1987 Buick Grand National - Gnarly Fer Sher

  

There 1980's were chock full of great memories. The Gold Medal winning men's Olympic Hockey team, Ronald Reagan, movies like Back to the Future, Culture Club, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Communist block crumbling and a booming American economy. There were also some things about the decade that were not worth remembering too. Like the supposed "Valley Girl" speak that people today think was all the rage back then (gag me with a spoon for it was not), hair metal and most domestic automobiles.
 

There are one or two rare and exceptional cars from the '80's (no, barf me out a DeLorean is not one of them)  one of them being the Buick Grand National. The "Grand Nat" was special because it was able to do what most automobiles in the decade could not; be the best at what it was ultimately designed to be. That being a great muscle car, whatever that is anyone's guess. If we define a muscle car as being a mid size automobile with a larger or more powerful engine than what was standard in the car and the car's sole mission was to accelerate quickly and look badass - then the Grand National was second to none. Being able to accelerate from 0-60 in 4.7 seconds, the Grand National was the fastest accelerating automobile available for sale in the United States in the 1980's. The fancy clothing only accentuating the attitude of what the car could do.

 

 

The Grand National shared much with other "muscle cars" like it being a rear wheel drive, fast accelerating two door sedan. Like most muscle cars, it couldn't do much more than accelerate very well in straight line. Unlike other "muscle cars", though that used the larger engine from a larger car, usually a V-8, Buick powered the Grand National with a turbo charged version of its standard V-6 engine. 

The turbo, an exhaust gas driven compressor that forces more air into the engine, was a point of differentiation between it and other similar cars of this vintage from Chevrolet, Ford, Pontiac and Oldsmobile. Ford made a turbocharged Thunderbird that was an all around superior performer to the Grand National but it was not nearly as powerful a car.
 

When we sit around talking about the '80s and the subject turns to movies and cars, invariably someone will mention Marty McFly and the DeLorean in the Back to the Future movies. That car  somehow coming to symbolize '80's automobilia. Those that lived through the 1980's and saw the movie for the first time got the joke about the DeLorean. Just as well for a decade that was, at least as far as cars go, very forgettable. Except for the few exceptions like the Buick Grand National. Gnarly.