In the early 1980s, Buick faced an image problem. Long seen as a brand for grandparents more concerned with a cushy ride than with performance or handling, Buick’s demographic was aging, and new buyers simply weren’t visiting Buick showrooms. The answer was to borrow a page from the brand’s storied past, when Gran Sport models were used to attract a younger, performance- and image-conscious buyer into Buick dealerships.
When the first Buick Grand National appeared as a 1982-only model, it was little more than an appearance package, but in 1984 a far more sinister Grand National hit the streets, bedecked in black over black and infused with turbocharged V-6 power. Of all the turbocharged Grand National models built from 1984-1987, the ultimate expression of performance came in the form of the car’s swan song, the limited-production, 1987-only Buick GNX.
From 1984-‘86, Buick produced 9,614 Grand Nationals, and by 1987–the final year of production–demand was so high that Buick built 20,194 examples to satisfy its customers. To give the Grand National a fitting farewell, Dave Sharpe, Buick’s chief engineer, petitioned senior management to allow the creation of a “super Grand National,” and thus the GNX was born.

From the beginning, it was to be a low-volume car, produced for Buick by ASC/McLaren at a “suggested retail price” of $29,290, at a time when a well-equipped Grand National carried a sticker price of $18,295. Initial plans called for production of just 200 GNX models, but to meet escalating demand that quantity ultimately increased to 547 units.
The design goal for GM’s Advanced Concepts Group (which would ultimately set the specifications for the car) was both simple and ambitious: Build the quickest GM production four-seater, ever. Doing so would require extensive modifications to the engine, transmission and even suspension, but the team appointed to develop the car proved to be up to the challenge.
Under the hood, the GNX started with the same 231-cubic-inch V-6 as other Grand National models, but received a special Garrett T-3 turbocharger equipped with a ceramic impeller; an intercooler with the same dimensions as the stock one but more cooling fins per row; a ceramic-coated turbo shield and inlet pipe; a larger diameter dual exhaust; and a recalibrated engine control unit that permitted 15 PSI of boost. The net result was an output of 276 horsepower and 360 pound-feet of torque, a gain of 31 horsepower and five pound-feet of torque over standard Grand National models.

Even the GNX’s transmission received tuning, allowing it to produce crisper shifts to maximize acceleration, and the net result was a car that could sprint from 0-60 mph in 5.5 seconds and run through the quarter-mile in 13.4 seconds at 100 MPH. By comparison, Road & Track reported that a 1987 Corvette with the four-speed manual ran from 0-60 in 5.9 seconds, getting through the quarter-mile in 14.5 seconds at 97 mph.
Underneath, the GNX received a unique rear suspension that used a Panhard bar/ladder bar setup on the car’s Positraction-equipped live rear axle to maximize grip and minimize wheel hop under hard acceleration. Wheels were similar in appearance to those used on the Pontiac Trans Am, but with a different offset and GNX center caps. Measuring eight inches across in front and rear, the 16-inch wheels were shod with Goodyear Eagle Gatorback VR50 tires, 255/50R16 out back (the same size as the Corvette) and 245/50R16 up front.
Like the Gran Sports of the 1960s, the GNX was designed to be fast in a straight line, conceding road course lap records to more agile cars. Brakes consisted of discs up front (with 10.5-inch rotors) and 9.5-inch drums in the rear, the same sizes used on other Grand National models. Even the beefed-up suspension couldn’t mask the Buick’s 3,545-pound curb weight, leaving it with a lateral acceleration of .80 g.

​To cover the meaty Goodyear Gatorback radials, the GNX wore bold fender flares in front and rear, and front fenders also received functional venting. In the cabin, however, the differences between Grand National and GNX models were far more subtle, limited to GNX badging above the glove compartment and a full set of analog Stewart-Warner gauges (including a boost gauge, helpful for dragstrip launches) to keep close tabs on the underhood happenings.
As Martyn Schorr explains in his book, Buick GNX (included, along with a GNX jacket, as a gift to original buyers), ASC had the difficult task of giving the GNX a “High-Intensity” appearance that needed to be both similar to, and distinctive from, the Buick Grand National on which the car was based. All references to the Buick Regal or the Grand National were removed from the GNX’s exterior, which then received just two forged aluminum GNX badges, one on the grille and a second on the trunk lid. The front fender vents, vaguely reminiscent of Buick’s classic “porthole” vents, were deliberately painted in low-gloss to provide contrast to the gleaming black paint. Even the unique instrumentation was chosen to convey a message of high performance, ensuring that the driver knew this was no ordinary Grand National even before the engine was fired up.
The automotive press could not heap enough praise on the GNX, with Car and Driver calling it “an ax-wielding Barbarian laying waste to everything in its path,” while Cars Illustrated proclaimed it “The fastest showroom trim Musclecar ever.” Like the Buick GS models of old, the GNX also looked good going fast, and demand quickly outstripped supply, leading to dealer price gouging. Convinced that the GNX would be an appreciating classic, buyers eagerly paid whatever price necessary to park one in their garage.

That’s where the tale of the GNX über-Buick takes a sad turn. Many were purchased as investments, meaning that too few buyers got to appreciate the car as the ultimate expression of Buick performance in the 1980s. Today, low-mileage examples cross the auction block with some regularity, now commanding the kinds of prices that original owners hoped to realize thirty years ago.
In 2014, NADA published a value of $72,100 for a GNX in average condition, with a high range value of $103,500. Five years later, NADA puts the average value at $97,700, versus $136,100 for a high-range example. For an original owner, than might represent a reasonable return on investment (overlooking, perhaps, the cost of three-plus decades of care and feeding), but it pales in comparison to a comparable 32-year investment in Microsoft stock: $29,200 invested in 1987 would be worth about $9.5 million today.
The moral to the story? It’s best to buy cars – particularly new cars – for enjoyment behind the wheel, and not as additions to an investment portfolio.

Article courtesy of Hemmings Daily, written by Kurt Ernst.

As pointed out in this Vox video exploring what made Route 66 America’s favorite road, the highway has essentially been defunct for twice as long as it was an active part of American transportation routes. So why, then, do we keep featuring stories related to the Mother Road?
Is Dan planning a Route 66 trip of his own? Is he being paid off by the Route 66 lobby? Is it just because Route 66 stories play well to this audience? Well, no, no, and partly.
It does still capture the imaginations of plenty of people looking to discover “the real America” or the American dream, however one wants to define those. Photographers drive it scouting for subjects to shoot. Europeans and other international visitors explore it in search of an explanation for the country at the heart of so much geopolitics. Retirees and vacationers amble upon it hoping to revive their memories of an America gone by. And plenty of local tourism and economic development boards still see its potential to revive the slice of rural America through which it runs.
But if I can step in to answer the question that Vox’s Phil Edwards raises in his video, Route 66 is uniquely American, not just in the landscape or the chintzy baubles one picks up as souvenirs along the road, but also in the way it has become legend.
Every country, every culture, sees its history become mythologized in some way as its stories get told and retold. Route 66 has a certain set of facts that it seems everybody feels obligated to tell when reciting the Route 66 story: 1926, Cyrus Avery, dirt roads, the Green Book, the Okies and “The Grapes of Wrath,” the bypassing and the decommissioning, the ghost towns, Cadillac Ranch and the roadside attractions, the revitalization attempts.
But what makes the retelling uniquely American is the plurality of voices telling the story and the perspectives they bring to it. Shing Yin Khor saw in the legend the story of the immigrants who make up the fabric of the country and who now make the towns along Route 66 their home. Edward Keating saw, just past the theme-park aspects of the highway, a rural America in which “forgotten” people “settled wherever their bones and their broken cars dropped them” and dealt with the shattered promises of capitalism. Candacy Taylor saw how segregation made the American dream relevant to only some Americans. The lowriders of Albuquerque see an integral part of their culture. The people of Tulsa and other locations along the highway see a need to preserve the unique and vernacular structures that gave the road its hodgepodge mid-century aesthetic.
Perhaps none of them tell the story of Route 66 in its entirety. In their own personal legends of Route 66, they adopt, reinterpret, and recast the story in their own way. Even Edwards puts his own spin on it. And that’s great. We already have a textbook history with all the facts; what makes the story of Route 66 captivating and particular to American mythology – what separates it from the stories of the thousands of other ribbons of road in the country – are the many retellings of that story from diverse viewpoints and backgrounds overlaid on top of that textbook history.
Route 66 itself is just a strip of dirt, gravel, concrete, and asphalt, and the stories of these common materials don’t matter at all if we don’t take into account the stories of the people – of all the people – whose lives Route 66 has touched. So, in the end, we shouldn’t just tell the story of Route 66 once; we have to let everybody tell their own Route 66 stories.

​By the early 1960s, Studebaker was rapidly fading from the automotive scene, but the car maker continued to offer distinctive and memorable features, including the convertible-roof Wagonaire.

​The Wagonaire story actually starts here, with the Scimitar experimental cars created for the Olin Corporation in 1959 by noted industrial designer Brooks Stevens (read about the Scimitar project here). One of the three Scimitars, a pillarless hardtop station wagon (above) that Stevens called the All-Purpose Sedan, used a sliding roof to create an open-air cargo space for tall items.
Stevens also had an ongoing relationship with the Studebaker Corporation, where he designed the 1962-64 Gran Turismo Hawk and a series of facelifts on the familiar Lark platform. His friend, Studebaker president Sherwood Egbert, was always on the hunt for clever, low-cost ways to update and broaden the company’s product line, and at some point it was decided to adapt the Scimitar’s sliding-roof concept to the 1963 Lark Station Wagon, where it would be called the Wagonaire.

Stevens, who also redesigned the Lark’s exterior sheet metal for 1963, seamlessly integrated the sliding roof panel into the four-door wagon body shell, which rode on the South Bend automaker’s longer 113-inch wheelbase chassis. The Wagonaire was available in three trim levels that first season—Standard, Regal, and Daytona—and more than 11,000 units were sold, the Wagonaire’s best year as things turned out.
As you might guess, the sliding panel proved to be nearly impossible to seal against rain and snow, and instead the setup relied mainly on a series of drain tubes to carry water away from the cabin area. A handy folding step was built into the tailgate’s interior panel for improved access to the cargo area. While we can think of a few potential customers for the sliding roof, maybe the most glamorous was Movietone News, which operated a fleet of 30 Daytona Wagonaires as mobile camera platforms.

​When Chevrolet introduced its new Chevelle in 1964, the initial plan was for the mid-sized car to take sales away from Ford’s Fairlane. But, 1964 would also find automotive sales placing more emphasis on performance vehicles than ever before. The sensible Chevelle was in a position that it could have been left behind. Fortunately, certain folks at Chevrolet were not about to let that happen.

​Chevrolet immediately placed its potent little 327ci small-block engine on the Chevelle option list. But, since the folks at Pontiac already offered a 389 cubic-inch engine in its mid-sized cars — like the GTO — Chevrolet knew something “big” was needed to make an impression. The Chevelle was a very versatile platform, and the buying public had the choice of a sedan, coupe, convertible, several different forms of station wagons, and even the El Camino. But, versatility aside, the Chevelle needed more attitude, and attitude it would get. Enter the now iconic 396 cubic-inch big-block, and the Z16 package.

​In 1965, the Z16 option was much more than just a larger engine being stuffed under the hood of Chevelle. It started with a foundation of using the reinforced frame typically reserved for a convertible. This frame featured several chassis reinforcements, and utilized unique chassis components like the biggest brakes available, which were taken from the full-sized-car line up. The exterior of Z16-equipped Malibus feature only subtle differences from other Chevelle SS coupes. These differences were special black and chrome trim, mag-wheel-looking wheel covers, and small 396 Turbo Jet badges. What’s more, unlike standard non-Z16-quipped cars that could be purchased in any of the 15 available exterior colors, Z16-optioned cars were only available in three – Tuxedo Black, Regal Red, and Crocus Yellow.

​When peering through the window and inside the car, Z16-optioned cars looked much like any Malibu SS. Front seat passengers got comfortable in bucket seats behind a padded dash that featured a dash-mounted pedestal clock, and a unique speedometer that let the driver think they could reach 160 mph in the car. The Malibu SS also included a center console for manually-shifted cars, and those equipped with a Powerglide (a column shifter was also available with the Powerglide and Turbo three speed transmissions). The information we found, states the Turbo three-speed manual transmission was not available with a floor shifter and console. If a column shifter was ordered, bucket seats were still standard fare, but could be swapped for a bench seat. The Z16’s standard-issue tachometer (RPO U14) was also optional on any V8-powered Chevelle.

​The engine in all Z16-optioned cars was an L37 396 big block, rated at 375 horsepower. The L37 big block 396 used a hydraulic-lifter camshaft, and featured forged pistons and crankshaft, four-bolt mains, ported closed-chamber cylinder heads, and an aluminum intake with a Holley 3310 four-barrel carburetor. In a strange twist, Z16-spec cars were not available with Positraction.

Chevy only built 201 of these specially-equipped Chevelles with the Z16 package, and the car was never marketed to the public. It wasn’t even listed on any dealer order forms, so buying this car meant you knew the secret handshake.

What are they worth now? At the Mecum 2015 auction in Anaheim, California, a freshly-restored example was a no sale at $220,000. Not a bad investment since they sold new for slightly more than $4,500.

Article courtesy of Chevy Hardcore, written by Randy Bolig.

The ’80s was a crazy time for fashion, hair styles, and automotive accessories. Here’s an awkward moment in aftermarket shifters, the Hurst Lightning Rods.

Part of the fun in looking through old scrapbooks is having a good laugh with ourselves for the fads and styles of times past. Jeez, what we were thinking? Such could be the case in automotive fashions, too. Take the Hurst Lightning Rods, an aftermarket performance shifter marketed in the 1980s. This gadget employed three shift levers to accomplish everything that a single lever could do.

​Hurst’s inspiration for the Lightning Rods was the Lenco transmission (above) used in drag racing in those years, notably in the NHRA Pro Stock category. A highly specialized, purpose-built piece of straight-line racing equipment, the Lenco employed a series of planetary gear assemblies that stacked together in modular fashion, with an individual shift lever for each gearset—simple, positive, and utterly foolproof. Hurst took this race-only setup and adapted it to production automatic transmissions, allowing road drivers to emulate their drag strip heroes, grabbing a separate lever for each upshift.

​The Lightning Rods system was set up to work like any ordinary automatic gear selector, more or less, with a conventional PRND shift pattern (as shown in the top photo). The difference was in the two additional levers: the far right lever and release button performed the 1-2 upshift, while the middle lever and button performed the 2-3 upshift. Or the driver could simply leave the lever in D for Drive or OD for Overdrive and drive normally. In that regard, the Lightning Rods setup was not unlike the Hurst Dual Gate aka “His ‘n Her” shifters of previous years.

Hurst marketed the Lightning Rods through its regular speed shop channels in several versions, including kits for the GM F-Body Camaro and Firebird and a universal model with a small, stand-alone floor console. Perhaps the most familiar application was as standard equipment in the 1983-84 Hurst/Olds–the final iterations of the Hurst-equipped muscle cars. Some 3,001 models in 1983 and 3,500 units in 1984 were built before Hurst/Olds production concluded for good. In hindsight the Lightning Rods look like a silly idea, but often, silly can be fun.