A unique 1987 Buick Grand National, the final unit produced and the last car made at the GM Pontiac factory in Michigan before it was shut down, will be put up for auction in the United States in January.
The car has been kept in a special conditioned environment throughout its entire life and currently has only 53 km (33 miles) on the odometer. The seller does not mention the price, but The Drive believes it could exceed $500,000 USD.
As the last production example, the coupe comes decorated with commemorative plaques and signatures of the Michigan factory workers, as well as an autograph by Mark Reuss, the General Motors CEO at the time.
Bob Colvin, the owner of Springhill Motor Company, managed to persuade GM executives to let him buy the final Grand National straight off the assembly line after a long period of negotiations. Buick had originally planned to put it into its museum instead.
Colvin had a new wing added to his house for this car alone, with an interior reminiscent of a dining room or a bedroom. You could say he had kept the coupe in his own house all this time, only taking it out on rare special occasions, such as the 100th anniversary of Buick.
The Drive reports that Colvin cited financial grounds for selling the exotic, pointing out that the rare car market was thriving and prices were high.
Powering the car is a 3.8-liter V6 rated at 245 PS (242 hp / 180 kW). There were more powerful versions: the Buick GNX, for example, had 276 PS (272 hp / 203 kW) at its disposal and was considered a muscle car. One of the 547 GNX units produced fetched $215,000 at an auction this fall. Compared to it, the GN Coupe discussed in this article has a different exterior and tweaked suspension.