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1987 Buick Grand National was made to be Kevin Hart's 'Dark Knight'

The Meguiar's booth at the SEMA show isn't the only place comedian and actor Kevin Hart is combining cars and cinema, his "Michael Myers" 1969 Plymouth Road Runner brooding in the car care products pen, while his SpeedKore "Hellraiser" 1970 Dodge Charger also menaces. Hart bought a 1987 Buick GNX last year and put it on Instagram with the caption, "Sundays are perfect for old school drives…. If you know you know." Looks like old G-Bodies are perfect for restomod builds, too, which we all already knew, but this car isn't the GNX that featured on social media. This is the 1987 Buick Grand National, one step below the GNX and half the price at the time. It's nicknamed "Dark Knight" and it's one of the stars of the Magnaflow exhaust booth at SEMA. Going back to work with regular collaborators Dave Salvaggio of Salvaggio Design and Sean Smith, of course there's a lot involved in the overhaul. Still, we appreciate how the team stayed true to the ethos of the Grand National in ways that made the build more complicated than it already was. Take the engine. The original came with a 3.8-liter V6 wearing a single turbocharger to register an official output of 245 horsepower and 355 pound-feet of torque compared to the GNX's 276 hp and 320 lb-ft. Instead of swapping it for a V8, it's been replaced with the 3.6-liter twin-turbo V6 from the Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing. And instead of leaving both turbos on, the engine junkies plumbed a single turbo in a layout recalling the 1987 engine even as it cleans up the original Chutes 'n' Ladders mess of tubes. We didn't get an output rating for the setup. The Cadillac's twin-turbo mill makes 472 hp and 445 lb-ft. in the CT4-V Blackwing. We would bet Dark Knight's engine's pretty close to that with the single large turbo at the prow, plenty of juice for a car weighing 3,545 pounds. Exterior upgrades include a custom front fascia with a carbon fiber hood and splitter. The interior shows the same tasteful restraint, polished design and nicer materials draped over the stock 1980s layout. That shifter controls GM's 8L90 eight-speed automatic instead of the original four-speed auto.  Elsewhere, Salvaggio did the same here as with the Michael Myers Road Runner, creating a custom frame to increase rigidity and get the car closer to the ground on its 19-inch HRE wheels in the Buick's original weave look.

China's Buick Envista crossover is coming to the United States

Confirming an earlier rumor, Buick has announced that the Envista crossover it unveiled in China earlier in 2022 will travel across the Pacific and land in American showrooms. The fastback-like soft-roader's main mission will be to lure younger buyers into the firm's showrooms. "[The Buick Envista is] already in production in China, off the design of the Buick Wildcat. Getting ready for the United States here as well; just a beautiful addition to the Buick line-up," said General Motors president Mark Reuss during a conference call in November 2022. His announcement asks more questions than it answers. We don't know when the Envista will make its American debut, whether it will be imported from China or built elsewhere, or precisely where it will slot in the Buick range. Enthusiast website GM Authority speculates that we could see the model in time for the 2024 model year and that the lineup will include an upmarket trim level with the Avenir designation. Technical details will be released closer to the Envista's on-sale date. For context, the version sold in China carries a base price of RMB 150,000, which represents about $21,000 at the current conversion rate, and ships with a turbocharged, 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine rated at 181 horsepower and bolted to a continuously variable transmission (CVT). It's available with a pair of 10.25-inch displays (one for the instrument cluster and one for the infotainment system), a surround-sound system, and a sporty-looking appearance package named GS (that should raise some eyebrows from the long-time Buick fans out there). Convincing young motorists to put the Buick brand near the top of their shopping list will be just one of the Envista's tasks. On a secondary level, it also previews the design language that will permeate the rest of the range (including a series of EVs) in the coming years. Related video: Featured Gallery 2022 Buick Envista, Chinese-spec model Buick Crossover

Buick Regal lives on in China, gets visual and tech updates

Axed from the American market after the 2020 model year, the Buick Regal lives on in China. It's selling well enough across the Pacific for the General Motors-owned brand to justify investing in a round of updates that includes a new-look exterior design and more interior tech. Chinese buyers only have access to the sedan variant of the Regal; the TourX wagon briefly sold on our shores isn't available. The facelift includes sharper-looking headlights, a big grille that occupies most of the space on a redesigned front bumper, and Buick's new logo. Not much has changed when you look at the Regal from the side, it still features an upswept line that runs across the bottom of both doors, and Buick chose not to publish photos of the rear end which strongly suggests little has been updated. New wheel designs are available as well. Most of the changes made to the interior fall in the technology basket. Buick notably added its QuietTuning noise-cancelling function, which promises to make the cabin quieter, while shift-by-wire technology frees up space for two big cupholders on the center console. Connectivity is part of the package, too: Buick's eConnect infotainment system includes an artificial intelligence-powered Baidu voice assistant. Power for China's Regal comes from a turbocharged, 1.5-liter four-cylinder engine whose output hasn't been released. Alternatively, the list of options includes a 2.0-liter turbo-four rated at 233 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. It spins the front wheels via a nine-speed automatic transmission. In contrast, the Regal sold here was available with anywhere from 250 to 310 horsepower depending on the trim. Pricing for the 2023 Buick Regal starts at 159,800 Chinese yuan, which represents around $22,400. China is the Regal's last bastion. Buick left the sedan segment in the United States after it swept the Regal out of its range in 2020, and no evidence credibly suggests that a successor for our market is in the pipeline. Opel — which General Motors sold to Peugeot in 2017 — developed the Regal and sold its own version of it called Insignia across Europe until 2022. Here again, the model won't be directly replaced. Continuing our global tour, Australia-based Holden tried to market a variant of the Insignia as a replacement for the rear-wheel-drive, V8-powered Commodore from 2018 to 2020. The model flopped and retired after a lackluster career, and Holden closed shortly after. Related video: