Solid roof car, no t-tops.
Are you kidding.... how many t-top GNX's have you seen?
So I went up to MI this weekend to visit my mom and dad. I wake up Sunday all hung over from the night before of going to the club and seeing my friends band plus some other heavy metal bands. I walk out to the driveway and I notice a big blast of bird s%&* all over my rear passenger window on my twin turbo S4. I just washed the car Saturday and it was looking great. So I decided to go down the road to the Shell station to wash the windows.
I am at the pump washing the windows from s%&* and pollen and I see a tinted out Buick GNX pull in. SCHWING!!!!! The guy parks near my car and he gets out and starts pumping the gas. I tell him "nice GNX!" and then ask him if it's a true GNX or a clone. He says it's a true GNX. SCHWING!!!! I've never seen a real one, this is like a needle in a haystack. So I start talking to the owner about the car. He asks me if I know who Burt Reynolds is. Who doesn't? I ask him if this is THE Burt Reynolds GNX that is one of the most highly sought-after Turbo Buicks on the internet. He pulls out an envelope from the glovebox and tells me to look through it. It has original ASC McLaren build sheet, some other dealer brochures, and a registration slip with the name Burt Reynolds w/ a Jupiter Florida address. I'm in awe. Totally stoked. He asks me if I would like to see some of his other celebrity cars in his collection. So I say sure why not, and he tells me to follow him to his warehouse.
I pull into the warehouse and he punches in a security code and one of the 6 or so doors opens and inside I see a Caddy Limo, an older Studebaker, and a Cadillac Eldorado. The limo was owned by this gentleman and it was leased to the movie studios for one of Burt Reynolds' movies. The Eldorado was owned by Loni Anderson and was bought for her as a gift by Burt Reynolds. The Studebaker was also owned by Burt. This guy was like Burt's #1 fan.
After showing me the cars, he asks me "would you like to drive the GNX?" I told him "That's too much, but I appreciate the offer". He insisted. So I said "ok, don't twist my arm". We get into the car and I fire up the engine and adjust the seat. The a/c is blowing cold. I notice a few things about this car. It is a solid roof car no t-tops. The top of the headrests have the Florida State emblem embroidered on them with the number 22 below them. That was Burt's number on the football team in college. Also, the factory Delco radio was gone and in it's place was a nice older Alpine stereo and eq setup. The windows were tinted 5% all around so Burt could drive without being hassled by people for autographs. The car had an emblem on the passenger side of the dash that says GNX 101. It also had the analog gauges w/ 160 mph speedometer instead of the standard GN's 85 mph horizontal speedometer.
I put the car in D and car shifted so hard it almost barked the tires in the driveway. We decide to run the car down I-94. As I'm going down the ramp the owner looks at me and says "you can floor it if you want". I told him "I don't want to beat on your car, I'm amazed I'm even driving one of these things". He looks at me and says "you aren't going to hurt it, go ahead and put it on the floor". Well ok, he's twisting my arm again. I stomp the gas to the carpet and the car abruptly kicks down to 2nd gear. The boost gauge swings to 15psi and then hits the top of the gauge so I don't know exactly how much boost but it was 15+ psi. I run it through 2nd and 3rd gear a bit and look down and see I'm approaching 90 so I slow down. No sooner do I hit cruise at 70 mph and a MI State Cop goes by on the other side. I was kind of hoping he'd pull me over and write me a ticket so I'd have some proof of this event.
I take the car down to the Red Arrow Hwy exit, get off, go under the bridge and get back on heading towards Chicago. We make our way back to the owners warehouse and park the car. The whole time we've been talking about my family and how I'm from the area, he asked me about my military service and then when I get out of the car he gives me a card with his address and phone number and says "if you end up getting out of the Air Force, give me a call, I could use a guy like you to help run my business". Pretty cool offer.
He took down my address and said he'd make some copies of the documentation he has on the car and will mail it to me so I can show my friends. He also told me if I am around during the Venetian Fest he will have his car collection on display downtown. I will be deployed in Iraq then though.
I didn't have a camera w/ me other than my cell phone, which sucks to take pics with, so I didn't get any pics of the car. I was honestly in shock that he even let me drive the car. He did tell me to give him a call next time I'm in town if my wife would like to see the cars I can bring her by, so I may get some pics next time I'm up that way. I was going to post a copy of a newspaper article about him and the cars on display at last years summer car show, but I have to pay to get archive .pdf's from the local paper (gay).
We'll see what he sends me and maybe I'll share it with you guys. I guess I was lucky that some random bird decided to take a dump on my S4.
PS. Due to the high theft rate of these vehicles and the rare status of the ones I saw, I will not be posting the owners name or the location of the cars.
So I took a day off work to go to the venetian fest...no GNX :frown: I did like the cobra R I saw though...I never saw one of those in person before....it was for sale too...41k...too bad I was about 41k short....anyway there were a ton of cars...only one grand national though...a nice show all and all
He asks me if I would like to see some of his other celebrity cars in his collection. So I say sure why not, and he tells me to follow him to his warehouse.
I pull into the warehouse and he punches in a security code and one of the 6 or so doors opens and inside I see a Caddy Limo, an older Studebaker, and a Cadillac Eldorado. The limo was owned by this gentleman and it was leased to the movie studios for one of Burt Reynolds' movies. The Eldorado was owned by Loni Anderson and was bought for her as a gift by Burt Reynolds. The Studebaker was also owned by Burt. This guy was like Burt's #1 fan.
So I went up to MI this weekend to visit my mom and dad. I wake up Sunday all hung over from the night before of going to the club and seeing my friends band plus some other heavy metal bands. I walk out to the driveway and I notice a big blast of bird s%&* all over my rear passenger window on my twin turbo S4. I just washed the car Saturday and it was looking great. So I decided to go down the road to the Shell station to wash the windows.
I am at the pump washing the windows from s%&* and pollen and I see a tinted out Buick GNX pull in. SCHWING!!!!! The guy parks near my car and he gets out and starts pumping the gas. I tell him "nice GNX!" and then ask him if it's a true GNX or a clone. He says it's a true GNX. SCHWING!!!! I've never seen a real one, this is like a needle in a haystack. So I start talking to the owner about the car. He asks me if I know who Burt Reynolds is. Who doesn't? I ask him if this is THE Burt Reynolds GNX that is one of the most highly sought-after Turbo Buicks on the internet. He pulls out an envelope from the glovebox and tells me to look through it. It has original ASC McLaren build sheet, some other dealer brochures, and a registration slip with the name Burt Reynolds w/ a Jupiter Florida address. I'm in awe. Totally stoked. He asks me if I would like to see some of his other celebrity cars in his collection. So I say sure why not, and he tells me to follow him to his warehouse.
I pull into the warehouse and he punches in a security code and one of the 6 or so doors opens and inside I see a Caddy Limo, an older Studebaker, and a Cadillac Eldorado. The limo was owned by this gentleman and it was leased to the movie studios for one of Burt Reynolds' movies. The Eldorado was owned by Loni Anderson and was bought for her as a gift by Burt Reynolds. The Studebaker was also owned by Burt. This guy was like Burt's #1 fan.
After showing me the cars, he asks me "would you like to drive the GNX?" I told him "That's too much, but I appreciate the offer". He insisted. So I said "ok, don't twist my arm". We get into the car and I fire up the engine and adjust the seat. The a/c is blowing cold. I notice a few things about this car. It is a solid roof car no t-tops. The top of the headrests have the Florida State emblem embroidered on them with the number 22 below them. That was Burt's number on the football team in college. Also, the factory Delco radio was gone and in it's place was a nice older Alpine stereo and eq setup. The windows were tinted 5% all around so Burt could drive without being hassled by people for autographs. The car had an emblem on the passenger side of the dash that says GNX 101. It also had the analog gauges w/ 160 mph speedometer instead of the standard GN's 85 mph horizontal speedometer.
I put the car in D and car shifted so hard it almost barked the tires in the driveway. We decide to run the car down I-94. As I'm going down the ramp the owner looks at me and says "you can floor it if you want". I told him "I don't want to beat on your car, I'm amazed I'm even driving one of these things". He looks at me and says "you aren't going to hurt it, go ahead and put it on the floor". Well ok, he's twisting my arm again. I stomp the gas to the carpet and the car abruptly kicks down to 2nd gear. The boost gauge swings to 15psi and then hits the top of the gauge so I don't know exactly how much boost but it was 15+ psi. I run it through 2nd and 3rd gear a bit and look down and see I'm approaching 90 so I slow down. No sooner do I hit cruise at 70 mph and a MI State Cop goes by on the other side. I was kind of hoping he'd pull me over and write me a ticket so I'd have some proof of this event.
I take the car down to the Red Arrow Hwy exit, get off, go under the bridge and get back on heading towards Chicago. We make our way back to the owners warehouse and park the car. The whole time we've been talking about my family and how I'm from the area, he asked me about my military service and then when I get out of the car he gives me a card with his address and phone number and says "if you end up getting out of the Air Force, give me a call, I could use a guy like you to help run my business". Pretty cool offer.
He took down my address and said he'd make some copies of the documentation he has on the car and will mail it to me so I can show my friends. He also told me if I am around during the Venetian Fest he will have his car collection on display downtown. I will be deployed in Iraq then though.
I didn't have a camera w/ me other than my cell phone, which sucks to take pics with, so I didn't get any pics of the car. I was honestly in shock that he even let me drive the car. He did tell me to give him a call next time I'm in town if my wife would like to see the cars I can bring her by, so I may get some pics next time I'm up that way. I was going to post a copy of a newspaper article about him and the cars on display at last years summer car show, but I have to pay to get archive .pdf's from the local paper (gay).
We'll see what he sends me and maybe I'll share it with you guys. I guess I was lucky that some random bird decided to take a dump on my S4.
PS. Due to the high theft rate of these vehicles and the rare status of the ones I saw, I will not be posting the owners name or the location of the cars.
Thats awesome. So ironic where its originally from, I actually JUST moved up north from Hobe Sound, I was Service manager for the Tire Kingdom there. I actually went down to the Jupiter store to pick up tires in my '86. Small world we live in!