you can see it's like arranged to look like a six and a turbocharger to mean turbo six now the logo appears in several places on the outside of the car obviously this fender badge is the most prominent the logo also appears on the wheels you can see it here in the wheel centers and it appeared on the trunk lid at the back of the car but that was it the Grand National was actually fairly subtle in terms of badging and it was fairly subtle generally in terms of styling upgrades and updates over the regular regal you also had its little badge on the hood that says 3.8 SFI turbo which gave you a clue that it was something different from a standard regal and the Grand National had different wheels from the standard regal there are a little bit more aggressive kind of angry looking and keeping with its sporty character and the Grand National also had just a little subtle spoiler on the trunk lid to let you know it was something different other than that this car looked a lot like the regular Buick Regal it was a very subtle performance car which I've always liked about it it was kind of a sleeper one other important distinguishing feature on the Grand National is the fact that they were all black you didn't really have a color choice if you wanted to get one of these and I think the black color combined with the boxy lines of the Regal combined with the small changes they made to the Grand National gave this car kind of a subtle muscle car look that I absolutely love now next up a couple of other interesting items on the outside of the Grand National unrelated to its upgrades over the Regal one is the third brake light now beginning with the 1986 model year the US government mandated that all cars have three brake lights two in the back and then one position somewhere in the middle most automakers put it in the rear window and it's always funny to see how car companies respond to this if they were already making cars that didn't have three brake lights they just stuck it in there as an afterthought and this car is no exception you can see they just kind of tacked it on and they were like well we've complied with the regulation neither interesting exterior item with this car is the side mirrors look how tiny these are unbelievably small GM used these side mirrors and a lot of vehicles in this era and it's just incredible to see it today no one would put a side mirror on a car this small but safety wasn't a massive priority for General Motors or anyone back in the 1980s now next up starting to move inside the Grand National of course the first thing you must do is open the door and when you open the door you can see on the door sill that it says body by Fischer not Grand National might Buick not General Motors but instead the company who makes the bodies has their logo there which is like unthinkable now every automaker has their brand name there and it lights up but back in the 80s the 70s GM was putting body by Fisher there I guess the company who made the body has negotiated that probably into their contract now next we move on to the interior of the Grand National and who is it a quick fest in here but I'm gonna start with just the general interior design of this car its boxy and I mean really boxy cars today are so swoopy they have nice curves inside not this there are right angles everywhere every panel every button every switch if it isn't square then it's inside something a little larger that is square everything in this car is right angled squares and rectangles with the sole exception of the steering wheel it's just crazy to look at all this and think about how this was only thirty years ago that this was car interior design things have changed rather rapidly since next time moving on to some of the Grand Nationals other interior quirks and features this car has power windows which is nice it has power door locks which is nice it has power seats which is nice but it does not have power mirrors instead you see this little mirror control on the driver door panel well there's a cable attached to that control going to the mirror you move the control and the mirror moves as you move it so you're thinking well how does it work on the passenger side well inside of a rectangular panel in the rectangular gauge cluster area there is another little joystick you can move it says right mirror and as you move it it adjusts the positioning of the right mirror just like over on the driver side pretty simple sort of the easy way to adjust mirrors in the days before true power mirrors now next up I want to talk about logos in the interior of this car which is kind of an interesting subject I want to talk about maybe the most interesting logo which is the one right in the middle of the steering wheel you can see that is the Buick logo which isn't particularly interesting this is after all a Buick except for the fact that that is the only place that the Buick logo appears on this entire card says Buick in the grille it says Buick over on the passenger side of the dashboard but the logo itself appears only that one place because they were trying to put the Grand National logo in all of the other spots and they succeeded in doing that in several places throughout the interior I love that it has the Grand National logo on the headrests on this seat backs looks very very cool embroidered in there you also have the Grand National logo over on the passenger side of the dashboard again says Grand National with a little checkered flag and it looks cool and then also reminding you that you're driving a Grand National inside the highly rectangular gauge cluster area and there's a badge that says turbo 3.8 liter with liter strangely enough spelled like the British way of spelling it or e instead of gr not sure why but that badge is there and that's it those are the only Grand National badges in the interior of this car which is impressive because when you buy a modern performance car there are AMG or Focus RS or whatever badge is all over the interior Buick didn't really go that far with this one now speaking of logos I want to talk about one other logo related item and that would be the seat belt buckles which I love because they say GM in the middle you push the GM logo to release the seat belt and I bring this up because GM put these seat belt buckles in to all General Motors vehicles in this era and rather than make different buckles for all the brands pontiac buick oldsmobile some cost cutter at GM was like I have an idea let's just make it say GM and so old GM buckles from this era simply save GM probably to save seven cents for not putting the individual brand logos on the seat belt buckle now next up I want to move back to the rectangular gauge cluster and specifically I want to talk about the rectangular speedometer which is actually arranged horizontally now one interesting thing about this speedometer is it only goes up to 85 so you see that you think well how could this be a performance car if it only goes 85 miles an hour well the answer is it doesn't that was the speedometer from the Regal they just kept it and put it in the Grand National the owner of this car told me the top speed is governed somewhere around 120 125 miles an hour it can go way over 85 but General Motors didn't want to develop another speedometer so they just stuck this one in there and the owner told me when you get it up to 85 the speedo needle kind of wants to keep going off the edge but it can't there's nothing else for it to go so it just kind of pegs there now below the speedometer you have a couple of other interesting gauges one is the tachometer which is very unusual it's also arranged horizontally but it's very small and has these yellow and orange bars that light up as you hit various engine speeds the yellow is sort of the in-between ones and then it lights up orange every time you hit like 1,000 2,000 3,000 very unusual interesting to see that the rpm gauge is just so small now below the rpm gauge you have the turbo boost gauge and when you get into the turbo boost that also lights up horizontally like the rpm gauge above it very interesting now one other interesting item in here to the right and to the left of the rectangular speedometer area you have these two vertical rectangles these have all like the warning lights for the car letting you know the alarm is on there's some engine problem whatever but I especially like when you turn the turn signal if you turn the right one it doesn't just turn on the arrow it says arty turn letting you really know that the right turn signal is on put on the left one and lt turn comes on again not just showing the arrow but really confirming which signal is on in case you were confused now next up I want to move on to the Sun visors for this car which aren't rather interesting I'm gonna start over on the passenger side you can see the visor is cloth no surprise and if you put it down you have this big plastic mirror assembly and then on top of that plastic mirror assembly there's more cloth who knows why they didn't have enough money to stick a Buick logo and the seat belt buckles but they had extra cloth lying around to put it on the plastic that's already on the cloth of visor guard but anyway you open up the visor mirror and you can see that it's lighted which is a very nice touch and it's adjustable so you can look at yourself in dim or bright light at your choosing now next I want to move into the center of the Interior in the Grand National specifically the center console between the seats we start in this farthest back position and you have a little storage area here it only tilts toward the driver it was a nice driver focused thing you move up from that and you have the shift lever which is just this really old-school shift lever amazing they all came like this back in the day but it's hard to believe now in this era of weird modern electronic shift levers that it was ever just so simple but it was now moving up from the shift lever next you have the stereo which isn't that unusual fairly common stereo in 80's GM cars I like the fact that you have four presets and they're unlabeled you just kind of had to remember which was which my favorite thing about the stereo though is the speakers you can see the speakers say on them concert sound and not just concert sound actually but concert sound too this was an upgrade over concert sound one and they wanted to let you know it over on the left you have the climate controls which are not especially interesting they look just like most car climate controls from this era again in a little rectangular box but the most interesting thing about the climate controls is the vents themselves and specifically the fact that there is an extra vent underneath the steering column and underneath the gauge cluster this was the crotch vent the crotch cooler you could have cold air kind of blowing in between your legs and that was why they installed it there it was actually a pretty decent idea and I've heard people asking automakers to bring it back GM had it in the 80s now next we move on to the glovebox where you will find one of my very favorite quirks or features of this car and that would be the coin storage slots take a look at this on the lid of the glovebox on the inside it's actually labeled which coins you're supposed to put in which slots but unlike a lot of cars where you can stack the coins in this car you have to like put them next to each other which means you can't really stick all that many coins in there the owner and I counted it it seems you can get about a dollar and 55 cents total in your glovebox if you fill up quaint slots that was all you needed back in the eighties you drove your granddad all to a phone booth to make a call and a dollar 55 was more than enough at the time now speaking of the glovebox there are several interesting pieces of literature found in the glovebox my favorite of which is this Buick called this the stereo listening manual if you needed a manual to listen to the stereo and on the front it says designed in sound you'll love it too much to leave it you'll be enjoying your speaker so much you won't want to leave the interesting thing though about this little booklet is it lists every single radio station in the country gives their frequency and gives their callsign this was accurate as of 1987 and you can scroll through it and see every little town in the country and every radio station and frequency that exists in that town this is a very impressive relic from Buick in 1987 now another interesting item found in the glovebox is this little warning label which is the label that recommends premium fuel but it also recommends your oil change interval in fact it says that it is extremely important underlined in red to change your oil every 7500 miles in order to maintain proper turbocharger unit operation they made sure everybody got one of these so you knew when to change your oil and what fuel to put in your Grand National the other interesting thing in the glovebox is the owner's manual and in fact the owner's manual for this car is just the regular regal owner's manual with the Buick logo embossed onto it and the most interesting part of this owners manual is just how short it is it's almost unbelievable actually when you don't have infotainment systems and all sorts of technology in cars you can explain everything in like 50 pages and Buick did and next up this car has back seats and two doors and so as usual I must climb into the back seats I've moved the front seat all the way forward and you kind of pushed the seat back forward and you get in it actually goes so far forward there's a decent amount of room back here and once you climb into the back seats you'll find but there's all that much interesting as you might expect this was just a fairly standard backseat with not too many frills although it is worth noting that all the Grand Nationals had these cool two-tone seats black on the outside and sort of silver gray in the middle and that carried through to the back seats which was a nice little touch the other interesting thing in the back seats probably the most interesting thing is the fact that there was an ashtray only on the back of the driver's seat and it isn't centered I guess they figure if they were only doing one ashtray they should move it over toward the passenger seat so both rear passengers could access it and so that's what they did it's a little bit off-center but the interesting thing about this particular ashtray is it still has the label on it from the factory that says this seat was made by the north unit cushion room on the day shift at the Flint assembly plant in Michigan that is so cool the original label that they stuck on there for whatever reason in the factory you probably won't see that again in any other car now next we move back to the outside of the Grand National specifically we move on to the trunk you open it up and you will find that it's a fairly standard trunk although it is quite large larger than what you would get in a lot of modern cars you could stick a lot of stuff back here if you wanted to a couple of interesting things about the trunk one is that the spare tire just kind of sits here no attempt is made to conceal it stick it under the car put some carpeting over it it's just there which again is unthinkable by modern standards but it's what they did back in the 80s another interesting item in the trunk is on the top and the trunk lid on the inside you have this label that gives every single option code and production line number of part and feature that was added to this car which is very cool to see it's also very cool to see it preserved so well and one easy way to check to make sure a car like this is original it has it had like the trunk lid replaced is to see that this label is still sitting here it's still in good shape because that means it was put on at the factory and it's still in its original condition and next and finally we move under the hood in the Grand National which is quite an interesting place to be this car is so different from modern cars there's just no plastic covering or anything under here you can really see everything and that includes a couple of grand national logos actually on the underside of the hood itself says Buick turbocharged and then it has the largest Grand National logo in the whole car reminding you what you're working on while you're working on it there's also a little Grand National logo by the hood latch at the very front now another interesting thing here you can see right in the middle you have the turbo charger and next to it is the intercooler and there's an intake that sucks up air directly into the engine as there is in a lot of turbocharged cars now in modern cars you have intakes very conspicuously mounted on the outside of the car on the roof on the sides to look cool and special in this car it's mounted below the entire engine it's getting air down there further proving just how subtle this car is it didn't need any really obvious intake showing off instead it's at the bottom you can't even see it unless you go looking for it and so those are the quirks and features of the Grand National now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the Grand National this is so cool I have always wanted to drive one of these and I know it probably isn't gonna feel like a modern supercar whatever but I don't really care sitting here in this interior are ready you just think this is just so different from you know today's cars it really does surprise me that this was only 30 years ago because it just feels like it it feels like another planet of car all right I'm gonna get in and here real quick [Music] whoa that's actually that is actually reasonably quick the turbo spools up and actually feels reasonably fast which surprises me I wasn't really thinking that it was going to you know you think the car is 30 years old it's really not gonna feel all that fast it actually feels good I think actually it's limiting factor seems to be the transmission III it's a shame it's got this like old-school you know four speed auto whatever of course it does all cars at that time did but one wonders if he put in a nice transmission would it be a lot would it be a lot quicker whoa drops down a gear there now it's moving whoa whoa that is actually reasonably quick I'm surprised it's fun it actually feels fast and fun the owner of this car told me an amazing story he said he had a brand new Corvette in 85 86 87 and he was driving around and guy pulled up next to him in one of these and you know beat him at a red light off the line and he flagged the guy down and was like what is that car and he was so surprised the owner of this one he's so surprised people went out and bought one knew back then and this is a second one it's quite a story that's I guess that's kind of what Buick water but it's such a sleeper nobody really knew and if you want really in tune in the business you didn't maybe know that they were even making and insoles John it's just a regal well you know it isn't this car doesn't have a lot of engine noise and in fact a lot of cars from this era don't even v8 what this car has [Music] it's quick this is a surprisingly quick with this car has is turbo noise and and Powys of it there's a lot of turbo noise when you press it you can really hear it kind of spool up and do its thing sitting in a stop light in this car it feels really nice surprisingly smooth the owner of this car told me he maintains it with this guy named loose cars nada who's like the Guru of Grand Nationals and there are some upgrades reliability and smoothness upgrades to kind of make it a more livable car in 2019 it's a surprisingly nice cruiser there's a reasonable amount of room here you can't put the seat back of course there's no real headrest cuz whiplash had been considered 30 years ago it drives fast enough and it's fun and I think it's kind of an exciting car now obviously the steering is not quite on the level you know you have you can do too you can do like two or three inches left or right before anything occurs this is not intended to be a auto across type car like that this was kind of a straight-line fun drag racer type car back in the day and it still feels surprisingly quick I think that that old-school turbo lag where it spools up and then you're at the high end the rev range engines making all the noise it slams into next gear you really feel it it's a very thrilling thing and so that's the 1987 Buick Grand National one of the automotive icon of the 1980s a car that everyone still loves and respects more than 30 years later really nice examples of the Grand National are now selling for $100,000 or more as this car becomes more desirable more collectible and more sought-after and now you can see why and now it's time to give the Grand National a Doug score starting with the weekend categories in styling the Grand National just looks so cool so mean without being over-the-top maybe the best ever example of how a subtle sleeper fast car should look and against an 8 out of 10 acceleration to 0 to 60 in 6.7 seconds and it gets a 2 out of 10 handling is fine but not especially inspiring and it gets a 4 out of 10 fun factor is about average it's fun in a straight line but otherwise not particularly thrilling and it gets a 5 out of 10 finally cool factor and these may not turn everyone's head but you park this next to a five 70s at cars and coffee and I'm walking up to the Buick it gets a seven out of ten for a weekend score of 26 out of 50 next up are the daily categories and features it's reasonably well equipped for the time but by modern standards it gets a 2 out of 10 Comfort is fine about what you'd expect then it gets a 5 out of 10 quality is OK materials are average and it's ultimately a 1980s GM car and it gets a 4 out of 10 practicality is normal for a four seater coupe and it gets a 4 out of 10 finally value and I think these are undervalued even as they're starting to increase in collectability and prices are rising there's still kind of a bargain for how cool and special they are and he gets a 7 out of 10 for a total daily score of 22 out of 50 add it up and the Doug score is 48 out of 100 and here's how it compares with some other cool 1980s cars it can't touch the exotics but it's closer than you might think as it's aged better than cars like the Ferrari 348 the Grand National isn't the best performer ever but it's just cool and I love it the Grand National was based on the boring old Buick Regal that was sold from 1978 to 1987 but this was no Regal it was a subtle something or other and so that's what it says which is rather odd to see and think about in today's something-or-other

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,912,899

Rating: 4.8822818 out of 5

Keywords: buick grand national, grand national, grand national review, buick grand national review, buick gnx, buick gnx review, gnx review, gnx, buick t-type regal, regal t-type, doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro

Id: 2ejnulsLLyI

Length: 25min 20sec (1520 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/LinkDude80]

Fun fact. From 1979-1981 the US Federal Government mandated that all new vehicles be equipped with a speedometer that maxed out at 85 mph regardless of actual top speed. They were also required to put special emphasis on 55 as this was the national speed limit. The idea was that this would somehow encourage people to drive the speed limit.
I guess GM just never bothered to redesign the Buick Regal dashboard after 1981 when the law was repealed.

[u/durrtyurr]

Those radios actually have 7 presets, not 4. You press two adjacent buttons at the same time to access/set presets 5, 6, and 7.

[u/shawnslav]

I wonder why the turbo-t isn't more popular. There were less than 2,000 made compared to 20,000 or so grand nationals

[u/bkdrummer]

I think Doug needs to start a car meetup and call it "QuirkFest".

[u/spankyiloveyou]

Cool 1980s El Camino at 22:00.

[u/Trades46]

I wasn't even born when this car debuted but I saw one in my childhood that just oozes cool, and it was a late 80s Buick.

I honestly wish Buick would think about giving as a modern rendition of the Grand National - the current Regal GS is pretty nice but still more a luxury than sports car, but the platform is pretty solid enough for a V6 turbo I reckon.

[u/Ryan3395]

Man, that thing is clean. Very well taken care of.

[u/Michelanvalo]

The Radio Station list for Massachusetts....that is some nostalgia trip right there.

RIP WFNX, WBCN

[u/Rlchv70]

/u/dougdemuro, Fisher Body was a wholly-owned subsidiary of GM. By the time of the GN, it was really just a branding choice used by GM to give a sense of quality.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_Body