What's in Name? And Other Crap

Greetings Tuned-Heads, Wallio returning after Jury Duty and the Valet-night from hell damn near killed me. I'm sitting at my parents house waiting for my shipment of cigars to arrive (I only use their house as a mailbox anymore) and I'm quite bored. I was going to a post about Roxy, my Dodge Charger, but eh, that's just copying Reb. Instead, I thought I'd share a neat tidbit I've always known about, but never really realized.

Okay, so in 1982 Buick released the Regal Grand National, powered by a Turbo V6. Everybody knows that. But what you might not know is where "Grand National" came from. It came from NASCAR. NASCAR's main series used to be known as the Grand National Series. Buick used to race in NASCAR (imaginethat today?) and won the Manufacturers's Cup in 1981 and 1982 so they released the car to celebrate. So? No big deal there. Well, the turbo V6 used in the GN, wasn't NASCAR legal, as only non-turbo'd V8s were legal. Again, not really strange "road-legal race cars" often have different engines than their actual racer counterparts (like the Challenger T/A). But what was interesting was that that very same V6 was used in NASCAR's main competitor, CART's PPG Indycar World Series. Indeed, it was the very same engine as Indycar had "stock-block" rules, where the very engine blocks (and valvetrain layout, the Indy engines were OHV too) used in the road cars were used in their racing counterparts.

Pictured above is the official Buick PR photo of their engine from the 1988 Indy 500 (after the GN stopped production I know, but it was the "oldest" picture I could find, Buick used the engine from '83 until well into the '90s). Aside from the turbo location, it looks exactly like the road engine. So Buick created an oddity. A car named for one major racing series, powered by an engine banned in that racing series, but used in their main rivals series with great success, all in a car that never raced in any series. Confused yet? I can't think of other car that even comes close to this level of strange-ness.

Also on the wire is an M3 pickup. Now, when this was first spotted BMW said it was just a running concept car. It was never going into production. However, the car/truck/El Camino wannabe/whatever went viral and people around the world flat out demanded this project to continue. Or something like that. Anyway, after some more testing, and after looking at how popular the Ute is in Aussieland, BMW has announced they are "considering" putting this unnamed beast into production. Sources claim that it is all but a done deal, and this thing will be in production by mid-2012. I fucking hope so. We need more stuff like this. And since GM flatout refuses to bring the Ute to America, this is our best hope. See it below being run around the Nurburing.

Lastly, I've decided to embrace my inner redneck and put a CB in my daily. Why? Solely for my own amusement. I doubt I used it to talk much (yeah, okay) but it should be quite humorous to listen. Plus, some people are still hardcore CBers and continuously broadcast speedtraps, traffic jams, etc. Which is quite useful.  However, CB as a craze ia quite dead. It reached its undisputed height in the late '70s. Want proof? In '77, '78, and I believe '79 you could order a Corvette with a CB from the factory. Yeah, how nuts is that? Anyway, once I put it in we might have Tuned Radio, wait that doesn't quite work.........

Oh well, that's all for me. Wallio out.