The much hotter 200-hp Grand National would follow six years later. Rated at 165 horsepower, the turbocharged 3.8-liter V-6 first made it to production in 1978. We had that V-6 boosted to 21 psi-more than the methanol-fueled cars in the race we were pacing-running on gas with a little octane additive, and it was a hit! Dan Gurney took it for a drive on the track, and after four flat-out laps, we had to replace the tires! It was in the lobby of the Indy museum for quite a while."Īmong the key new technologies on that 1976 Indianapolis 500 pace car's engine were a knock sensor and pre-ignition control, "an early version of electronic spark control that helped it run at its limit without damage," Baker explains. On the final commitment day for the Indy engine, assistant chief powertrain engineer Cliff Studaker came to the dyno for a power run, and we blew the top off the air cleaner with a major backfire! When we went to Lloyd's office and gave him the update, he said, 'Can we do it or not?' I said, 'Yes!' And the rest is history, perhaps one of the most exciting technology reaches ever in a pace car. "Then Reuss said, 'How about doing a turbo V-6 Indy Pace Car?' So, we went to work on production and pace-car versions. 'Is it any good?' I described our performance and economy goals and two weeks later was asked to head a team-with engineers Tom Wallace and Jeff Lane-to put it into production. 'I've heard about that project,' he said. "He asked about the secret Explorer project." Baker recalls. and a car that was a blast to drive."ġ987 Buick GNX intercooled V-6 GM Heritage Center | Car and Driverįuture Buick boss Reuss returned from a stint at Chevrolet in 1975 as chief engineer and soon called Baker into his office. That project involved many engineers giving seminars to the kids regarding their areas of expertise. "We begged, borrowed, and scrounged parts to build a dyno engine, then got a scrap Skylark and married the two. "I decided that a great project would be to turbocharge the recently revived V-6 with the capability of performance in lighter cars or fuel economy in larger cars," he relates. The turbo V-6 story goes all the way back to 1973 when Ken Baker, a young engineer in Buick's test lab (he would later lead General Motors' electric-vehicle program, then its research labs), started a Boy Scout Explorer program at the Buick engineering department. My message to the group: 'We have to beat the Corvette.' " Turbo Genesis "Tom Wallace was the vehicle chief," recalls then–Buick assistant chief engineer Don Runkle, "and I had the engine side. Just 215 first-year GNs were built, but then Reuss's team launched a run of all-black Regal GN coupes that would culminate with the truly awesome '87 GNX. So, it was in keeping with division general manager Lloyd Reuss's thrust to move Buick's image from a maker of cushy "doctors' cars" to something more youthful and exciting when it unveiled the first Regal Grand National at NASCAR's 1982 Daytona 500. Ten years later, Darrell Waltrip raced factory-backed Buick Regals to claim back-to-back championships in 1981 and '82. For 21 years before NASCAR started selling naming rights in 1971, its top stock-car racing championship was known as the Grand National, and the name lingered in public usage long after the series officially became the Winston Cup.
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