Member "Black Box" Feature car for the month of December..

[86brick]

Info. on this car from Black Box's sig...

"'87 GN 38K miles, T-Tops, stock turbo/IC/heads/cam, bolt on mods, TurboTweak Chip, SMC Alky, Convo Pros/28x11.5x15 Hoosier QTP's (race) Radial T/A's/GN rims (street) Best time 12.74 @ 106mph. 273 HP@4800 rpm, 417 lbs/ft@2950 rpm at the rear wheels (before alky)."

[John Wilde]

Nice car, thanks Steve!

[Quint]

now thats a nice ride. hey when do I get to be top car of the month

[86brick]

Quint, Black Box's car was randomly picked to be featured for this month from the TR picture thread that was started by Jim..
Turbo Regal Picture Thread

I will try and start another thread for member's to post pics of their TRs and then maybe this time we will try a poll to let the member's decide on who's car should be featured for next month

[Black Box]

Now this is just too cool having my car featured. Thanks for the complements guys, much appreciated.

I’ll add a little history behind my GN. I’ve posted the info before, but I’ll write it again.

I bought it in the April of 2001 with 23K miles on it, from a guy that used to post here, under the name “990 T”, from just north of Boston. Most people would consider it an
”impulse buy”, and to be honest, it kind of was. This was at a time when I had just gone through a divorce. I had gone almost 5 years without owning a high-performance car, and I wanted to get back into that game so badly, it was driving me nuts. I needed to fill the void that had been created with the sale of my ’87 IROC in ’96. I had always promised myself that I would buy a brand-new Camaro before they went out of production, since I had two before and loved them (second and third gen cars), but never had a new one. After pricing out an ’00 M6 T-Top SS in Sunset Orange Metallic with some of the SLP options, then figuring out that I would realistically spend another $5-10K in mods, I realized that I would end up with one sweet ass car, but it would have cost an arm and a leg to buy, and mod to my liking….I won’t even get into the insurance costs.

I had the day off one Friday and was browsing the TurboTrader on GNTtype.org, when I ran across it. I thought it was a mistake, a mint ’87 GN with 23K miles for only $13,500? I had done some research about TR’s on the internet, so I thought this was a pretty good deal. And I knew people priced high, and finagled with the buyer from there. I had remembered these cars well from high school, and always thought they were awesome, but never really thought about buying one (that “gotta have a V8 mentality”, ya know?). Until now. So I called Jon (the owner) and talked with him and made arrangements to come and see the car.

On Saturday afternoon a good friend of mine Jeff and I took the trek up to look at it. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for two large coffees, and hauled up there in his brother’s ’99 Trans Am (a forth gen F-gody….how’s that for irony?). As soon as we turned the corner onto the street, I could see it, and that was it. I was buying that car. All black and sinister looking, and clean. We checked it out, and Jeff drooled over the guy’s grey ’87 Turbo T, with front mount pipes visible under the bumper. I just marveled at the GN I was about to buy. I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It had some old-school mods (red top injectors, Pit Bull chip, ATR exhaust, Kenne-Bell ram air, and an ATR Torque Arm, but uninstalled). I drove it around town and on the freeway and even with three people in the car, I couldn’t get over the rush of the turbo cramming air into the little V6. I had always owned V8’s, but never had I felt such torque from a near-stock engine. I offered him $12,500 and he accepted. At that point, I had pretty much forgotten about buying a new Camaro. The GN was different, fast, bad-ass looking (IMO), had street cred (to those true car enthusiasts who knew what a turbo Buick was) and unlike a Camaro, would probably go up in value. All I could think during the whole ride home was “I just bought one of baddest-ass American musclecars ever!” On Wednesday night, I drove back up with my Mom & Dad, and drove it home. I’ll never forget that ride. Sun was setting, air was cool, and I got some stares and thumbs up along the way. Finally, I had a musclecar again.

I’ve modded it, but nothing too wild (yet). I’m still not done with it, but I doubt it'll ever go faster than 10's. I still think about the new Camaro sometimes, and wonder if I made the right decision in buying the GN. Sometimes I still want one. I almost sold the GN once. But all it takes is one drive, one roll into the throttle to feel the rush of torque pushing me into the seat, turbo whistling, world going by at an ever-increasing rate, to sway my mind. Sometimes in the winter when I don’t drive it, all it takes is a trip to the garage to see the GN sitting there, waiting for cool springtime air and clean, abusable asphalt to make me realize that I absolutely bought the right car.

There’s more info on the actual mods on my Cardomain page. Thanks for reading the story.

Steve

[ttypewe4jim]

Cool car Steve Really clean looking to be honest after having two heavyly modded Turbo regals leave the car semi stock or atleast looking stock and have fun with it. Then there not down as much

[86brick]

Awesome write-up Steve!!! I think you made the right decision.. The 4th gen F-bodies are nice cars, but they are like a belly button (it seems like everybody has one) and at least with our cars you know you have something special that the guy around the corner doesn't own

Originally Posted by ttypewe4jim

Cool car Steve Really clean looking to be honest after having two heavyly modded Turbo regals leave the car semi stock or atleast looking stock and have fun with it. Then there not down as much

Words of wisdom!

[Black Box]

Thanks again guys! I have the week between Christmas and New Years off, so I'll be doing some wrenching on it then. My ultimate goal is to make it a stock 109 block, 200R4, BB turbo and FM, stock ECM, probably heads and cam, 10 second street car. I still have visions of it lowered with 17" Kinesis wheels, but I like the idea of lifting the front wheels at the track more. So I think it'll stay on track of being a fast street/strip car.

Steve

[NEARING]

SWEET RIDE!

[jdsgnx]

NICE CAR AND NICE STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only regret would have been to buy the camaro, NO comparison to a piece of muscle car HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Black Box]

Thanks dudes Happy Holidays to everyone!

[GNflyby]

Originally Posted by Black Box

Thanks dudes Happy Holidays to everyone!

Sweet car Steve, would you mind if I use those pictures in my next video? Nelson.

[Black Box]

Hey Nelson,
Sure, that'd be awesome to have my ride in there. If you want, you can take the burnout video that's in my sig too. If you need a copy of it, let me know and I'll e-mail it to ya. Video 8 looks bad ass.

Happy New Year dude!

Steve

[Black Box]

Damn. December is almost at an end. My 31 days of fame are almost over.

[GNflyby]

Originally Posted by Black Box

Hey Nelson,
Sure, that'd be awesome to have my ride in there. If you want, you can take the burnout video that's in my sig too. If you need a copy of it, let me know and I'll e-mail it to ya. Video 8 looks bad ass.

Happy New Year dude!

Steve

Cool... yeah if you wouldn't mind sending me that video clip, that would be great. And thank you for your words about the 8th Video, you guys are the reason I keep making them. I wish you the best for the New Year Steve, thanks, Nelson.

You can send the video to : 87grandnational@gmail.com