FASTER THAN A FERRARI: WHY DID THE BUICK GNX FAIL?

Well, today it is a model that goes unnoticed very easily. At the end of the 80s it was the greatest exponent of American Muscle, being even

faster

than a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. The Grand National ended its short life with a very exclusive model and so radical that put Both its domestic and international competitors embarrassed the Buick GNX which was a sports car jointly produced by Buick and McLaren to celebrate one of the brand's most successful cars in the 1980s, but unlike Ford Chevrolet and Dodge, This company is not exactly known for manufacturing American sports models.

Muscle fans are well aware of the rivalry between these American brands in the sports sector but they do not usually talk about Buick and in fact back in the early 80s this company focused on manufacturing cars for another type of audience, already adult people who were looking for For a large car with a luxurious interior and a good dose of chrome it is quite interesting how they managed to build a sports car capable of outperforming models like the Kunsh between 1950 and 1970 NASCAR had a competition called the Grand National series, in 1971 the competition went to to be called the Winston Cup, it was in 1981 and 1982 that the championship was won by a Buick Regal prepared by the same brand thanks to Daryl Walri.

The company did not waste time and to take advantage of the audience it was gaining, it decided to manufacture a sports version of the Regal that finally It was named Grand National, a name they were able to use because NASCAR had sold the rights to the name about 10 years ago. Not only was Buick breaking away from its habits by creating the sporty version of the Regal, but they took the bet one step further at that time the American public was very accustomed to cars with V8 engines. The company opted to use a turbocharged V6. The V6 that was finally installed in these cars had been in development for almost 10 years. 1973 when Ken Baker, a young engineer working for the Buick laboratory, started a Boy Scout program in the engineering department.

Ken's intention was to turbocharge the newly revived 3.8L V6 in order to improve both performance in lighter cars and fuel economy in heavier cars. Ken said that at first he borrowed and collected parts to assemble the first test engine and stayed after hours to avoid problems managing it. After 2 years of project, almost secret from his bosses, the new head of engineering, Lloyd Roose, called him into his office and to Ken's surprise, instead of ending up being fired, he was interested in a secret project in 2 weeks . Baker was leading a team focused on putting this new, improved engine into production.

Lloyd came up with the idea of ​​the best way to test this new V6 turbo. It was to build a pace car for the Indianapolis 500, so in 1976 they were able to build a pace car with a V6 that had better performance than several of the V8 cars competing in the race, something that was unthinkable to the fans. regulars that Lloyd Rose was looking for. change the image of the car company for an adult audience to something more passionate and modern, taking advantage of the Regal championships of the early 80s and this new engine. The Firm was in charge of improving the Regal and increasing its power to be able to sell it as the first Grand National, in the first instance was only an optional package of the Regal that offered the model with the body without chrome alloy wheels and dark paint tones, thus moving away from the more classic Buick models separately. equipping the V6 turbo was an aesthetically questionable car with an interior that was not very pleasing to the eye.

The brand's regular customers did not like it much at first since they were used to the large V8 with low power and high torque but with the features that were little presented. Little by little they changed their minds until in the end there were many buyers interested in this car with this new technology and not only that but Lloyd's objective was being met and the brand now had new customers who instead of choosing by other brands such as Ford or Chevrolet, I was now looking to have a Buick when the V6 debuted in that six-speed car from '76.

It produced 165 horsepower, that figure increased to 200 with the V6 that was offered to the public in the Grand Nationals that did have the Turbocharged V6s began to fall within thousands of the Corvette's acceleration and quarter mile times even surpassed the Camaro's times. It was in 1984 when this V6 became standard at all Grand Nationals in this same year the variety of colors no longer existed. It was available to be sold only in black, it also received an intercooler and electronic fuel injection for the first time and could be easily modified by extracting even more power from its reinforced engine.

In this way the brand obtained a car with an aggressive character and prepared to compete with any other sign of its fame was gaining more and more weight and in 1986 an important mechanical update arrived, its power now reached 235 horsepower and its torque increased from 400 to almost 450 Newton M. By the following year its power would increase once again to 245 horsepower and its torque at 480 Newton M it is even said that these figures were altered by the brand and were actually higher, it turns out that Buick was one of the signatures of General Motors, a company that owns several other car brands including Chevrolet with the market just beginning.

By leaving aside both the Camaro and the Corvette, General Motors could not allow the fame of these models to suffer even more and sales of this new model took off, going from 5,086 to 20,000 the following year, which is why it is said that the figures given for The Grand National were altered so that they were not much higher than those declared by Chevrolet for the Corvette. This became known because in 1986 a very important car magazine in the country, Car and Driver, tested one of these cars and its technical team discovered that the Grand National produced about 290 horses, and the same team measured 4.9 seconds for the model from 0 to 60 MPH and 13.9 seconds for its 4 miles.

At that time, with these figures, this sports car already surpassed the Contemporary Corvette that Ferrari sold in the United States, including the 288. GTO and even the Lamborghini Kage and although at first it seems illogical that General Motors decided to kill the Grand National in favor of the already known and beloved Chevrolet models, that is why it gave the order to the Regal to use a new platform that would transform it into a car front-wheel drive and would focus again on its target audience, however, Buick wanted to say goodbye to the Grand National as it deserved and announced the launch of what would become the fastest American model ever created until then, the Buick GNX, a last special version whose number units were limited to only 547, being their The experimental firm Grand National then partnered with McLaren to manufacture this new extreme model.

Aesthetically, it was equipped with larger 16-inch wheels and the little chrome that remained on the grill disappeared to adopt a black color, the same turbo V6 that was equipped in previous years. It was modified to take its capacity to another level A new intercooler and exhaust were installed The intake and manifolds were improved The turbo was modified A reinforced automatic transmission was installed The differential was improved and the suspension was modified to make it more rigid Finally the declared figures were 276 HP and 488 NM of Torque Car and Driver tested the car again at this time. The figures were 4.7 seconds for 0 to 6 mph or 0 to 96 kmph while the 4 miles were completed in 13.5 seconds and finished with a speed of 164 km per hour or 102 mph the selling price of these cars ended up being $29,257 18,000 plus the dealer sold these exclusive cars for $1,000 or $20,000 above the first 29,000 there were even records of a GNX sold for 75,000 which today would be around $200,000, therefore the black sheep of General Motors ended its short life with great style, being one of the most radical cars that could be seen on the streets of the North American country at the end of the 80s, today it has an average sales price of $165,000 and there are units that were sold for more than 3,300,000