Kirbans Korner

Dennis Kirban

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 5, 2009
Kirban 2 cents worth

I return after about a 60 day absence......

Under this title we can cover many different automotive/turbo news history etc. As I drop in a subject and see the inquiries responses we will stick with one topic until interest dies down then jump to another topic under this same thread.

Here is the opening topic:

When did you first encounter or get an inkling of the Turbo Regal? In other words your first experience?

I will state mine for starters and Richard Clarks as well in one of the next postings. Both of ours goes back to the late 1980s.

I like to hear your story. Back when the cars were new for some of you owners the luxury of the internet did not exist. We relied of visual views at dealerships or magazine articles. To my knowledge GM only ran one TV commercial featuring a GN.......

Today, a few clicks on the keyboard and most anyone can be an expert instantly.

My story follows in next posting.

kirbanperformance.com

denniskirban@yahoo.com
 
kirban 2 cents worth

I first became aware of the Turbo Regal notably the Grand National around late 1986. Being in the eastern, PA area this seemed to be a heavy area for these cars at dealerships. I believe inventory was based on Regal sales to some degree.

Being in the GTO business I started to hear from several GTO customers that bought these cars. At the time I had a 1985 Mustang GT 5-speed black. Like most buyers back then it was hard to convince many of us that a V6 would outperform a V8. The Monte Carlo SS was quite popular. I think 90% of the Monte Carlo SS's were burgundry in color!

The owner of one of the local companies we deal with bought a new 1986 GN and also owned a 1965 GTO. He told me I needed to check these cars out. This was the late summer of 1987. He said the dealer he got his from currently had 3 on the lot and if I used his name they would cut me a deal.

The dealer was located in Lansdale, PA. (Now out of business). It was September 1987. I would turn 40 that month. Keep in mind like many of you I knew nothing about the quirks or how these cars could vary from car to car in paint/performance etc.

I remember one of them had T-Tops. I was never fond of them so I test drove one of the hardtops. The new car smell is what entices most buyers....Textured satin leather steering wheel, crisp shifts of the transmission. I remember the sales guy saying there is nothing wrong with the transmission it is designed to shift that way!

It was a cool nite when I did the test drive. Looking at the engine bay of course was different from anything I was used to seeing. The car was loaded power seat power antenna, and of course a brake system like I had never seen before. Big numbers on the speedo 0-85.

I thought about it for a few days trying to decide to I take a hit and trade in the Mustang or buy it or lease it? I had my wife test drive it and she liked it and the plan was to give it to her to drive.

I made my decision and leased it for 3 years. Unknown of course at the time that unlike 90% of the leases I would come out a big winner at payoff time at the end of the lease. Going by memory I think the payoff was like $5500. I also scored equally well on the next lease deal with the Syclone. After that my lease record was terrible on the next 2 cars.

I remember that first week taking a heat gun and removing all the emblems and ripping the visor decal off.

At the time the two big national players for performance parts was Kenne Bell and ATR. Kenne Bell I had heard of since he dealt in older Buicks similar to what we were dong in GTOs. ATR was completely foreign to me at the time.

Within the first 3 months I had the GNX style dash in the car from Quality Engineering out of Michigan. This company later became AVC. If you have either of their GNX style dashes one of these logos should appear on the one corner of the lense. I think they ran about $599 back then and $150 or so to install. Again going by memory.

As they say the rest was history......it was the start for our Turbo business but unknown to me at the time it was also the end of the rear wheel drive Regal platform for Buick.

kirbanperformance.com

denniskirban@yahoo.com

When we sold the car it went to Honolulu Hawaii where it still resides today. The owner of the company that told me about the GN I ended up buying his GN and it went to New Mexico several years later.
 
I graduated high school in 1987 and was a little bit of a car guy, mostly Volkswagons and Porsches were my interest, and some muscle. We had heard of the Grand National, and I had seen the TV commercial a couple times. I don't recall that I ever saw one in person, and I can safely say the GN didn't sell well in Oregon.

I ended up falling in love with the muscle cars and eventually built this 70 Chevelle SS396 from the ground up:
Featured Chevelle - February 2003

I sold the Chevelle in 2006 after frustration and boredom with the car shows, cruize-ins and general idiots attracted to the 'numbers correct' crowd.

I immediately set out to find another project and came here to begin investigating the GN. I bought one later that year. The rest is history.
 
I had been looking at building a fast car for a while, which meant buying some old car and putting a big motor into it. I had been driving beaters for most of my first 7 years of driving and my dad was going nuts watching me not have a semi-decent car to drive around. He suggested that I look into buying a new car and he'd throw a few grand in to soften the blow. Well, that sounded pretty good. That was the fall of '85. I soon ended up at the local Ford dealership test driving a new Mustang - they were the fastest car out there, I and everyone else thought. The car mags had come out with a few "New Model" issues and I noticed the GN - kinda fast, but the factory numbers were not as fast as the 'Stang's.

As I considered my new car purchase I came to realize that everybody was driving new Mustangs. That was not sitting well with me. So I walked in to the Buick dealership, took a look at the GN brochure and thought "It's not as fast as the Mustang but it looks better and at the end of the day if I actually end up with a more practical, albeit slower, car well that would be okay". I ended up ordering one from the factory with the options I wanted. I remember going through the options list and choosing what my car would and wouldn't have - can't do that today!

So my car is ordered and I'm waiting. That fall all the cars mags started coming out with their performance tests and what do you know - my car kicked everything to the curb! I still have all those mags - probably half a dozen different ones. I ended up trading that '86 GN on a brand new late '87 in Dec '87. I had the first '86 in the city and the last '87 in the city. I still have that '87 to this day and am loving it.

:confused::confused:This is the part where I humbly claim that I thought I remembered another Buick Grand National TV commercial. This makes no sense but here goes. They show a Lambo, then a Ferrari, then a Porsche racing down a desert highway when suddenly a Grand National pulls up behind them and passes them. It's so bad it's funny but I remembered being almost embarrassed when I saw it. That's how bad it was. :confused::confused:

This is the part where everyone tells me I have lousy memory;)
 
In 86 I was 14 and living in New Orleans. My mother was in the market for a new car. She was then driving a white 84 Monte Carlo SS. She had been wanting a yellow Camaro. So my stepdad always studied into things real well prior to big purchases. He found out that the new I-ROC Z's were going to have 5.7 vette motor in them. While he was doing his reseach on these cars he told me the fastest car coming out this year (American made) was the GN and that the I-ROC ranked 4th on the list. So him and my mother ended up purchasing the first i-roc z in New Orleans with 5.7 in it. But as I grew older it always stuck in my mind about what he told me about the GN being the fastest in 87, so from that moment I caught wood every time I saw a GN. It wasn't till about 93 when I purchased a rosewood T-Type for $3100 with 110,000 miles on it in Houston TX. I had been driving 87 Mustang GT up till I got my T-Type. I remember driving this car back Louisiana and smashing the pedal and thinking holy$h1t, man this thing pulls. So about a year later I ended up selling it to a friend of mine because I couldn't afford to fix, you guess it the power master. But through out the next 10 years I had a 92 5.0 and 97 Z28. But I could never shake that fever for a GN. So in 04 I sold my Z and got my GN that I still have now.

Funny part about all this is when I had my first TB my real dad could never understand why I wanted that big ole car. So not long after I got my current TB I took ole dad for a spin. He now owns 2 GN's!!!
 
First inking of a Turbo Regal

It was 1989. I was 34 years old, driving the most expensive car I'd ever bought ($1500) and had never heard of a Grand National. I was driving a 1977 Chrysler Newport with a 360c.i. V8. I had met a new mechanic and he was working on the car.

He had taken off the exhaust manifolds to fix something and he fired it up and it was LOUD! It reminded me the muscle cars of the 60's that I saw run at Lebanon Valley Speedway.

I told him that I'd always wanted a muscle car but I wasn't able to afford one and now the price was sky high. He said 'go buy a Grand National.' I asked him to repeat that as it was a funny name for a car. He said: "Yeah, a Grand National. It is a modern muscle car that is affordable. It goes 130mph and everyone is killing themselves in them!" I thinking 'WTF'.

Later that spring I went up to the lake to take my boat out. As I was walking to my boat slip, there was a black car right in my path that I'd never seen before. I could tell by its lines and stance that it had to be some type of muscle car, but what? I was already loving the way it looked. I walked around the car trying to figure out what it was when I saw the fender emblem 'Grand National'. That's what my mechanic was taking about. I was head-over-heels in love.

That night I went into Saratoga Springs for some nightlife. There is a Grand National in the parking lot of the first bar I go to. That's it, I have to have one! So I start checking the paper, Want-Ad Digest, anything that might sell cars. In July I saw one that might be right.

I went to look at it. It was in a garage about a football field in size. Heated. The were Masserati's, Lamborghini's, Ferrari's, split-window Corvettes, Superbirds, 1970
Chevelle LS-6's, your name it and it was in the garage. In low mileage mint condition. Millions of dollars of cars in there. And one Grand National.

The seller of the car was a NYS State Trooper and it was his friends garage. He had bought the Grand National with hopes of it being an investment. It was loaded, with a window sticker of $17,500. He was asking $19,500. It had 206 miles on the odometer. Like brand new, it was not even broken in yet!

He took me for a test drive and I was sold. I didn't even bother to dicker, I just said I'll have $19,500 for you tomorrow. He told me that it was a very fast car. There was nothing in the trooper stations that could keep up with it. Except the radio! Hmmmmmmn.......

I still have the car and I am still head-over-heels in love it! Can't say the same thing for ex-wives and girlfriends!

Of course the car no longer has 206 miles on it nor is it stock anymore. But it is the car I've always wanted and I intend to have it forever........
 
In 1987 I was a senior in high school. I was driving a 77 Regal at that time. I was a big Fan of the tv show Motorweek. I saw the episdode when they tested out the GN and GNX. I was amazed that a V6 would run 99mph in the 1/4. I was in Autoshop that year and we got to go to the auto show in Chicago. The first order of business was to find a GN to checkout. I bought my silver T 3 years ago.
 
First GN i saw was one raceing a 89 GTA with a friend at a light in 1991 lets just say the GN was a blip by the time the GTA stopped spinning at that light that's the day i said i will have one of those one day. Then in 1992 i went to tech school in Ohio we were doing fuel injection diag. we get to the shop and to my amazement there's a 86 GN 120 miles on the clock and no vin. the car had fallen off of a car carrier and GM had donated it to the school we got the car running cause a previous class had fubard the wireing and when that thing started up that was it i was in love i got mine in 2007 it's not the best one out there but it's mine
 
I bought my first car in 1988, a black '86 Z28 that I thought was the fastest car around. Soon after I bought it I started reading these articles about these black regals. I started reading everything I could find on them but had never actually seen one, until I came flying up behind one on the highway in my Z. I thought it was a GN. He looked in his mirror, smiled, nailed it and disappeared. It took me two years to get one and the test drive will stick in my mind forever. No car made me feel like that except for the TTA which I figured I would never have. 3 GN's and a couple Syclones later I'm in a TTA and my dad eventually got hooked to and ended up with a mint GN that I keep trying to get from him.
 
It was 1988, growing up in Cary, NC. If anyone is familiar with Cary, during the 70s/80s it was much more of a sleepy suburb of Raleigh vs the Yankee metropolis it is now. But I digress. During those years I was in College attending NCSU and drove a 1969 Chevelle 350 Malibu. I had done some moderate performance mods on it (hooker headers, Edelbrock intake, Holly 600, built out TH-400 that I robbed from a Cargo van). My bud had a 1974 Nova 350 that was also built out moderately. We were doing pretty well in our rides, smoking the occasional mustang GTs, Supras, Cameros, 280zs of that era.

Until that fateful day that a friend of a friend showed up in his 87 GN. We were ignorant at that time of anything that wasn't Chevy or Ford and figured a family sedan was laughable. Our 'strip' of choice at the time was the bit of new road paved in front of the Cary Mall on the way to the new I-40 extension. That part of I-40 was relatively new and desolate as far as traffic and cops so that was always the chosen area for any impromptu racin'. We each took turns giving that GN a run and needless to say we were all rather embarrassed as we watched the tailights of the family 'sedan' pulling ahead of us. My chevelle, my g/fs' mustang convertible and my bud's nova were no match. Granted, at a strip with a longer runout, the sbcs would have likely closed the gap, but in those short 1/8 mile jaunts, the buicks low end torque was monsterous and no match. From that day, I swore that I would one day own one of these.

Fast forward to today....The chevelle is long gone. I toyed with a honda(yes, I'm a recovering riceaholic) and enjoyed some Mopar muscle ('63 300). Gave them all up when the baby came. 5 years later, the itch returned for a classic car and this time I started looking for a Chevy II. Then I remembered the days of past and getting smoked by the GN and started researching. When I saw how much aftermarket tuning was being done to these at moderate prices on stock blocks I was hooked. After a few months I found a one owner '86 and here I am today, learning and learning some more.
 
It was 1987 and I too was a senior in High School here in Kansas, not many Turbo Buiks around at all.

Our main street in McPherson Ks had about 7 or 8 block to block stop lights, so needless to say about any given night it was a lively main street:cool:

I had a brand new 1987 Black Mustang GT (new body style for that year) and I thought I was Top Dog:biggrin:

Well a friend of mine from a town about 15 miles away (even see him to this day Brent Knight) pulled up beside me in a Black Regal. I remember looking over and thinking to myself DAMN that a sharp regal!!! I just saw the 3.8 something on the hood and thought wow I wont even have to peddle the GT very hard.

When the light changed I droped the clutch on the 5 speed GT and took off but by the time I hit 2nd gear I heard a sound I will never forget:eek:and wham he had me by 2 lengths!

Needless to say we pulled over and I looked under the hood of his car and I thought WTF is that:eek:

Well I drove his car that night and have had the Twisted 6 bug every since.

In the mid 90s I bought my first car and shortly thereafter subscribed to the Grand News from Kirbans.

I loved getting those issues in the mail, the pictures of cars for sale, and the nice Kirban Road trips were always a blast to read.

I have owned 5 GN's under 20,000 miles since then and bought TTA 1477 with 19k on it. All of them are gone now for various reasons,

Shortly though I want to get a GN and mod it and have some fun. I turn 41 on Dec 25th and can finally buy a GN and not have to borrow the money so I may keep this one awhile.

Thanks to all the friends I have made on the board over the years, this is something not everyone can enjoy.

Ty
 
In 1987 I was 2 years old..........................Fast forward to about the year 2000 and my friend wanted a GN. He showed me some videos on the internet and ever since then I was hooked. The way these cars make power is awesome, and the sound of the turbo pulling away from a light make still gives me a chubby :D. Maybe one day I can get mine going again :rolleyes::mad: and enjoy that sound.

When my car did run I had some fun in it, one night at Burger King there was a bunch of burnt rice, I had my buddy try to set up a race, they looked at my car and laughed but no one stepped up to the plate :cool:. I gave them something to laugh at when I left the parking lot :biggrin:
 
I was a fan of the Turbo Regal since my senior year in H.S. I wanted a 1981 Regal Sport Coupe so bad. I loved the lines of the car and thought that the performance at the time was reasonable. Just the thing to replace my trusty old '77 Regal.

Fast forward a few years and I graduate college and land a decent job, so I get the Buick bug again. I visit my local Buick dealer and the dealer's son has a '84 GN that he is using as his demo. I get a test drive in it and am grinning ear-to-ear from the sound of the turbo and the acceleration. Come to find out that a GN that I had my eyes on was a little on the pricey side.... about $16,500 for a decent one with t-tops. I settle for a blue '84 Monte SS that I ordered brand new from Reedman Chevrolet in Langhorne, PA. The Monte set me back $12,800 nicely equipped with buckets and I was a happy camper for a while until I heard about the '86 GN coming out soon.

In November 1985 my dad and I drove to Dearden Buick (also in Langhorne) and was astonished to find 14 GN's all parked in a row, identically equipped. Every car had the basic power options with hardtop but no posi. I would have traded my Monte right then and there if they had a posi/t-top car on the lot.

I don't like purchasing new vehicles during the Winter months so I waited until Spring and found a local '86 GN with the options I desired. The dealer took my Monte in trade and I got the new Buick I always wanted. The car was a blast to drive from day one and the fun part was noboby knew what it was! I had a lot of fun during that first summer driving down RT37 to Seaside Heights every Friday and Saturday night. Many IROC's, T/A's, GT's and TPI Vettes fell by the wayside.:cool:
 
I was a rabid mustang fan at age 13, having just bought my first one (1967 coupe). I bought every magazine I could involving a mustang, whether it was a classic or a 5.0 (and everyone that was cool and popular in high school had a 5.0). My dad's friends would donate their old muscle car magazines to me and I would spend hours studying them.

I remember stumbling across an article about a Ford Vs. Buick drag race shootout. After looking at the Buicks, I wondered why the owners would even bother. I mean, come on, a Buick?

Needless to say, my pride and faith in the mustang was irrepably damaged when I turned to the results page...the Ford guys got their azzes handed to them! I wrote it off as a bunch of heavily modded buicks and tried to forget about it.

Fast forward to 2008, I decided to get back into show cars and researched quite a few before deciding on an 87 Grand National. Great looks, EFI, an incredible reputation, and great investment potential.

The first time I saw one in person (let alone drive one) was when I flew up to Michigan to pick up the Grand National that I just bought. Looking back on it, it was pretty stupid to buy a fairly expensive car without ever seeing or driving the car.

I'm absolutely hooked on the car. I show it and it's placed almost every single time!

Guys on the street go nuts for it...girls don't get it (Dont' you wish it was the other way around?).:cool:
 
It was probably 1986. I was 13. My uncle had recently bought a Buick/GMC dealership and his demos of choice were always Turbo Regals (usually GNs). He came by my grandmothers house one evening and told my mom he was taking me for a ride. Since he was a one-time professional drag racer, she knew exactly what kind of ride I was going to be experiencing. I had a pretty good idea too.

Once we pulled out of the driveway and hit the straight of the highway, it was ON! The turbo kicked in and my head went back. A sh!t eating grin took over my face and all I did was sit back and enjoy the power. :D

We stopped at a convenience store a few miles down the highway. After grabbing a drink from inside, I went to get in the passenger side and was told to head over to the drivers seat. That sh!t eating grin I mentioned earlier instantly got a LOT bigger.

I quickly got in the car and pulled out to the highway. Now, being not of an age to legally drive and knowing this car was dealership inventory, I resisted my urge to just flog the gas pedal. I was trying to be good. Well, my uncle was having NONE of that. He firmly said "STOP." I was confused. I looked at him as if to say "right here in the middle of the road??" Yep... That's what he meant. So I did. Dead stop in the middle of the highway (No, there was no traffic behind us. You could see for a country mile both directions...) His next words were very to the point. He said "Son, I said you can drive this thing. Now DRIVE it... Put that pedal to the floor and show me what this car can do."

Yea... I didn't have to get told twice. I left footed damn near through the floor board and held on to the wheel.... Driving a brand new GN like I had stolen it... Grinning my a$$ off... And loving every second of it.

It was then I fell in love with these cars. Over the next few years I was able to get up close and personal with GNs, Ts, a GNX (didn't get to drive that one :(), a GSX clone, Syclones, Typhoons, etc. Those were some good times that I look back on often and am thankful I had the opportunities to enjoy some wicked rides.
 
1986, I was in collage at the time driving a 78 Regal, white, lota of chrome, moon roof and fully loaded. I absolutely loved it right up to the day some guy drove into the collage lot with a wicked black Regal and I immediately had to know more. It was a fresh off the showroom floor 86 GN. As I talked to the guy he popped the hood and that was it ....... I was on the path to the Dark Side. In early 88 I graduated and moved back home and I kinda lost sight of getting a TR. Then one day I dropped by a good friends house and there sat an 84 GN, it was sweet.

I immediately asked who's car?

My friend replied "my sisters....... ya want it?" :eek:

She's selling it?

Yeah mom had to take it to work, went to pass a car on wet road and did a full 360 :p. She bought my sister a 4 banger last week, told her get rid of that black death trap of a car.

Bought it that day.....:biggrin:

Scared me a bit when she handed me a 1/2 inch stack of service paperwork on a 4 yo. car.
 
as a senior in HS in 1988 all my friends & I had fast cars, (81 olds Cutlass with a very healthy 455 that would run 11.40's & a 68 firebird with a very healthy 400). well in our small town beside a friends house a guy bought a 87 GN. needless to say the GN would NOT keep up with our cars. fast forward to 1999, the wife needed another daily driver, well I got sick & tired of buying a car the depreciated to nothing. so we started looking for a 64-67 GTO for her to drive, while skipping through the pages of Hemmings she saw a Buick GN with 19k miles, I said well it's a decent running car but nothing fantastic, (boy did I learn quick), we went & looked @ it drove it & she decided she wanted it, so here we are 10 years later & now have an 8 second Buick powered car.:wink: but she likes her vette better than her Buick.
 
I first became aware of the GN around late 1985. I had a 69 GS Stage1 and a 70 Stage 1 at the time so I was kinda tuned into the Buicks. One of the dealers in Columbus, OH, Sager Buick had an 84 GN on the used car lot. I tried to trade the 69 Stage 1 in on it but they didn't want to give me anything on trade for my car. I drove the 84 and wasn't impressed with the turbo lag it had. In the spring of 1986 I started looking for a new car to drive and began looking seriously for GN but all of the dealers in Columbus wanted to tack on some huge money to the sticker price. There was no way I was going to pay more than sticker. A couple of months later one of my friends at work called to tell me that the GN that he ordered came in and that the dealer had another GN that was loaded was available. It seems whoever ordered it decided to pass on it when it came in. I called the dealership, Buckles Motors in Urbana(30 miles west of Cols), who advertised in the Cols. paper to be a $49 over invoice dealer. The GN stickered for almost $19,000 and they knocked $3,000 off the sticker over the phone. I was interested and made arrangements to drive over to the dealership the next day, Tuesday, and take a test drive. I spent the rest of the day getting my financing arranged and approved.

I had read some magazine articles about the new GN with the intercooler and had decided that if it ran like they said, I would buy it. Of course, if it had ran like the 84, I was going to pass. As you can imagine, it ran like I expected it to run with my wife, the salesman, and myself in the car on the test drive. Back at the dealership we completed the paperwork and the salesman said it would be ready to pick up on Thursday. One of the interesting tidbits about this is that I got to pick up my GN before my friend did although he had ordered his several months before. According to the dealership, his car was pulled off the line at the factory by the feds to check the emissions and so on. He didn't get to pick up his GN until Friday.

I still have the GN and it is still stock. It has just over 48,000 miles on it. I just recently had to have the headliner replaced as it was beginning to sag all over. My GN is one of the few 86's with the moon roof. It's a great car.

Thanks,

Larry
 
Around 86 or 87 I was working at Baldwin Buick in Shillington, PA as a Service Advisor.
We often got the turbo cars in the shop either for dealer preps or routine maintenance... and I was one of the guys to test drive alot of cars before they went back to the customer.

Driving a brand new Grand National when I was 19-20 years old, left a lasting impression with me. At the time, I could never afford one of my own... so I ended up with several 3rd gen F-bodies... and a couple drag cars in between.

Now that I'm older, a modded GN really fills all the gaps for me... It's a sharp car, it's comfortable, it's fast and it's streetable.

I'm now on my 3rd one in 5 years. :D
 
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