The Tuned Cars From Buick

[Bob Riebe]

How I would love to have a 1966 Riviera.
Best looking GM car from the sixties.
I was surprised to find out just how light the iron small-block Buick V-8s were, far lighter that any other Big-3 V-8 other than the small-block Ford.
Fascinating short clips from Buick adds.

https://www.macsmotorcitygarage.com/video-the-1966-tuned-cars-from-buick/#comment-23591

[oldandslow]

I owned a couple of Buick’s but not quite that long ago. The first had a 455 V8 and with ignoring the factory timing it was rather fast. My son confessed a few years ago that no one ever outran him. In the early eighties I drove a black Park Avenue with burgundy upholstery. I was surprised at how good the gas mileage was with such a large vehicle, about 10 more miles per gallon than the ten year earlier built 455 ever got.

[Dee]

66 gto. I'd sell it and buy a newer pickup.

[Lloyd Smale]

the 455 was probably the lightest big block of the day too. Many will say the gs stage 1 455 grand sports were the quickest off the showroom car of the 70s. Even quicker then the ls6 chevelle or hemi cudas. I got beat (but barely) by a gsx back in the day with my ls6 so they sure did go down the road. Had probably the ultimate buick tuner car. A 87 we4 grand national. Factory lightwieght with aluminum drums in the rear and aluminum bumper supports and crank windows and manual door locks. some say they would run right with a gnx which was the rarest of rare buicks. i may be predudice  on #2 because i owned one but in my opinion the best looking car ever was the 61 ss impala bubble top. Make mine a 409! #2 would be the 70 ss chevelle. We called the gtos "getting to old" because like the 442s and buick gs's and plymouth gtx's, most were bought by guys who wanted luxury not the greasy hands t shirt wearing street racers. we had a saying back them. If it had a box on the order sheet for ac it was an old mans car. Didnt matter how fast or slow it was. Most of the guys i hung with would tease you if you had hydraulic lifters. by the way another BIG motor that had a rep for being real light was the 500 cube caddy motor. Ive seen a few of them built into monster motors too.

[Lloyd Smale]

pickups are like harleys these days. A dime a dozen. A 66 gto is rare and actually holds it value if not even increases in value. Nothing like a truck or harley these days. Me id keep the goat and if i needed a truck id already have one. i did the harley thing. But if someone gave me a harley it would be sold that day to buy something else. I get enough idiot waving to me in my jeep. Dont need the posers waving to me on a harley. But i guess to each his own.

66 gto. I'd sell it and buy a newer pickup.

[geezerbiker]

If I were to get my choice of 1960s cars, I'd choose a top of the line Studebaker Avanti.  From what I understand less than 10 of the R4 Avantis were made and all would do close to 200 MPH...

Tony

[Lloyd Smale]

my understanding is the r3 was the stoutest one being supercharged and the r4 was a non super charged version of the same 304. The r3 with a supercharger put out 400 hp at the rating system of the day which would put it at about 350 give or take using todays rating. Any chance of that brick going 200 with about 300 rear wheel hp just isnt going to happen. an example was my 454 450hp chevelle. Had it on the first dyno I had access to in green bay. It put 320 hp to the rear wheels and that was with headers and after the tuner did his magic. 310 before he tuned it.  But it did do a sub 6 second 0-60 which put it right in competition with the quickest muscle cars of the day but even a 450 hp corvette with high gearing wasnt going to break a 150mph. Even at 707 hp a hellcat challenger cant break 200. A non wide body charger with the same motor just barely does. The supercharged c7 zo6 vette breaks it but is a heck of alot more aerodynamic then an avanti and has 650 hp and puts down near double what an avanti puts to the wheels. Kind of reminds me of guys back in the 70s that would say there car does a 160 because the spedometer said so. Or if they had a 120 speado and the needle broke 120 then they were free to make up there own top speed. I road in a 67 427 435 hp car back in the early 80s that a buddy had. We took it down a two lane that had a straight stretch about 4 miles long. It topped out at 140. Now add an overdrive transmission and he would have been faster but he was on 343 gears as it was and that was relitively high gearing for a 427 vette. Most came with 373s and 410s and would have been slower yet. Im not say what you said was impossible but id sure like to see actual tests that showed that. Personaly i only drove one avanti in my whole life. An ensign stationed with me had it. It was a 289 and i believe 289hp and it was a slug compared to my 340 duster. More of a luxury sports car then a muscle car. I would guess it would need near over 800 hp to reach 200 mph. people dont understand how much hp it takes to push the wind. My challenger is 485 hps it will do 170 (so they say) to reach 200 in the same car it takes an additional 300 hp. Wasnt to many cars back then that even put out an honest 300 hp.

[geezerbiker]

The R3 and R4 Avanti had a 304 engine.  Studebaker was on the ropes by the time the started building the new 304 engine and it was only used in the higher end Avantis.

Perhaps I'm thinking of the R5, after all it's been a long time.  The car I'm referring to had dual 4 barrel carbs and 2 Paxton superchargers. Like I said only a few were sold.  The other supercharged Studebakers used McCullough blowers.

Tony

[Bob Riebe]

The R3 and R4 Avanti had a 304 engine.  Studebaker was on the ropes by the time the started building the new 304 engine and it was only used in the higher end Avantis.

Perhaps I'm thinking of the R5, after all it's been a long time.  The car I'm referring to had dual 4 barrel carbs and 2 Paxton superchargers. Like I said only a few were sold.  The other supercharged Studebakers used McCullough blowers.
Tony

You are thinking of the R5.
If you read about Studebaker and why it died, it had near zero to do with financial problems.
Studebaker-Worthington investors, the ones controlling it, were simply tired of being in the auto business and killed it off because they could.
It was a small group that kept them from killing it earlier than they did, plus the short term big gain they made when Studebaker brought out the first compact sedan.
Had the fiber-glass bodied supplier not crapped on Studebaker, the Avanti would have not had a large problem it had and they probably would have lasted a few more years before greed killed it.
A new larger bore-spaced block had been designed and a few prototypes cast when it was killed.

R1/2 were 289
R3/4 were 304

R2/3 were supercharged.

[Lloyd Smale]

https://www.theavanti.com/due_cento_r5.htm  Looks like the r5 wasnt even a prototype. It was a twin supercharged 304 put together by granantelli not by Studebaker. R4s were sold and you can see some of the specs here https://www.theavanti.com/r3.html stout for the early 60s for sure but lame by todays standards. I remember the muscle car guys older them me talking about them. they said the supercharged motors didnt hold together long and the extreamly high compression non supercharged r4 was even worse in longevity and they used a 3 speed auto with 3rd gear being more of an overdrive to get top end which kind of ruined them on the drag tracks. but for what they were they had a cool factor. A quirky (ugly to me) styling like nothing else and did haul the oats. But sit one next to a vette of that age that could be bought for the same money and it was like the beauty and the beast story. Its probably the main reason that it was studebakers last grasp of air before drowning. They insisted on quirky styling that just didnt appeal to most people. If they would have came out with that drivetrain in something as sexy as an early camaro of mustang theyd probably still be in business today.