A Buick GNX Was Actually Driven 54,000 Miles And Now It’s For Sale
It’s usually hard to find rare cars with low miles, but it’s the opposite with the 1987 Buick GNX.
Buick built just 547 of the turbocharged muscle cars and they became instant classics. It was an evolution of the Buick Grand National that was developed with the help of ASC-McLaren. Is 3.8-liter V6 was updated with a new turbocharger, intercooler and heads that boosted its power from 245 hp and 355 lb-ft to 276 hp and 400 lb-ft, at least officially.
Independent testing found that Buick underrated it and it really cranked out more than 300 hp. A look at its performance specs were a giveaway. With a 4.7-second 0-60 mph time and 13.4-second quarter-mile time, the GNX was among the quickest cars in the world. Unfortunately, it looks like a lot of people never got to experience its performance.
GNXs often show up on the auction circuit with less than 1,000 miles on their odometers, some with less than 100 miles. One with just 8.5 miles on it was auctioned in 2021 for $275,000, while the record was set the next year at $308,000 for a 568-mile car.
With values like that, it’s even less likely that the low-mileage cars will ever get driven, but there are a few road warriors out there that pop up now and then.
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One with 100,615 miles on it was listed on Facebook Marketplace earlier this year for $95,000, but it had been restored and extensively modified. Now there’s another one with half that amount up for grabs.
It’s #121 of the 547 cars built and it is listed on the Hagerty Marketplace with 54,618 miles. It is in largely original condition (the seller can’t guarantee it has the factory turbocharger), but is far from perfect. The power locks don’t work, the tachometer is busted, the air conditioning “blows cool air but not cold” and the radio is dead. It also has a fair number of chips and scrapes that keep it from being anything close to a concours-quality example.
The auction is set to run until 4:30 p.m. ET on May 29 and the bidding reached $88,500 at the time this story was published.
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The GNX returned to the spotlight this year when Kendrick Lamar named his latest album “GNX” and had one on stage with him during his Super Bowl halftime show. Well, it looked like a GNX, but it turns out it was a Grand National that had been gutted and customized for the set. Lamar does own one of the real ones, which was featured on the album cover.
Do you have a high-mileage GNX? Rumor has it that there’s one with more than 200,000 miles on the odometer. Drop us a line at [email protected] if you own it or any other car that’s broken the 100,000-mile mark, we’d love to hear about it.