(engine revving)
- This car belongs to one of the fastest
import drag racers in the world.
(engines racing)
He set record after record
with his custom-built rotary rockets.
Without why on earth is he so
obsessed with this Buick?
And more importantly, why did it take him
almost 30 years to build?
Today we're going to talk about
why Buick even made this car in the first place,
and the custom touches that make
this National "grander" than the rest,
and then at the end, hopefully, if we're lucky,
we're gonna do some burnouts.
(engine revving and tires squealing)
It's time to go Bumper to Bumper
on one of the cars that made me a car guy.
This 1987 Buick Grand National.
(rock music)
('80s rock music)
We can all agree that the Grand National
is one of the sickest cars ever made.
In fact, it might be one of the only cars
that all car people can agree on.
But when you look at it in the context
of other Buicks at the time,
it don't make no sense.
It looks like a Buick, it smells like a Buick,
but it doesn't quite act like one.
So why in the world did they make it at all?
Well, way back in 1981,
Buick won the NASCAR manufacturer's cup with the Regal.
Then a year later they did it again.
You know what James always says,
"What wins on Sunday, sells on Monday."
So they made a limited run
of high performance Regals available to the public,
named after a NASCAR cup series, the Grand National.
('80s rock music)
The Grand National was only originally intended
for a run of 100 cars.
From the outside they looked like
any other GM car from the '80s
except it was painted a little bit more blacker.
But under the hood, these things held a little secret.
A 3.8 liter turbocharged secret.
It's the engine, the V6 turbo,
which in the '80s was not the norm.
Buick had been experimenting with turbos
in their race cars since the mid '70s,
and they were one of the first American car companies
to put a turbo on a production car.
The standard 3.8 liter V6 in the Grand National
was cranking out 245 horsepower and 355 torque.
It was really rare that GM would make anything
that would even come close to
competing with the Corvette.
So it makes it extra weird that they
made this rectangle not only close in competition,
but flat out better than the Corvette.
It was built as the working man's super car,
which is something that I can really, really get behind.
And just like a blue collar working man,
this car's appearance is understated.
The only reason you would know
this is a Grand National
and not just any old Buick Regal
is from these awesome power six badges.
I love them.
('80s rock music)
Another thing that sets it apart also
is the color scheme that Buick chose.
Black grill, black trim,
everything that they could paint black,
they painted black.
The jet black trim of the Grand National
looked a lot like the mask of the
sand-hating Darth Vader.
Earning it the nickname, Darth Buick.
(Darth Vader breathing)
It was around this time in the late '80s
when the owner of this car,
Abel Ibarra, was attending high school.
Maybe you've heard of Abel.
He's a certified legend in the
import drag racing world.
He's set records with his Mazda R100,
RX-2, and RX-8, and earned many titles including
Fastest Import, Fastest Mazda, and
Fastest Rotary in the World.
('80s rock music)
Oh, and his R100 was inducted into the
Wally Parks NHRA Museum, which is a huge deal
because it was the only import ever to make it in.
(engines racing)
But back before he had all of those titles,
he was just a high school kid that loved cars.
By the age of 14 he was already
street racing with cars borrowed from his friends.
But he had his eye on a different car.
It was the Grand National.
The Grand National was a favorite with people
in his neighborhood of South Central LA,
especially popular with the Bad Boys.
It was slick, powerful, and most importantly,
it stayed under most people's radar.
By 1992 he had finally saved up enough scrilla
to buy his dream car.
Little did he know the crazy journey
that his car would take him on,
which I can totally relate to.
Whoever knows where a car is gonna take you?
The Grand National at this point
was like Anakin in The Phantom Menace.
Sure, he was a good pod racer,
but he wasn't quite there yet,
you know what I mean?
So Abel and his brother started souping up his dream car.
He met another Grand National owner
that gave him the number of a guy
who could help him, Mike Doyle.
Mike and Abel quickly became buds,
and Mike helped install a new exhaust,
fuel injectors, an inter-cooler,
and later, a bigger turbo.
No doubt the Grand National was fast then,
but like many of us know,
once you're bitten by the horsepower fly,
it's really hard to quit going.
Abel's Grand National got so much attention
that it was featured in the
1996 issue of Turbo Magazine, which is awesome.
But his good fortune was about to run out.
A short time later,
Abel's brother parked it outside of his house
to run inside and grab something real quick.
He came outside a couple minutes later
to find somebody in the middle of
trying to steal the car.
He scared the dude off, but not before that dude
bucked a couple shots off at him.
Luckily, his brother didn't get shot,
but the thief did break the steering column in the process.
And this was just the start of Abel's misfortune.
(ominous '80s music)
One fateful day in 1998,
Abel's brother took the Grand National out
and hooned it a little too hard,
and blew the head gasket, which is a huge bummer.
As his drag racing career reached full swing,
Abel had no time to fix up his Grand National.
It sat in his shop and collected dust
while he was off setting records.
- [Announcer] 758, 175, he backs up,
that will be a new record.
At racers.com--
- At this point, Mike Doyle was closing up his shop
and he offered Abel a brand new
stage one racing block,
because he just had that laying around.
The 3.8 liter Buck V6 was a race version
of the Grand National's existing engine.
Abel happily took the engine off of his hands, of course,
and a few years later he managed to install
some custom-machined racing pistons,
and by 2003, the burly race engine was finished.
(loud engine racing)
By 2004 the new engine was actually
in the Grand National.
But not much else was.
It sat for another seven years, basically untouched.
But what was he gonna do?
He was off winning races and setting records.
Every couple years he'd find a little bit of time
to go back to his dream car and tinker on it.
Tweaking something over here,
adding a part over there,
but it was never really the car he wanted it to be.
The car at this point was kinda like teen Anakin.
But little did he know at the time,
it was about to turn into Darth Maul.
(Zach roaring)
While we're back here,
let's take a look at a couple cool things in the trunk.
Just a little tidbit for ya,
on any old GM car there's gonna be two keys.
The round one's for the doors and the trunk,
and the square one's for the ignition.
We'll use that one in a little bit.
('80s music)
Hoo yeah.
So one of the first things you might notice
is these two giant 15 inch subwoofers.
And I love a good stereo system,
and this is installed in a way that makes me very happy.
It's super clean, kinda OEM plus.
The amps are built into the sides.
There's a 12 disc CD player which is amazing,
and there's still room for like two golf bags.
Other than that, in the trunk,
if you're ever shopping for a Grand National,
and I hope you are,
check the sticker in the trunk.
This is the identification sticker,
and that's where you can look and check to find out
if this is actually a real Grand National.
And this one is.
('80s rock music)
For better handling,
they installed Hotchkiss sport suspension
with custom upper and lower control arms,
sway bars, the whole deal,
which really brought this boat's handling
into the 21st century, in a big way.
These wheels are 17 by nine and a half in the front,
and 17 by 11 in the rear.
And to be honest, before I saw the car I was thinking,
HREs on a Grand National?
I don't know.
But now that I've seen it, I know.
Apparently Abel ordered these custom
specifically from HRE's booth at SEMA in the late '90s
and he's not looked back since.
And why would he?
When you get something this right,
you don't mess with it.
So how does this setup compare
to the Grand National pre-Y2K?
Well, Abel took it to the dyno
and it made 650 horsepower at the wheels,
but they ran out of fueling.
And you know you gotta squirt gas to haul ass.
So then they installed a MagnaFuel 750
which is good for like 2,000 horsepower,
but now the weak point is the drive shaft.
So, once they get the driveshaft sorted out,
Abel thinks it's gonna be able to make about 900 horsepower.
900 horses, out of a Buick V6 from 1987.
You know what, let's go look at the engine.
(Zach gasping)
In 2018 inspiration struck Abel
exactly 20 years after the head gasket blew.
This was gonna be the year that he was gonna
get his Grand National up and running.
And not just running, but making serious power.
And since so much time had passed,
he now had 20 more years of tuning experience
which would make things a lot easier.
Abel started basically from scratch,
installing a custom billet crank shaft,
billet rods, and billet main caps.
In went a new precision turbo
with a 76 millimeter turbine.
He upgraded the ECU to an Adaptronic M2000
and his buddy, Greg Davis,
hand-built this custom intake manifold from sheet metal,
and it looks nasty.
('80s rock music)
The boys over at JMD Performance Tubing
sent over the tubing for the exhaust,
and Abel turned it from tubing
into this sick dual exhaust system.
The transmission is a period correct
GM 200-4R three speed automatic.
But you think he would just throw
a stock transmission in this thing?
Hecky, hecky, naw, naw.
Abel and his crew rebuilt the entire transmission
with custom billet parts to be able to
accommodate all these extra horses
he had just shoved into his engine bay.
Aww?
(Zach chuckling with satisfaction)
Oh!
This thing is sweet.
One thing they didn't touch too much was the interior.
It's kinda like a time capsule, and I love it.
This is one of my favorite eras of car interior.
This '80s ass interior makes me feel like
I'm about to go do a burnout with my grandma,
which she would probably love.
So much time, effort, and love
went into making this car
the best that it could possibly be.
There's no rhyme or reason for why we
fall in love with certain cars.
Abel races some of the fastest,
most amazing cars in the world
on a regular basis.
But this, this is his dream car.
('80s rock music)
All right, let's start this bad Jody up.
The part I've been waiting for.
(motor running)
That's a fuel pump.
(engine turning over then revving)
(loud engine idle)
Oh-ho!
Oh, the tach is so cool, look at that!
That's what an idle should sound like.
Barely staying running.
Let's go--
(engine revving then stopping)
Let's go burn some rubber.
(engine revving)
(tires squealing)
(engine revving loudly)
(sound barrier thundering)
('80s rock music)
Huge thanks to Abel for letting us use his car.
I'm absolutely in love with it.
And a huge thanks to you,
crazy sons of Ds for watching.
It means a whole heck of a lot to me,
and everybody at Donut.
Follow more of Abel's sick work
on his Instagram @flacorx8.
Follow me @zachjobe,
and follow Donut @donutmedia.
See ya.
(rock music fading)