If you watched the Super Bowl, you probably saw the 1987 Buick Regal Grand National that was part of the show. This car was the last rear-drive Buick coupe as well as one of the first modern cars to be powered by a turbocharged engine. When it was new, it was also one of the most powerful cars you could buy – which brings up an interestingly different thing about turbos, then vs. now.
The Regal – which was the car that the GN was based on – did not need a turbo. Because it already had enough engine. The turbo that was the heart of the GN upgrades added power that wasn’t necessary.
It was just a lot more fun.
Regular Regals came standard with a 3.8 liter V6 engine – which is a huge engine by the standards of 2025. It was nearly twice the size (displacement) of the typical 2.0 liter four that you get in a 2025 model vehicle.
If you get an engine as big as that.
Many 2025 vehicles come standard with sub-2.0-liter engines and some of these aren’t even four cylinder engines, as for instance the 1.5 liter three cylinder engine that is the only available engine in the 2025 Nissan Rogue I recently reviewed. These small engines need turbos – precisely because they are so small. Put another way, without the boost – which makes a smaller engine produce the power of a larger engine – a small engine would only make enough power to propel a small, lightweight car. Which is why – back in the ’80s and before – small four cylinder engines were found only in small, lightweight cars.
Now you find them in 3,500-plus pound crossovers such as the Rogue.
A mid-late 1980s Regal weighed several hundred pounds less than the Rogue, by the way. This is another difference, then vs. now. Consider that the Regal was a huge car – by the standards of today. This mid-sized (by the standards of its time) personal luxury coupe was 200.6 inches long. A current “mid-sized” family sedan such as the 2025 Honda Accord is 195.7 inches long. The latter, by the way, weighs 3,239 lbs. A mid-late ’80s Regal coupe – which you’ll recall was rear-wheel-drive that had a solid (cast iron) rear axle and body-on-frame construction – weighed about 3,300 lbs.
The 2025 Accord does not come standard with a V6. It comes only with a 1.5 liter four cylinder, turbocharged to make up for that.
This is now the common practice – chiefly because it has become effectively impossible for vehicle manufacturers to offer larger-than-four-cylinder engines in their mass-market vehicles, such as family sedans (the few that are still available) and the becoming ubiquitous crossover that has all-but-replaced the family sedan.
Why? Because larger engines naturally burn more gas. Put another way, they are naturally aspirated – and all that means is they draw in more air when they are running because they have more room in their cylinders than a smaller engine. More air drawn in plus the gas to turn the air into a combustible mixture generally means burning more gas than a smaller engine would – as well as more “emissions” of gas.
The polluting kinds of gasses have been all-but-eliminated from these emissions – and since the late 1990s – but there is very little that can be done about the non-polluting gas (CO2) that is inevitably produced by a running engine.
Other than to make the engine smaller.
And that is why sub-2.0-liter fours are now so commonplace. They are (and ought to be referred to) as compliance engines, because that is precisely what they are. Their small size burns – and so “emits” – less gas, especially the one that does not cause pollution. They help vehicle manufacturers comply with federal fuel economy mandatory minimums and “emissions” standards pertaining to the gas that does not cause pollution.
But they are much too small by themselves to propel the vehicles they’re installed in – without the boost of turbocharging, which forces more air into the engine’s cylinders, effectively increasing the cylinder volume and – when more fuel is added to this mix – enables the small engine to generate the power of a larger engine, such as a naturally aspirated V6.
More finely, to replace the power of the larger engine that’s no longer available.
A mid-late 1980s Buick Regal with a 3.8 liter V6 had enough engine to power itself adequately. If it had a 1.5 liter three instead, it would have needed a turbo (and lots of boost). The Grand National iteration of the Regal did not need the turbocharger that was the heart of the package because it already had six cylinders and 3.8 liters. But turbocharging that V6 resulted in more than enough power, which was once the reason why when you heard “turbo” back in the day, it meant something special.
Something more than just enough to keep things moving.
A turbo was was what you wanted when a naturally aspirated 911 wasn’t powerful enough. Or you wanted a Buick that could out-accelerate a Porsche.
Today, “turbo” means next-to-nothing because it no longer means anything more than powerful enough. If you ever had the chance to drive a Regal Grand National and remember what it was like to drive a turbo’d car back in the day, you know the difference between then – and now.
. . .
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Did anyone else get pissed that that talentless hack Kendrick Lamar was STANDING on the hood of the Grand National at the beginning of the halftime crap?
I did, Bill –
I loathe rap “music,” which is generally just some cretin mumbling nihilistic and obscene doggerel while gesticulating and crotch-grabbing to an electronically generated beat interspersed with the sounds (also generated electronically) of crinkling aluminum foil and sizzling/clicking.
I have to wear powerful noise-canceling ear buds at the gym to be able to work out there.
If the law of entropy means anything, more stress on less structural support equals……?
I wouldn’t say that turbo today means nothing. My 2024 BMW 760i with XDrive has twin turbos supporting the full V8. And when I punch it and those turbos kick in, the acceleration is shocking. The car is still fast with just the V8 going, but the turbos are definitely not “next-to-nothing!”
The exception that proves the rule.
It’s all relative to the contemporary performance vehicles of the time.
The 1987 Buick GNX was the fastest car of the it’s year.
It smoked Corvettes, and why?
The turbo & the tuning…in a 5 person relatively luxury coupe vehicle for its time!!!
I have my doubts about the smaller turbocharged engine saving gas and emissions.
I would postulate that two cars, everything the same but the engines (one larger, NA, the other small, turboed) driving side by side for 100 miles, facing the same drag, etc, would burn the same amount of gas and emit vitually the same exhaust products. It takes the same amount of BTUs to move both vehicles.
‘It takes the same amount of BTUs to move both vehicles.’ — Mike
Axiomatically. The question then is efficiency (conversion of BTUs in the fuel to BTUs of shaft horsepower output).
Theoretically, the turboed smaller engine should have a slight advantage in efficiency. But is the increased capital and maintenance cost worth it? That’s a different analysis.
Importantly, GovCo regulators take no account of it. They do not care whether they are imposing a net financial burden on the
kulaksconsumers.‘This vehicle softened my heart of stone. She died, and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.‘ — Joseph Stalin [edited for contextual relevance]
‘We don’t let them have ideas. Why would we let them have guns?‘ —
Barack ObamaJoseph StalinGetting more power out of a smaller engine with a turbo is why new engines don’t last. At high throttle cramming in more air creates higher exhaust gas temperatures. The high EGTs eat away the metal components in the cylinder. Valves, rings, pistons, and cylinder walls. That’s why older, larger, non turbo engines last longer.
The Grand National and T-Types also served as a reason for Buick to run their V6 program at Indianapolis. Limited to 209 CID but given extra turbocharger boost (55 in HG vs 48 in HG) to compete against the pure race designed Ford Cosworth and Chevrolet Illmor V8s, the Buick V6 powered the 1985 and 1992 Indy 500 Pole Winners. Alas their best finish at Indy was 3rd in 1992 powering Al Unser Sr’s car. They were fast but often expired in a cloud of smoke
. It didn’t help on the rest of the CART series the Buicks ran the same turbocharger boost as the pure racing engines and ran at the back with less horsepower.
Legend says some of what they learned running at Indianapolis went onto the street engines via cylinder heads and valves.
After Buick pulled out of Indy Car racing in 1992 John Menard took over the program and put Menard V6 powered cars on the Pole Position in 1995 and 96.
They are still power adders. The difference being that late model cars without one can’t move out of their own stink.
Commiefornia contemplates going full communist with state industry:
‘Russia. China. Venezuela. Iran. More than a dozen countries make gasoline at state-owned refineries. Could California be next on the list?
‘California policymakers are considering state ownership of one or more oil refineries, one item on a list of options presented by the California Energy Commission to ensure steady gas supplies as oil companies pull back from the refinery business in the state.
‘Chevron, a California company since 1879, last year announced that it was moving its headquarters to Texas. The company has considered ceasing production at one or both of its California refineries, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.
“Recent California policies, like banning the sale of new internal combustion engine vehicles by 2035, the potential tax/penalty on refinery profits and the potential new minimum storage requirement are all headwinds to our business and erode our confidence going forward,” Andy Walz, Chevron’s president of downstream, midstream and chemicals, said in the statement.
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-02-16/is-california-government-considering-oil-refinery-takeovers-yes-it-is
Kamala for governor! Like Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, she’ll slash the gas price to a dollar a gallon … until she’s elected. Then it’ll go up to ten dollars a gallon — to protect the cliiiiimate.
Life in Commiefornia:
https://x.com/DefiantWorld/status/1890726500527374434
When I win the lottery, a GNX is on my list of unnecessary things to buy.
When Fauci ‘went turbo’:
“Celia Farber went to Hawthorne, New York to the Gates of Heaven Cemetery where Fauci was disposing of the corpses of these children who died in his illegal experiments. She found an open pit covered by an astroturf carpet. She opened the astroturf carpet and she saw hundreds and hundreds of tiny little coffins stacked haphazardly upon each other.” — RFK Jr, on video
https://x.com/liz_churchill10/status/1890790143365165230
Crucify Fauci.
Jesus barges into Pfizer headquarters to scourge the pharisee Albert Bourla (at right).
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e2/04/d7/e204d7f5a28425bb415e3f918d56a4aa.jpg
Fauci needs to swing from the end of a rope on his way to join Mengele in Hell.
Every car needs a laser gyroscope, gotta have one of those. Not just turbos, gyroscopes too.
The Feral Irishman, the Hanging Tree song is in a video over there.
Some folks aren’t happy with the quack Fauci.
Pay Pal fired Elon Musk. Couldn’t see eye-to-eye. Musk must go, get the bum out of here.
You are no CEO, Elon, you’re fired.
There is always hope.
Kind of cold for the earth to be experiencing global warming. All bunkum and bosh.
It’s 10 below zero outside right now and is forecast to be 32 below zero for the overnight low.
You stay inside and take it easy.
A beer run is necessary, have to do that.
So a 1987 Buick Regal Grand National was the car at the Super Bowl halftime show? That was the only thing I liked about the halftime show that I hear got MASSIVE boos on social media, though given the way cars are made today, what are the odds that people started looking for one when they saw that black car on TV?
They are out there and available to buy. A well-kept, low mileage unit will cost you over $100,000 though.
Wow. Such cars probably also have fancy rims. I never understood what the thing was with some people getting fancy rims on their vehicles.
Hi John,
If memory serves, the Grand National came with – wait for it – 16 inch wheels. Today, crossovers come with 18s. Some 20s. Gnomesayin’?
Hi Eric,
Every now and again I see cars with fancy rims and really skinny tires, which I never understood why some people did that on their vehicles. I also used to love watching Judge Joe Brown when that show was on television, and I’d often see deadbeat dads who were sued for child support payments. They supposedly never had money to help support their children but somehow had money to pay for fancy schmancy rims on their automobile.
Here’s an interesting tidbit – the valve stem caps on the Grand National’s tires had little “6s” on them. I know this because an army buddy of mine had a GN and the neighborhood kids stole the caps, presumably because they were unique.
A friend of mine convinced his widow mother that she needed a Regal -with the turbo V6 but not the GN paint package. He learned to drive on that beast. It was all fun until he took out 400 feet or so of guardrail on rainy afternoon.
This was that Buick that could outrun a Corvette. The legend has it that GM didn’t allow anything to run quicker than the Corvette, so it had to go. If true, it’s probably a turning point for the company. The thing about GM was that internally there was a good natured competition between the badges. Back in the old days Buick would have thrown down the gauntlet and Chevy would have been tasked with improving the ‘Vette, not getting their competitor Bergeron’ed down.
Although GM had a rule that the Corvette would be their fastest car, that is not why they stopped making the GN.
All of the G bodies were discontinued after 1987. Two years later, Pontiac put a GNX motor in the Trans Am, and that too was faster than a Vette.
There was a rumor of Chevy considering a big block option for the Corvette after the GNs came out. Don’t know if there was any truth to that one.
GM engineering used to cook up a lot of fun back then.
They were running Quad 4 Turbo mules with FE3 suspensions on Olds 98s.
I could be wrong, but didn’t the Buick turbo program continue on from the GTA to the Syclone (obviously with the 4.3?)
Crazy to think of all the performance options back then when compared to today.
GM must have been swimming in development dollars.
Flip: “GM engineering used to cook up a lot of fun back then.”
For one thing, there were 5 car divisions. Each had engineering and design staffs and somewhat flexible management within the GM envelope. Made for some innovation that doesn’t exist today.
The 3800 may have been the best engine GM ever made. I have owned 4 of them 3 LeSabres and a Century all went over 300K and 1 LeSabre over 350K while I drove them. I sold them and they may still be going.
The Chevy small block V8 is a contender for best engine made by GM. It for sure lasted a long time, the block part basically about the same from 1954 to 2003!
Second that, Rich –
Almost all of GM’s V8s were great engines. The Pontiac and Buick and Caddy engines were torque monsters and just as reliable as the Chevy small block. And – once upon a time – working and middle class Americans could afford to own V8 powered cars. Now they get shitty electronic appliances with four cylinder engines. How far we’ve fallen.
As previously noted in this column, it was also generally understood that owning a turbo also meant more maintenance and shorter lifespans.
The n/a 3.8 Buick in the G-bodies was adequate to move the car – for about 90k-120k miles. Then say ADIOS to that junk engine, as the split crank pins caused the thing to beat itself up – until the changeover to the internals resulting in the indestructible 3800.
By the mid 90s, average mileage examples of the 3.8 turbos were already parked in junkyards. The only T-Type/GNs found by then were all low mileage garage queens – for then and still a hefty sum.
The most desirable and reliable engines in those G-bodies were always the 305 & 307 V8s, largely held back in power by choking emissions controls and highway gears.
It’s a damn shame the Monte Carlo SS didn’t get the TPI 305 (or 350) from the Z28.
Add another one to Eric’s list of cars we’re not allowed.
350 Montes were were available im Mexico.
Planned obsolesce. Go back to the days of rusted out after 4 years, except this time just kill the engine.
The bottom of the doors, quarters and floor pans rusted almost instantly on those cars!
Although quality improved a tad over the run, as the 78-80 Cutlass rear bumpers were gone and often replaced with pressure treated 2x10s. But the 81 and ups seemed to fair better.
Good point that the “compliance engine” probably won’t last much longer than the rusty shell or garbage Buick 231 from back in ’87.
But this time, when it blows up, you’re not easily swapping it out on a weekend with a $400 305 from a wrecked Caprice.