https://jalopnik.com/what-s-the-first-car-you-were-obsessed-with-1822235863
Just finished reading the "article" above and it got me thinking. Hard.
And I think it was a Turbo Buick - black of course.
I grew up riding in the back of a 2-tone green two door '81 Malibu Classic (which my brother still has).
So that planted the G-body seed (as did the '79 Elky my Dad bought years later - no back seat there). Ironically, we also rescued another '81 2-tone green Malibu from a junkyard and stuck an L89 396 (yes, with the factory aluminum heads) into it - more on that engine later.
Around the time I turned 16 I started pushing broom at my Dad's shop (c.1997), and this black Buick showed up in the shop which my Dad's apprentices were fawning over. I didn't understand the attraction to the car with the "Jiffy Lube" logo on it. Fittingly, one of the apprentice's (and now a good friend of mine) had a black '83(?) Regal with a bit of a Pro Street vibe (slammed, hood scoop, 295s rubbing away) which I got rides home in frequently (we lived on the same street). The seed is germinating.
One day while on the way home from work we ran up against another black Buick which my friend refused to challenge. I didn't understand why? More on this "other" black Buick later.
Now flash forward to 1998, it is my senior year of high school and low and behold my Dad buys a ratty black '86 T-type (smashed quarter panel and all). We worked feverishly to hang a new quarter, doors, and get it painted in time for senior formal/prom. I had my full license for just two weeks before taking a Turbo Buick to a hormone-fuel party. But, that is a whole other story. That Winter the T-type would be fully gone over and given the pseudo-GNX treatment. I drove that car everwhere during my high school victory lap in '99 - coolest car in the parking lot that year.
In late-1999 I bought my MCSS and with what little money I had blacked it out and did my best to make it look like the black Turbo Buick I dreamed of.
It is now Winter of 2000 and I bought the L89 off my Dad for a song and proceeded to flip it for a hefty profit shortly thereafter (admittedly a total ******** move on my part for so many reasons - youth suck) so that I could buy a black '87 Turbo T. In February 2001 this car ended up being the blended with another car I would buy - that same black Buick my buddy refused to race years prior. It was the rolling chassis of a low-10 second car (now I understand why his 305 headed 350 wouldn't have kept up). A sapling had formed.
And in the Summer of 2001 I was rolling around in my very own all-black Turbo Buick. The rest, they say, is history - the roots had set and the tree was bearing fruit.
We sold my Buick in 2015 - but, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Just finished reading the "article" above and it got me thinking. Hard.
And I think it was a Turbo Buick - black of course.
I grew up riding in the back of a 2-tone green two door '81 Malibu Classic (which my brother still has).
So that planted the G-body seed (as did the '79 Elky my Dad bought years later - no back seat there). Ironically, we also rescued another '81 2-tone green Malibu from a junkyard and stuck an L89 396 (yes, with the factory aluminum heads) into it - more on that engine later.
Around the time I turned 16 I started pushing broom at my Dad's shop (c.1997), and this black Buick showed up in the shop which my Dad's apprentices were fawning over. I didn't understand the attraction to the car with the "Jiffy Lube" logo on it. Fittingly, one of the apprentice's (and now a good friend of mine) had a black '83(?) Regal with a bit of a Pro Street vibe (slammed, hood scoop, 295s rubbing away) which I got rides home in frequently (we lived on the same street). The seed is germinating.
One day while on the way home from work we ran up against another black Buick which my friend refused to challenge. I didn't understand why? More on this "other" black Buick later.
Now flash forward to 1998, it is my senior year of high school and low and behold my Dad buys a ratty black '86 T-type (smashed quarter panel and all). We worked feverishly to hang a new quarter, doors, and get it painted in time for senior formal/prom. I had my full license for just two weeks before taking a Turbo Buick to a hormone-fuel party. But, that is a whole other story. That Winter the T-type would be fully gone over and given the pseudo-GNX treatment. I drove that car everwhere during my high school victory lap in '99 - coolest car in the parking lot that year.
In late-1999 I bought my MCSS and with what little money I had blacked it out and did my best to make it look like the black Turbo Buick I dreamed of.
It is now Winter of 2000 and I bought the L89 off my Dad for a song and proceeded to flip it for a hefty profit shortly thereafter (admittedly a total ******** move on my part for so many reasons - youth suck) so that I could buy a black '87 Turbo T. In February 2001 this car ended up being the blended with another car I would buy - that same black Buick my buddy refused to race years prior. It was the rolling chassis of a low-10 second car (now I understand why his 305 headed 350 wouldn't have kept up). A sapling had formed.
And in the Summer of 2001 I was rolling around in my very own all-black Turbo Buick. The rest, they say, is history - the roots had set and the tree was bearing fruit.
We sold my Buick in 2015 - but, it will always hold a special place in my heart.
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