This 1987 Buick Regal T-Type has been with the original owner since new, and has been sitting in his barn awaiting restoration after partial disassembly. He tells the story many of us know well, which is that of being low-balled on trade offers and not having the heart to let go of what was otherwise a good car – just one that wasn’t suited for daily driving anymore. The seller has rolled the Buick out of the barn, and it remains in the same state it was in when he began preparing for rust repair. Find the T-Type here on craigslist in New Hampshire for $9,900.
One of my favorite details in any for sale listing is a seller who includes photos of the vehicle when it was new. I wonder if this was taken in the White Mountains somewhere, perhaps after an early Sunday morning charge down some backroads up to the peak. The seller actually claims that for the first few years, he didn’t use his dream car for weekend drives when it was new, as he had an old truck to drive to the train station. Eventually, he began using it more frequently, and that’s likely when the New England road salt began creeping into the door sills.
The Buick is dusty but seemingly straight and true, with the exception of the rot repair it will need (it doesn’t appear extensive to me.) The seller notes when he ordered it new, he got it just the way he wanted, which was to end up with a bit of a sleeper. The T-Types certainly fit that mold, as they were not obviously street machines, at least not compared to the Grand National. It still wears original paint, which I believe the seller is referring to as “Frost Grey”; I have no idea if that’s a factory color. Regardless, it’s mainly dusty at this point, but of course has the damaged / missing bumper fillers.
Mechanically, the seller emphasizes that the Buick was very well maintained, with work carried out by his local dealer and himself. With 98,000 miles on the clock when he rolled it into the barn, he seemingly did everything the right way by fogging the cylinders and dropping the gas tank, although the latter was done more to refresh the fuel system than to avoid rust forming in the bottom of the tank. The Buick is also equipped with T-tops and the digital gauge cluster, so it will be a pretty sweet sleeper when it’s all put back together.
Whar? No comments during the early access? Fine…then I’ll say it;
“Usually it’s the Buick Turbo that blows the doors off the competition.”
Yep.Its sleeping alright. Let it rest.
That’s what I was going to say once I read the article heading and saw the first pic. haha…Turbo six cylinder probably ridden hard and put away wet. Let it sleep.
I like the massage crate front seat . Never new they had these back then.LOL
The ultimate Turbo was the ultra rare liteweight model, don’t recall the name but it had no spoiler and was a picture of perfection.
Turbo-T with RPO WE4 option box checked….the “lightweight”. 😎
Thx Craig love em. Ive seen some t-types w the column shift to boot lol. Premium luxury sleepers
Bring this one down to OZ for the next Mad Max movie
It will be a GNX replica before you know it. One just sold on BAT for $200,000.
Looked at one of these in 85 for my first new car. If it had been this color instead of powder blue I may have bought it. Had no idea of the true output of the turbo.
But being a deer hunter needing 4×4 and wanting a manual transmission bought a 5 speed Jeep Cherokee XJ instead.
Restoration Process:
* Step 1 – Remove drivers door
* Step 2 – Take a 15 yr break
It’s funny the minute a car needing work pops up people beat on it saying it’s not worth fixing. My question is, is everyone expecting a perfect example from a site called “barn finds”? These are the type of cars this website is supposed to be for, am I wrong?
Too pricey for me. I’m looking for one of these or even better a Grand National with a crushed posterior to do a powertrain swap in my 77 Buick Skyhawk. I figure that little car will boot scoot with the extra horsepower.
If one of you buy it I have 2 perfect doors. They’ve been off and in dry heated storage since 94.
There are a crap load of original turbo Buicks out there, build a caged autocross/street car with a built motor/ five speed with some huge tires and go carve some corners
That A pillar rot would kill it for me, plus the side floor to rocker hole missing metal.. I’ll never know why these cars were in such demand and priced so high. Like I’ve always said, There’s an ass for every seat… Someone will see the treasure in this car and buy it.. Best of luck.
Sell what parts you can and scrap it that rust is to far into structure and is going to continue to get worse
As the Guy on Counting cars said “Where is the rest of the car?”
These metric chassis GM cars were notorious from rear frame rot ; looking at the rust on the top of the car, I can only imagine what those frame rails look like
There was no T-Type model in 1987. Buick offered a “T” package that contained most of the GN’s mechanical bits and an “Exterior Sport” package that included most of the blackout trim. The a la carte approach made for some interesting combinations. I recall a white Regal Limited with the T package prowling around my town, complete with chrome trim and a padded landau roof. If if weren’t for the hood bulge and the beefy aluminum wheels, nobody would guess it was one of the fastest cars around.
Good example of a nicely written CL ad with lots of details and plenty of helpful pictures. I can see the seller’s intentions and feel bad that he could not complete the restoration.
If it was more realistically priced, I might have been tempted to run up the road to look at it. I really wanted to buy one of these new but there were out of my price range.
The Buick “T-Type” Turbo 3.8L V6 was made in 1986, in 1987 you had the Buick “Turbo T” and believe it or not although most were Turbo V6 models it could actually be ordered with the Regal small block V8, turbocharged, although there was arguably better performance from the lightweight V6 with better numbers overall despite the smaller displacement. Plus it was lighter overall by a few hundred pounds with the aluminum wheels and bumper supports on the Turbo T and thus slightly faster than the 1987 Grand National as a result. They made around 1100 of them total, very rare car. In good condition they are worth at least $35k these days and some are selling for even higher, there are a few on eBay at the moment with asking prices right under $50k