Scott's 1987 Buick Regal Limited Turbo
Check out the Photo Gallery for more pics.
This is my newly acquired 1987 Buick Regal Limited Turbo. This vehicle is a limited production with only 1,035 Limited Regal's being produced with the Turbo V6 Drivetrain from the Buick Grand National.
I found this car through Tim Blessing at Regal Performance here in Cedar Park, TX. When I first saw the car I was not terribly impressed with the physical appearance. Tim convinced me to drive it and I was blown away. I was pretty fortunate in finding this regal as it is mostly stock. The motor was never modified and apparently only run at about 12lbs of boost. The car pulls quite hard when pushing the pedal to the floor and almost always catches some rubber shifting into second gear. The only mechanical thing I had to do to this car day one was convert and charge the A/C. This was the only major item. Although we did end up doing some more :) )
When I took ownership of the car I was informed that the transmission had just recently been rebuilt and an orange stripe converter was installed. Tim and I discussed what to do to the car. It had been sitting for three years being started on occasion. The car was in a barn from what I was told. Tires even looked good. We decided to go through and change all the fluids, plugs, a/c compressor, a conversion to R134 and new valve cover gaskets. The mileage on the car read 66k and it looked like 366k but Tim said the valve covers had never been removed. Neither had the A/C Compressor. The car ran too well. 60psi of oil pressure under boost. I began to get curious about the miles. I ran a carfax to find out that the odometer had been turned back 40k miles. This would equate to the car having about 106k miles which we felt was a pretty good possibility.
A few weeks later the car sprang a leak. Rear Main Seal. At the time I had the rear main seal replaced it was suggested that I also have the oil pan gasket done. Tim once again performed the work. He said while the oil pan was down he was able to see the bearings and everything looked great.
This car has been a rare purchase for me. I usually buy good looking cars that end up needing a great deal of mechanical work. This car was quite the opposite. The first thing that had to go was the interior. The car was smoked in, the blue interior was hideous. Cigarette burns in the seats, messed up dash, drivers seat was low on padding. Very painful driving experience to say the least.
I found some interesting pictures online during my initial Regal search. Now that I had a Regal Limited and was planning to redo the interior I wanted a Limited Leather Interior. I was told that this was a pretty rare option and that chances of finding it were slim to none. I would need to find the seats in descent shape with the center console. These seats are sort of a 45/45/10 with the 10 being the console. They are identical to the bench seat but there is no center seat. Instead a console. I thought this was really neat. Not only that but since my car is a column shift car this would be perfect. The console with the 45/45/10 only came in column shift cars. The mission was on to find the interior. I was hoping for blue so I could restore my existing plastic but I was not so lucky.
The first set I came across were tan. I would have bought them but the seller never emailed me back. The second set I found was grey. I thought man grey would be awesome but would likely cost a fortune to swap the entire interior. I shot off an email anyway and came to find out that the guy selling the seats and console from the interior had just about everything to make it gray (dash included). He was also willing to give me a killer price and ship everything via freight from Chicago to Austin. I could not pass on this deal. I went ahead and made the purchase. One week later it arrived in dirty but very excellent as promised condition.
I began cleaning it up and placing orders to get my interior
to 100%.
Interior - Turbo Regal Forum
Seatbelts and Misc Trim - Gbodyparts.com
Dash Plastic Trim - Gbodyparts.com
Best Carpeting Money can buy - Impalasscarpet.com
Freshly Restored Steering Wheel - Ebay
Billet Aluminum Hub Adapter - RJC Racing
NOS Horn Button - Ebay
Thank you to Scott Williams from AudioFX for letting me use your shop and teaching me how to properly recover my door panels and rear deck. And for carpeting my console for me! And thank you to Tim at Regal Performance for coming out to my house to show me how to properly remove and reinstall the steering column without messing my car up, as well as hooking me up with the perfect match interior paint.
