Buick GNX
902 E Hamilton Ave, Flint, MI
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The 1987 Buick GNX inverted nearly every assumption buyers had about what a muscle car needed to be fast — rather than a large naturally aspirated V8, Buick built the GNX around a turbocharged, intercooled 3.8-liter V6, an engine configuration far more associated at the time with economy cars than genuine street-racing performance. That turbocharged V6, developed with input from performance tuner McLaren Performance Technologies (unrelated to the McLaren supercar company) and ASC/McLaren, produced enough power that the GNX ran a quarter-mile in the low 13-second range and reportedly out-accelerated the same year's Chevrolet Corvette from a standing start — a genuinely startling result for a turbocharged, blacked-out Buick sedan-based coupe up against Chevrolet's flagship sports car. Buick built only 547 GNX examples for the 1987 model year, making it one of the rarest genuine performance cars of the entire 1980s, and its all-black exterior treatment — including blacked-out trim, wheels, and badging rather than the loud graphics packages common on rival muscle cars of the era — gave it a deliberately understated, almost sinister presentation that stood out precisely by refusing to look like a typical performance car. Assembled at Buick's plant in Flint, Michigan, the GNX's specific combination of turbocharged-V6 power beating contemporary V8 performance cars, genuine rarity, and understated all-black styling has made it one of the most unusual and highly regarded muscle cars in American history — proof that Detroit could still build a genuine street-racing legend even during a decade often dismissed as the muscle car's weakest era.
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