Looking through the photos on this listing, I can’t help but hear Harrison Ford shouting, “It belongs in a museum!” Which would certainly be a shame for a car that is ostensibly as fun to drive as this one, but with only 74 original miles on the clock this 1987 Buick Grand National is as well-preserved a specimen as you’re likely to find. Thanks to Radwood Classifieds poster Serge K for the discovery, which you can find for sale on eBay here through a specialty dealership in Richmond, Virginia with bidding currently over $50k but reserve as yet unmet. The seller does indicate that they would end the auction early for a payment of $74,900.
As you’d expect with a vehicle that was stored in a climate-controlled facility from the day it was purchased (as part of a larger GM collection), this Grand National is in pristine condition and according to the seller is 100% original, “down to the tires.” Heck, even the light bulbs are all original. The seller indicates that the only parts replaced by them were the “gas tank, spark plugs, wires, fuel pump, fuel filter, air filter, fuel sending unit, and fuel filter.” The car has been test driven by the seller to confirm proper running condition and shifting, and according to them, it ran perfectly for the 1-2 miles they added to the clock.
The ’87 Grand National featured a Turbocharged 3.8L V-6, boasting 245 horsepower and 355 pound-feet of torque (h/t to Topspeed for their excellent overview of the evolution between model years). With a 1/4 mile time of just over 14 seconds, it put the Corvette of the same year to shame – which certainly didn’t sit well with the folks at Chevy, and probably had something to do with its discontinuation the same year! The V-6 is mated to a four-speed automatic transmission, but one that seems to be regarded as a well-suited match for the engine.
As you can see from the photos (and there are many, many more in the actual listing) the interior is just as clean as you’d expect, down to the original dealer-placed paper floor mats and the window sticker. Sure, you can easily find a clean driver for less than half of what this will likely sell for, but there’s just something so cool about perfectly preserved time capsule cars like this one. Heck, win it and turn your garage into your own museum – charge your buddies admission to look at it and maybe it’ll pay for itself someday!
YAWN….. I’m tired of seeing all these GN’s with no miles here on barn finds. They all look alike! Let’s feature some unusual barn finds and stop posting all the same repeat offenders like this. You guys do a great job here on BF’s, but once you’ve seen one Low mileage GN, you’ve seen em all.
I second that…
Speak for your self Rice Boy…………HA!
Now there’s a FAN!
Looks like a cake decoration. Prison tat?
Ok no need for genital envy Mr Wankel………lol
Pretty sad, a car like this that can’t be driven.
Not sad in the least. It is an American Legend in it own time that slayed everything that dared get in its way. This pristine example belongs in a museum to show the Millennial generation what a mans car looked like …….. as I am fairly sure Ike Onick above drives a Prius or maybe a Smart For Two. There are only 2 types of people in this world.
The ones that drive a Turbo Buick, and the ones who wish they did.
The seller indicates that the only parts replaced by them were the “gas tank, spark plugs, wires, fuel pump, fuel filter, air filter, fuel sending unit, and fuel filter.”
LMFAO!! Why would anything have been changed on a brand new car that has been stored properly in a heated dry facility?? The gas tank?? Wires?? Are you kidding me, what could have happened to those things?
And BTW, the GN didn’t beat the Vette, the GNX did.
All it takes is one tank of 10% ethanol and a few years sitting…
Stored that long even with a gasoline preservative it is likely to need the fuel system gone over and replace what was listed. Plugs for sure and I bet the wires were cracked by this time from dry rot.
I probably blew my yap too quickly not thinking about the ethanol which makes perfect sense, so I feel a bit stupid, and for safety I could see changing the wires. I use only Shell 91 in my old cars as it’s the only fuel, at least in Ontario, that doesn’t have any ethanol.
Good for you, Billy…thanks for owning a mistake and replying like this. Regardless of what you drive, including a Prius, you da man!
Echoing the above, I had a ’69 Porsche 912 that sat for years and had all of the above consequences, and it recently sold for $11,500.00.
Oh, I drive…’76 Porsche 912e, ’04 Boxster, ’08 Prius, ’11 Prius, and ’05 Grand Caravan, for road trips…
Bill, a car that sits for 30+ years with fuel in the tank will varnish and destroy fuel filters, sending units, and fuel pumps, just to name a few. I seriously doubt there was a need to replace the wires, plugs, or air filter.
I had a 1987 Turbo-T that sat for 17 years. Prudence dictated I replace the tank, sending unit, fuel pump, and fuel filter as well as all belts and hoses. Although these items had no miles or use on them, they deteriorate over time and become unsafe just like tires.
Finally, you clearly don’t know your GNs. The GN absolutely crushed the Corvette in 1987. And, of course, the GNX was even quicker than the Grand National.
The GN beat the vette as well. Fact. And I owned both. And have a GN today
It seems that you have never purchased a car that has been in long storage; even climate controlled. You ask “what happened to those things” ? They simply got old. For the sake of safety & reliability, I would also change nearly every rubber piece on the car: brake lines, motor mounts, tranny mount(s), ALL rubber steering & suspension components, completely rebuild the calipers, master cylinder, belts, hoses, ect. Trust me, these components simply disintegrate over time. This is necessary if you plan to actually drive the car as it was intended. If it’s just going to be a trailer queen, leave it all original.
It’s a cool car and worth featuring here.
These cars are now over 30 years old, I doubt many 20 year olds were buying and storing them, As more and more owners age out of their collections these low mileage cars will likely hit the market in greater numbers. I’d be surprised if the prices stay as strong as they currently are.
Steve R
No bid! Mileage is too high! I will only get involved if it has -576 miles, and they had better be ORIGINAL negative miles.
Ike, I said it before and I’ll say it again, that’s ACTUAL negative miles, not original negative miles!
Ask the owner to jack up the rear axle & run it in reverse for a month or so, to get you the negative 576 miles you need!
[And yeah, I know that won’t work!]
Asking GNX price for this even with the low miles just isnt worth it. The GNXs were special GNs not really. Could get same engine in a Regal I owed one in 94.
Maybe for half that I could get my ’85 GN looking pretty good in and out.
These cars were great back in their day but todays cars are much better engineered, faster, and can be bought for less than 75k. He’s asking way too much. I would give 25k max for this car then drive the hell out of it from the sellers driveway including a couple of donuts for good measure! We only live once right?
Why are they still being slightly modded and eating the Hellcat for lunch? lmao
Life is temporary. I’ll never understand why people put cars away. Financially it makes no sense. Financial investments outperform over time and don’t require storage and maintenance. You don’t live forever so why not drive it, maintain it and enjoy it. It will still be worth good money down the road even with miles on the clock.
I know its nostalgia and all, but with todays supercars that are currently available for much less, who needs a 31yr old car that you will probably never drive hoping you will get more for it when you sell, which will probably end up selling at an estate auction because nobody wants it?
People fly vintage warbirds that are far fewer, way more valuable, and much more impressive than this thing. They’re meant to fly, and this is made to be driven – even if people will confuse it with a Monte/Cutlass/Grand Prix most of the time. But hey, it’s your 74k.
Is that 74 miles or 76 miles? If it were 74 I would definitely grab this one. But with 76, it just is way too many miles not worth it. :)
JOE
Boy, that 85 mph speedo just screams performance…
Sure it would kill what ever you own with a couple of turns of a screwdriver, but you probably have not a clue of how to use one………….;)
“All that’s been replaced……” then it’s not 100% original!!!!
It’s like, “rust free except for the rear quarters and the floors” another bogus statement.
These cars were insane and the fact that they were that quick right off the assembly line made it one of buick greatest cars yeah you could get the Regal T-type nit to be confused with the Turbo T.. but the Grand National package was the ultimate.. this car was everything the monte carlo’s of that era wished they could be and the Corvette though it may still have been just tiny bit faster than your regular GN had nothing on the G-body these car made vettes look like a baby girl barbie car literally.. the fact that a 3.8 turbo and 200R4 trans could make a g-body car do what the gn could do is unreal. This is one of the greatest GM cars that we’ll ever see. The GNX the grand national to end grand nationals… absolutely incredible. Thank you Buick.
I couldn’t bring myself to drive it. It’s a perfect time capsule as this article cites. This singular Grand National gotten this far unscathed and is still ‘in the wrapper’ as car salesmen like to term it. These were interesting to listen to when the driver hit the accelerator with that turbo spooling-up making a whining sort of a whoosh; then it’d be out of sight and hearing range.
I’d drive this car on weekends. The market is getting crazy. A nice recession will put these cars at prices where they belong.
Well, yes, relative to everything else. Then when the dust settles it’s back to work inflating that bubble. Does anyone remember the Crash of ’08? It’s only been a decade.
My 2nd favorite Car and Driver quote all-time was about this car- “One of the greatest engines of all time in the worst chassis ever.” I still remember laughing at that one.
PS Best quote, Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport- “A little Euro, a little sport, not very much of either.”
The Chevrolet Celebrity was the darling of its day. Following-up the debut of GM’s X-Bodies and J-Bodies of the early 1980s, the Chevy Celebrity was unseated in the affections of the American vehicle buying public by Ford’s Taurus. I was involved with GM’s various vehicle programs over the years in the manufacturing of ubiquitous vehicle hardware items such as seat adjusters, bilaminate moldings which adorned the vehicle’s sides and various functional and structural roll-formed items (really, too many to cite here).
Once, we sat down, informally, to roughly calculate just how many seat adjuster upper channels had been roll-formed out of cold-rolled steel from a design (TEO 3367X) which had been certified in the mid-1960s. This was in the mid-’90s when the design’s lifespan was nearing its end. We came up with a number that was in the tens of millions over thirty years. We also noted that an equal number of cold-rolled lower channels had been fabricated. My citations here don’t even consider the channels needed for GM’s electric seat adjuster programs in the same era.
Look under the seat(s) of any GM vehicle manufactured from the mid-’60s to the mid-’90s and you’ll see the product (raw material in, finished product out) of the Fisher Body Plant in Trenton, New Jersey; that plant, built in 1938, finished its run as part of the Delphi/GM organization in June of 1998.
Pitting wheels? If it has indeed been in a climate controlled environment, why would the wheels put? Me thinks there’s a bit more to its history…..
My submission for best quote of a vehicle is ” Not a car, not a truck, not as good as either”
Hey LoadStar It may not be a good car or truck in Your opinion. But with a Big Block it’s an animal and a blast to drive. Maybe you sit in the passenger seat of my 70 SS while I mash the pedal to the floor,show ya the true meaning of LOAD. Why ya felt the need to bash the Elcamino when everyone else is on th GN page is beyond me.Me being an Elcamino owner I felt the need to defend them.That being said this GN is a beautiful car that should be driven,Not every day but weekends cruise nites cars n coffee etc etc.
But I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wish I had it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No oil cap on the rocker cover???
Won’t any of today’s 300+ hp non turbo MULTI speed automatic V6’s beat this car, like the one in the camaro, or even in some front wheel drivers?!
Tho i believe the buick has more torque than any of the new ones – not sure why!
BTW, regarding gas tank & 10% ethanol, my friend’s ’68 nova with strait 6 has been outside for at least 45 years uncovered & unrestored!! & is still used regularly with 350k + miles on it & the gas tank has NOT been replaced! Clear roof sealer around edges of windshield & rear window. Gas gage & speedo still work!!
It has holes in the rockers,quarters,lower doors & fender & floors, & he dumps big pots of water out the trunk after a big rain(lol), but the tank still aint leakin! Imagine tho what the tank looks like INSIDE after 50 years! Mother nature keeps this thing clean & is never dusty – not with all the rain here.
Car runs perfect. Go figure.
No longer available 96 bids high bid 64,900
Wow…quite a time capsule! Don’t understand why one would have to replace the gas tank if it was kept in a controlled environment all of this time…back in 87, gasoline didn’t contain ethanol……would think removing and cleaning tank and lines would have been sufficient…better yet, if you know that you’re going to be “storing” a vehicle like this for an extended period of time, wouldn’t racing fuel or aircraft fuel be more suitable?
My ’81 Z/28 has been in a storage building since 2004 that is climate controlled meaning whatever the weather is doing at the time affects the climate inside the building. It’s protected the car well, however, I know if I want to make it driveable and safe, every inch of the rubber/seals on that car will require replacing and every major system will have to be gone through.