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1987 Pro-touring Buick Grand National - Ultimate Resto-mod, Frame Off Custom on 2040-cars

US $79,995.00
Year:1987 Mileage:60000
Location:

United States

United States

Up for sale is the ultimate pro-touring 1987 Buick Grand National.  This car is the real deal, not just a set of wheels and tires like most "pro-touring" cars.  The car started as a low mileage, original, unmolested, accident and rust free car.  Then it underwent a massive 2 1/2 year nut and bolt modification and restoration to become the first and baddest pro-touring GN on earth.  The build of this car is covered in a 60 page, 150k view build thread, the most viewed car on Turbobuick.com, I highly recommend browsing this if your interested in this car.  It can be seen here, <a href="http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/threads/1987-pro-touring-grand-national-from-the-ground-up.351277/"> CLICK HERE </a> .The car just finished with a photo shoot to be a feature car for GM High Tech Performance Magazine and the photo shoot and article has a teaser on their Facebook page <a href="https://www.facebook.com/gmhightech "> CLICK HERE </a> .  So if you buy the car you will be the owner when the magazine hits stands!




This is not a car I built to sell but a business opportunity that I cannot pass up on has presented itself.  Everything is the best of the best.  Every nut, every bolt, is stainless grade 8.  Every part is coated in powder-coat or ceramic.  I have almost double what I'm asking invested into this car, at this price you couldn't pay for parts and materials to build this car.  Its the deal of a lifetime for someone.

Body
The body modifications are extensive and tasteful.  The drip rails, door edge guards, fender moldings, antenna, front and rear bumpers and trunk key hole were shaved.  The rear bumper fillers were custom molded together.  The rear spoiler was customized into a split spoiler and raised about 1 1/2" inches.  The door handles were shaved and replaced with handles off an Aston Martin Vantage.  The mirrors were removed and C4 corvette mirrors were moved forward for a much more modern look.  Fully functional GNX vents were installed and the metal inserts powder coated black.  Turbo Trans Am vents were installed in a hardline fiberglass hood along with Aeromotive locking hood pins.  The front air dam is an impossible to find Kenne Bell air dam that has been out of production for 25 years that has been modified to work with the intercooler.  

The car was put on a dolley and taken to line-x where the entire under side of the car was coated, black then clear.  The underside stays clean and the line-x keeps the car quiet and bulletproof.  The interior was then coated in dynamat.

The body itself was blocked, sanded and blocked again all the way down to 3000 grit.  GM black was layered on the car with 6 coats of clear.  PPG paint and 3M products only on this car.  The black has to be seen to be believed, it looks like a tinted mirror.

To top everything off the car has custom made Grand National emblems.  To match with modernizing the car the original emblems were a bit dated.  I had a artist design a modern version of the Grand National logo.  The logo was then made out of a chunk of stainless with an EDM machine.  The logo alone took months to design, convert into a 3d image, machine and hand paint and brush.  They look amazing and everyone who knows anything about Grand Nationals notice and compliment them.

Suspension
It starts with the suspension.  The car handles as good as my 2011 grand sport corvette.

The frame itself was blasted, and powder coated a silver-vein color.  Before the powder coat the horrible factory welds were ground down and re-welded, key areas of the frame were plated and the all control arm mounts, engine mounts, body mounts and major stress points were gusseted.  The body was then placed on the frame with a complete urethane body mount kit.

The rear end is held in place with currie currectlink upper and lower billet control arms and a sphon pro touring adjustable sway bar, all were powder coated black to keep with the color scheme. Ride tech coil overs on all 4 corners handle the dampening.  To keep all this centered (all the joints are johnny-joints) a watts-link from fays32 was modified to work on this car.  

The front end has adjustable upper control arms, tubular lower control arms.  Paired with a solid helwig front sway bar and custom bracing the car handles amazing!

Steering
Steering is controlled by a custom blueprinted and ceramic coated lee 870 steering box connected to a dse steering shaft.  To back up the new steering box a brand new steering pump was installed.  The front end was completely redone with a sphon front end kit, bump steer corrector and urethane bushings.

Wheels
The Grand National has custom set of CCW 18" classic wheels.  The centers were shotpeened and powder coated black with chrome outers to play homage to the GNX wheel.  They are 9.5" up front and 10" out back.  The tires are wrapped in 295 nitto infos.  

Brakes
The brakes are amazing.  From the factory the Grand National has a unreliable power boost master cylinder.  It was replaced with the ultimate in braking, a hydroboost system that uses hydraulic pressure instead of vacuum.  All new stainless steel brake lines were ran to all 4 corners.  Baer brakes were installed on all 4 corners with 13" two piece cross drilled and slotted rotors.  Large Baer T4 calipers , that are powder coated red, stop the car on a dime

Engine
The engine was a 60,000 mile un-opened stock motor that has now been completely rebuilt.  The oil cover was modified to increase oil pressure and a deep sump RJC oil pan was installed to keep things well lubricated.  Billet RJC lightweight race pulleys that are anodized black were installed to decrease parasitic loss and on the same vein an electric water pump was installed.  The outdated solid roller cam was replaced with a hydraulic comp cam 206/210 and morel lifters.  Topped with a set of aluminum champion heads and champion roller rockers.  The intake manifold and plenum was modified, ported, polished and powder coated.  Intake is handled by a 4" maf pipe connected to an 85mm Z06 maf sensor feeding an enlarged and ported throttle body.  Exhaust feeds the turbo through a full set of T/A stainless steel headers that were ceramic coated to keep down under hood heat.  The exhaust spins a billet double ball bearing top of the line Precision 6262 turbo that has also been ported and ceramic coated with a RJC down pipe.  The hot air then is exhausted through a custom dual exhaust setup with magna flow stainless mufflers, the entire exhaust was coated in ceramic coating.  The air is kept cool by a PTE stock location intercooler and an alky control alcohol injection system that allows the car to run at 20+ psi boost with no issues.

The engine is currently tuned at 20 psi and the car is fast, scary fast.  It can handle 25 psi but my desire for reliability and a bit of safety margin had me turn the car down.  At 20 psi the car makes my Grand Sport corvette feel slow by comparison. 

Transmission and Drivetrain
The rear end is a currie track 9" rear end with a T/A brace in the rear to make it appear as a GM rear end.  Its filled with a wavetrac differential, 3.50 gears to match the transmission and turbo, 33 spline axles and all arp studs and bolts.  

The driveshaft is a custom made, 800hp capable, 4" aluminum shaft.   

The transmission is a TCI 6x transmission.  Its their custom made, 4l80e based six speed.  This replaces the weak 4 speed that comes with these cars.  Its bulletproof and awesome.  It comes with paddle shifters installed on the steering wheel and an LCD display showing the gear your in.  The transmission is controlled by a TCI transmission controller, a hand held unit, installed in the center console.  Shift firmness, shift aggressiveness, torque converter lockup, anything can be customized.  A PTC torque converter was installed to match the turbo and engine setup and works great.

Cooling
Since the car was built to live in Las Vegas cooling was a priority.  A large, custom, 3 core aluminum radiator was installed with a dual spal fan kit is the foundation.  I also installed a Heavy Duty Meziere electric water pump to keep the water moving.  Everything under the hood was coated in ceramic to reduce under hood temperatures.  On top of that fully functional GNX vents and TTA vents were installed to vent the hot under hood air.  It has worked, even on the hottest Vegas summer day, driving the car hard it stays cool.

Interior
All grand nationals come with a, very dated, greenish gray interior that I hated.  The seats, door panels and center console were discarded all together.  

2006 Pontiac GTO front seats were recovered in premium leather with perforated inserts, lumbar support and 8 way adjustable makes these an amazing upgrade.  The back seats were custom made from scratch to match the front seats.  

The center console was made from scratch to give me an arm rest and cup holders (both missing on the original), a location for the power window, door, iPad switches, the eq for the stereo and the transmission controller.  The shifter is a custom pro-touring ratchet shifter and the gears are displayed on an LED on the steering wheel.  The iPad is motorized and folds down to reveal the a/c controls, and all tuning gear for the car.  

The door panels were made from scratch.  The uppers are made to match the interior style of the car with the same pattern and ring brothers door handles and latches were installed.  The lowers house some of the most advanced component speakers in the world.

The trunk was coated in leather that was made to match the interior with custom formed panels on all sides.  The bottom spare tire well was made as a cubby hole for extra storage.  The rear panel has the same perforated metal as under the hood and houses the amplifiers and the subwoofers for the stereo.

The rest of the interior was either dyed black or wrapped in black leather with some other custom touches.  The steering wheel is a mono gotham wheel with custom carbon fiber accents that are throughout the interior.  The dash was remade with auto meter pro-comp II gauges, a push button start with a shaved steering column etc.

Stereo
The stereo in this car is amazing.  I only used the best of the best.  Hybrid audio 7" middbass and tweeters are in the door, the tweeters were $1000 just for the set.  Hybrid audio 10" subs are in the trunk.  They are driven by a top of the line arc audio amplifier.  The head unit is an iPad retina 3g with 256 gigs of storage.  Sound is then processed by a sound processor and crossover behind the iPad and fine tuned with the equalizer that is molded into the center console.

The iPad is the best of all worlds.  A huge library of music, internet radio with Pandora, FM and AM radio, videos, limitless media!

Electronics
There are quite a few gadgets wired into the car.  

I installed a top of the line escort radar detector with jammer, there are 4 sensors installed around the car that feed into the head unit next to the wheel.  It also has gps, warnings of photo speed traps, user reported speed traps etc.  With this the car is like a stealth fighter!

I wanted keyless entry as well, so an ididit system was installed.  It has a trunk release, keyless entry, push button start etc.  The headlights were replaced with a dual HID setup, they are amazing and bright.  All tail lights and turn signals are replaced with full led boards, not cheap led bulbs, full boards.  The rear tail lights are bright and sequential and sweep from middle outward.  

This is my personal car and is titled in my name with a clear title.  But I'm also a licensed car dealer in Nevada so I can help with shipping charges and accept loan checks from your bank or credit union.  If you have good credit I can also assist with financing all or a portion of the vehicle if you choose.  If you have any questions, want extra pictures (have over 600 of the build) etc. feel free to contact me, Dave,  at 702-375-2786

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2013 Opel Cascada

Tue, 24 Sep 2013

The Future Buick Verano Convertible?
I wasn't wearing a pedometer while in Germany covering the Frankfurt Motor Show this year, but it's safe to say I walked more than a few miles between press conferences, shooting cars and trekking back to the media center on the first day alone. For this reason, it didn't take much convincing from General Motors for me to duck out of the Messe a day early and drive some of its latest Opel models. No, this didn't include the all-new Country Tourer, but I was able to drive the Opel Mokka (our Buick Encore), the Opel Adam and the Opel Cascada.
I focused most of my driving time behind the wheel of the Cascada, which went on sale in Europe earlier this year, since rumors are swirling that a Buick version of this convertible "could happen soon." Buick hasn't had a convertible since the Reatta, and GM has been lacking a non-performance, budget-minded convertible since the Pontiac brand - and its G6 - was dropped, so adding the Cascada to Buick showrooms could further help the reemerging brand compete in the near-luxury segment. Although the weather was too chilly (and occasionally rainy) to enjoy the Cascada with its top down for very long, I was able to clock a fair bit of drive time behind the wheel on roads ranging from the autobahn to tight roads in small, quaint villages.

GM China President says automaker could export vehicles from China to US

Sat, 20 Apr 2013

At a press conference on Saturday at the Shanghai Motor Show, General Motors announced plans to further expand its presence in the Chinese market. Among those commitments are plans to build four new plants by the end of 2015, giving the automaker the capacity to produce around five million vehicles a year in the country.
In order to make the most of that expansion, GM is adding 400 dealerships in China this year alone (for a total of 4,200 sales points), and it's eyeing 5,100 dealers by 2015. Yet not all of that production will stay in China - GM is planning to increase exports as well. Officials estimate the company will export somewhere between 100,000 and 130,000 Chinese-built vehicles this year - a record. And it's gunning for more.
Autoblog asked GM China president Bob Socia (above) if that means the company might eventually export new vehicles built in China to the United States, and he responded:

Buick Riviera Concept hits the floor in Shanghai

Sat, 20 Apr 2013

Here we have a concept in the true sense of the term. The Buick Riviera you see here - the name of which was last used in production back in 1999 - is said to preview Buick's future styling direction, which means we should expect to see more flowing body shapes to go along with new versions of the marque's classic waterfall grille design. Oh, and we don't believe there's a single porthole in sight.
Powered by Buick's so-called dual-mode wireless plug-in hybrid electric vehicle propulsion system (we'll stick with the W-PHEV acronym) that allows the car to be charged wirelessly just by driving atop a special charging mat on the ground, the car's powertrain is just as futuristic as its exterior shape.
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