Re: Young Members (15-22) Gbody photos
At 22, I'm just barely catching the cut-off for this.
(long story. You can skip to the pictures.)
As stated in my build thread, a friend found this car for me. I was 18 and a senior in high school and I was looking for a cool car to buy with roughly 4k. I was looking at about every Civic, Camaro, Firebird, Porsche 944, and 5-speed 4-banger I could find in the local Auto Finder. And then G-bodies happened. I was playing Gran Turismo 4. I had gotten a tad tired of my '70 Charger and went shopping for a new car. Then I came across an all-black 2-door Buick with familiar body lines that kinda reminded me of the hot rod
Caprice cop car from Blacksheep. I hadn't gained an appreciation for the turbo 3.8 yet, so all I kept thinking was "I wish this 'GNX' had a V8.."
I talked to my dad about this car's "shortcomings" one night and I asked if there was even enough room under the hood for a V8. He replied, "Well I had that '87 Cutlass and it had a V8. Physically it was about the same car." He then proceeded to tell me about how the Regal, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix, and Cutlass were all on the same chassis and that they were all good looking. (When I was in elementary school and younger, it didn't really occur to me that my dad had actually owned a Monte Carlo LS, '87 Cutlass Supreme, Malibu wagon, and before I was born an older white Cutlass. That's why the GNX looked so familiar. G-bodies were an over-looked part of my childhood! :lol: )
So the next day my car search narrowed down to mostly just G-bodies. Ideally a Monte Carlo, even more so a white '84 SS. I struck out on a tan Monte Carlo SC in Valpo with lower body rust and a sage green Regal in Lafayette that was basically a heap. The day after that last one, a friend of mine got on craigslist (in the middle of CAD class) and came across an ad.
"1987 Buick Regal 'T' 307 V8. $2750 California Car" This didn't make any sense to either of us since we thought a "T" could only mean turbo V6, but it was cheap and looked straight so I convinced my dad to look at it with me. When we looked at it everything checked out but the guy said he actually wanted 4k for it. Well, after my dad briefly touched on "false advertisement" the guy went in the house, cleared it with his girlfriend, and let us have it for $2750.
Here's what it looked like:
^Day 1. Really dirty with lots of rear end sag.^
To briefly summarize 4 years, I got rid of the emissions and A/C, got a tachometer, got a new muffler, took the cat off, got rear air shocks when spring spacers didn't work, added two small under-seat neon lights, re-did the headliner then re-re-did the headliner, rebuilt a Holley 600 for the 307 all by myself when I was about 19/20, new tires, vacuum advance distributor, Transgo shift kit, trans fluid cooler, made a cheap glasspack exhaust, made a much better looking 3 inch exhaust with my dad "to hold me over until I get a different engine," added UMI sway bars, painted it metallic blue in the driveway, and put a new carpet in. I've got a 7.625" LSD w/ 3.73s, some better rear control arms, front coil-overs, rear shocks and springs, and a manual/clutch pedal setup waiting to go on just to give you a hint as to the direction I'm taking with this car. None of that is getting done until spring though. This winter I wanna help my dad finally get his '65 Biscayne running again. It hasn't run since about 2008 when my little brother "took" the headers for his '71 GMC Sprint (El Camino).
