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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.

One of the world's largest muscle car museums is auctioning off its cars

Rick Treworgy's Muscle Car City is one of the biggest collections of high-performance American cars in the world. With over 200 cars of mostly GM makes, it's a mecca for fans of the golden age of Detroit iron. Unfortunately, the museum will be shutting its doors for good on Jan. 17 and auctioning off most of its assets with no reserve. The collection is, to put it bluntly, astounding. Advertised as a combined 65,000-plus horsepower, it occupies a 60,000-square-foot retail space in Punta Gorda, Fla., in a former Walmart store. It make sense when you learn that founder Rick Treworgy made his fortune in the commercial real estate business. As a hobby, he began to amass a truly jaw-dropping collection of muscle cars, filling out a collection that often has every year of a particular model represented, or a grouping of the rarest and highest-performance option packages of that year or model. Often, Treworgy bought placeholders while scouring the country for even rarer versions. It helps that Muscle Car City also houses a showroom where unwanted cars are sold, as well as its own speed shop that stocks plenty of parts. There's even a '50s-style diner called Stingray's Bar and Grill. According to a 2014 episode of Car Crazy, Treworgy has 80 Corvettes alone, more than the actual Corvette Museum. Among them are 20 models from 1967, one of Treworgy's favorites. The rest span the decades from 1954 (he once had a '53 but sold it) to a recently acquired 2020 C8, which, according to The Drive, has only 300 miles on the odometer. You like Impalas? There are models of every year from 1958 to 1969. El Caminos? He's got 'em from 1964 to 1972. Novas? Every year from 1963 to 1970 is represented. Most are the more desirable examples of each breed, with four-speed transmissions, the biggest blocks, and unicorn option packages like a factory 1965 Z16 SS396 Chevelle, one of 200 that were ordered off-menu at Chevy dealerships. And don't even get us started on the Camaros, which include not one, but two COPO 1969s. Treworgy even owns the only known surviving example of a 1936 Chevrolet Phaeton, of which only seven were built. On top of it all, many of these cars are concours quality and have won awards at prestigious car shows. While it's sad to see a collection like this broken up, Treworgy told The Drive that he'd been planning to retire next year anyway. However, the COVID-19 pandemic sped up those plans, greatly reducing the number of visitors to his museum.

Restyled 2014 Buick Regal adds AWD, Regal GS loses power

Although the current Buick Regal hasn't even been on the market for very long, General Motors is using the New York Auto Show to unveil an updated version of the sedan in a similar fashion to what we saw yesterday with the 2014 LaCrosse. Like the LaCrosse, all 2014 Regal models will be getting a new look both for the exterior and interior design, but the big news takes place under the sedan's skin.
Except for the base Regal eAssist, the Regal Turbo and Regal GS will both be adding the benefit of all-wheel drive, but there is no word as to how much weight this system will add to each car's curb weight. The Regal Turbo's 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder has received a decent bump in output from 220 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque to 259 hp and 295 lb-ft; unfortunately, these same figures are carried over to the Regal GS, which means that car drops from 270 hp. Both turbocharged models (Regal Turbo and Regal GS) will now be offered with all-wheel drive and the ability of sending more than 90 percent of the engine's torque to the rear wheels.
In terms of styling, the 2014 Regal gets similar styling changes found on the updated Enclave and LaCrosse, including reworked fascias, scalloped headlights and a full-width chrome strip spanning between the new LED taillights. Inside, key changes were made to the Regal's cabin technology, such as the instrument gauge cluster and infotainment system. On the Regal and Regal Turbo, a new 4.2-inch color display is available for drivers to see information for the vehicle, navigation and audio systems, but the Regal GS' cabin is slightly different with an eight-inch configurable gauge display. One of the best changes may be the overall reduction in buttons on the center stack, creating a cleaner-looking and easier-to-use cabin.