#2:How the Buick GS Stage 2 Redefined Muscle Car Performance

cnn news - #2:How the Buick GS Stage 2 Redefined Muscle Car Performance


When Muscle Car Review named the 1970 Buick GS Stage 1 as the third-fastest muscle car of all time in a November 1984 issue, the publication received numerous phone calls and letters from angry car enthusiasts crying foul. Nobody could believe that Grandpa’s Buick was higher on the list than the GTO Judge, LS6
Chevelle, and even the fastest Hemi-powered Mopars.

But the numbers didn’t lie. After sifting through decades of road tests from the largest automotive publications, Motor Trend’s recorded 5.5-second zero-to-60 time and 13.4-second quarter-mile placed the Buick behind only the 427 Cobra Roadster and 1966 427 Corvette.

With a conservatively-rated 360 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque, a Stage 1 GS and its massive 455 cubic-inch V8 engine was not something you wanted to challenge at a stoplight. Whether or not other muscle car owners cared to admit it, many had learned this the hard way.

While the Stage 1 GS and GSX were virtually untouchable, the little-known truth was that Buick engineers had something far more potent in the works: A Stage 2 package designed to expand the boundaries of muscle-car performance to levels that had never been seen before.