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1987 Buick Grand National Pulling a 10s Quarter Mile Is Another Kind of Downsizing

Now that the industry is once again determined to increase efficiency, the issue of the good old V8 being replaced by forced-fed V6 units is becoming more and more important. Well, we feel the need to take you back to the 80s, when Buick showed us its ultra-custom acceptance of downsizing.
1987 Buick Grand National Pulling a 10s Quarter Mile 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from YouTube
Yes, we are referring to the Grand National. This turbo V6 still turns plenty of heads today and we want to show you a reasonably massaged version that knows its way around a drag strip.

What made these black Buicks so special was not just their performance (the Grand National could pull low 14s quarter mile passes) but also their tuning potential.

It didn't take long for enthusiasts to figure out how to extract considerably more power out of the V6 god without investing a small fortune.

The 1978 (this was the final production year) unit in question comes with a 256 cubic inch (4.1-liter) production block, but features the following modifications: a TE-45A turbocharger, a compression ratio of 9.5:1 and forged rotating assembly. This is a setup that mixes gas pump with methanol injection.

With the custom bits mentioned above, this Grand National can descend into the 10-second arena. You can see the Buick pulling a 10.6-second pass at 129 mph (that's 208 km/h for all you reading this across the pond) in the clip below.

As we said, the cult following of the Grand National stays strong. In fact, one of the Reddit comments on this clip comes to confirm this: "I own some decent cars and I've driven a plethora of exotics on the street, but no car I've ever been in attracts as much attention on the street as my Grand National. People will follow you into gas stations or cross 4 lanes of traffic to give you a thumb's up."

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About the author: Andrei Tutu
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In his quest to bring you the most impressive automotive creations, Andrei relies on learning as a superpower. There's quite a bit of room in the garage that is this aficionado's heart, so factory-condition classics and widebody contraptions with turbos poking through the hood can peacefully coexist.
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