and that grand national looks pretty sweet :D
i would have to say there are a wee bit quicker :macgun:
them lil 6's sure sounded like a v-8 and with the turbo sefi it ran a high 4 second 0-60?!?!?!?!?! some of the desigerns were on the show who built them and back then and they said for a year or two they smoked a corvette. that wicked crazy. and i thought buick was in the 80's :slap:
my bad! :banana:
buick was... except for those GNXs. ^_^ they are pretty rare around here. i've only seen two... ever. personally i like the g-bodys. i had actually planned on getting one (Cutlass or Monte Carlo) before i got the TBird. I always loved the fact that they had optional t-tops! Plus $200 for Bilsteins at all four corners would be nice too. I may end up getting one as a daily driver and turn DarkThunder into a project car.
i thought the muscle car died in the 70s??? XD
GNX's are very nice, but at over $20k on the low end, I'd stick with a normal Grand National or even a Turbo Regal and go stealth with too much chrome and vynal half roofs (sound familiar?). I was looking at a few Monte Carlo SS's before I got the Coug, but they just lacked the charachter and I hate 305s. I'd want a 350 or greater. I could settle for a while with the Coug's stock 302. A friend of mine had a '81 Monte that he swapped in a built 307 (Thanks to TC50 a long time ago for pointing out that Chevy made a 307 when I only thought Olds did). It was a little beat up, but a fun ride.
I love my TC, but if I could find a reasonably priced GN, I'd trade it in a heartbeat. These things were king of the hill in the day. They were beating Ferrari's in the quarter back then. There still aren't many cars built today that'll haul arse like those turbo sixes.
There's ususally at least one or two turbo Buick's at the weekly summer car show around here. I remember seeing one that was race built with one of the biggest turbo's I've ever seen. Somethin' off of a diesel truck, it seemed.
Heh. Just thought of something. If buddy ever gets that 351 crammed into a '70 Camaro, I think I'll swap a turbo buick six into the TC. :flip: I'll get the speed AND the looks. :giggle:
I was pretty disapointed in there quarter mile! they put alot of money into them and I thought they were suposed to be fast stock. I see GN all the time when cruise night comes around, they have parking lots full of them.
Oh well, Full Throttle is good entertainment.
GNs were great in a straight line, but that's about it. And build quality leaves a lot to be desired.
Any V8 Tbird/Cougar with the sport suspension was a better car overall. I am sure that wasn't mentioned in the show, of course. :)
I actually think the show was just about the Grand National... not all 80's cars.
I've seen that show on the Speed Channel I think...its pretty light on info and buttstuffysis. Blech.
NOt to start an oval/bowtie war, but history channel likes to hug chevys nuts. Watched a show on development of the muscle cars and half the show was devoted to chevy, (even though chevy did have alot to do with the progression of the muscle car)
That's probably because the hosts are the same guys that host Super2ner TV that used to be on spike tv saturday mornings. Trying to watch that show was like watching someone else play a video game. It's hard to take buttstuffysis on muscle cars from the same guys I hear talking about how sick it makes your civic to have a tricked out 4in. exhuast tip.
That idea isn't as original as you may think, OldRaven. The following is a quote from the March, 1987 issue of Motor Trend magazine, where they published an owner's survey on 1986 Turbo Coupes:
On the subject of GN's, a friend of my brother's had a Chevette with an '87 GN drivetrain in it. He worked at a junkyard in Elmsdale and bought himself the drivetrain from a wrecked GN. That car was probably the quickest (and one of the most sleeper) car in metro Halifax until he climbed a tree with it.
That reminds me... there was, I believe a concept 3.8 Turbocoupe, if I'm not mistaken? Something on coolcats about it.
There was a concept in '83 that was supposed to be the '87 model. Was supposed to get a twice-turbo'd 3.8 putting 250 horses to the ground (remember, this was the 80's). It featured some body add-ons that later became available through FMS. I've got an article on it somewhere around here in an old early 80's magazine. I scanned the pic of it and posted it on my website:
http://www.foxthundercats.com/tcconcepts.htm
If you choose to look at it, check out the PPG pace car above it. I want to build that car some day...
That wagon drawing looks a hell of a lot like the love-child of a T-bird and a Pulsar. :p
The headlights sort of remind me of a late 80's camaro with covers.
(http://www.foxthundercats.com/ppg.jpg)
I think the '87-88's ended up looking a lot better than this pace car.
I heard '83-'86 cars were originally designed with Aero sealed lights but it got axed late before the release of the '83 because they didn't meet DOT approval or something.
What that story was, is that the '84 Lincoln Mark VII (Which was actually designed before the T-Bird/Cougar) was designed with both quad and composite headlights, and Ford had a bunch of both front end designs manufactured and ready to bolt on. Ford wanted to make sure that no matter what happened with the pending approval of composite lamps, the Mark would be ready for sale for '84. At the last moment, the approval came through, and the Mark became the first north-american cars to feature headlamps designed around the car instead of vice-versa. The quad-lamp front ends were all destroyed.
Where there any leaked pictures ever of the Mark quad light design? That would be pretty interesting to see.
If your drawing ever did come into existane it would be a rancharoesce vehicle with that removable roof.
I've seen pictures of the mark concept, but i don't remember where, since I sold my last LSC I don't look much anymore because it just makes me want another one, on the GN engine in the t-bird, it could be made to work, after all, I put a 460 in a cutlass a few years ago, but shoot for the money involved, I'd much rather just stick with small block Ford, if mine would smoke a GN, and it I know it would and has, imagine if i would have put the money into it that it would have taken to put a GN motor in it.