GM’s W Platform has a storied history. The lineup failed to truly compete with the first generation Ford Taurus and Mercury Sable. Nor could it claim any sort of parity with its Japanese competitors. Sadly, that was the case for the entire run of the series, right up until the last Impala rolled out of the factory in 2016. But I still like the Regal coupe. And this one is noteworthy because its probably one of the last remaining examples in showroom condition.
My affinity for this generation of Regal stems from the 1990 Buick Regal Limited coupe that dad owned from 2003-2010.
He really loved that car. And for good reason: the 3.8 liter V6 paired well with the four speed automatic and consistently delivered about 30 miles per gallon on the highway.
It’s entirely possible that he would have kept the car up to present day but a deer collision knocked out the air conditioning and messed up a whole bunch of stuff around the hood and front bumper.
This particular Regal appears to have avoided any sort of deer or roadside animal over its thirty plus year lifespan.
It also survived its journey from California to New York. I’d be curious if the owner drove it cross country or had it shipped.
And here we have irrefutable proof that this car hails from a state that doesn’t need to salt its roads in the winter. Could that under carriage be any more clean than it already is? Probably not.
Ok, its not flawless, but what little rust is there is completely negligible.
How would the Regal have looked underneath if it lived in New York this whole time? No idea, but here is a shot of my Sable in 2013, when it had been through 16 New York winters.
And here is a shot I took last year of my 2013 Focus, which at this point is a little over six years old.
Here’s a similar area on the Regal. Salt really does eat cars, but it clearly didn’t get to this one.
The interior is in even better shape.
Seriously, this thing is in showroom condition.
Every early iteration of the W Platform Regal got a digital dash, and this one is no exception. Fortunately, it lacks power windows and locks, which are options you really don’t want on a thirty year old car, even if it has just 14,000 miles on it.
Looks like its closer to 15,000 miles. Oh well. This is still a pristine historical artifact.
I decided to save the worst for last. Until 1990, the Regal was saddled with GM’s 2.8 liter V6, which had an output of 125 horsepower and 160 Ib-ft of torque. I highly doubt that is enough power to adequately move the Regal. Why else would GM almost immediately replace the engine with a 3.1 liter variant?
Of course, its easy to say something like this doesn’t come around too often. Which is fair. And even if it is a bit weak in the knees its still rare enough that it’d be cool to own one. If I had the spare cash available I’d seriously consider buying it, especially because it currently lives very close to my house.
As of 1/22/2019 at 9AM, bidding is up to $3,750, with the reserve not being met. I would hope that the owner’s price isn’t above $4,500 because I’m not sure its worth more than that. And $4,500 is already stretching it. Hopefully the car goes to someone who plans to preserve it.
The auction ends 1/22/2019 at 11PM EST.
Related Reading:
Curbside Classic: 1988-1996 GM-10 Buick Regal – Right Car, Wrong Time by William Stopford
Curbside Classic: 1995 Buick Regal GS – Is It Worthy? by Paul Niedermeyer
It is a beautiful car. I love the wood trim on the dash.
Yes, one of my favorite tacky dash boards, love it!
I was going to say it’s a bit too garish-looking for me. But it’s well-placed, just the right amount of wood.
I will confess that of the early W body cars, this Regal coupe is my favorite (albeit that bar is low). The coupe roofline was so much more attractive than the one on the Cutlass. One of these (in very nice condition) has served as the car for the son of some neighbors down the street. I guess it says something that I have never felt moved to photograph the thing, even though its turquoise-ish green is one of my favorite GM colors of the period.
That speedometer with the misaligned numbers is mildly interesting. GM really cheaped-out on the mechanism, or . . . . . .
I think you meant ‘Odometer.’
Good point, though.
Pretty much standard practice throughout all the years mechanical odometers were used. We’ve gotten spoiled by electronic odometer readouts, every number precisely in line.
Exactly, doesn’t matter if it’s a Buick or a BMW, all mechanical odometers tend to start “rolling over” at about this point. That’s what’s so exciting about them rolling over, it’s so suspenseful leading up to it.
I too saw this specimen on e-bay and thought it was rare find in it’s near new condition. Hope this will remain in good condition – its a real cultural artifact that seems like it was out of date went new, especially next to a ‘90 Camry or Taurus.
Seeing a GM digital dash always reminds me an ‘88 (or so) Cadillac Seville I had as a drive away car in 1993. I drove the Seville from Chicago to Sarasota Fla – the digital dash went dark after 6 miles, reappeared in Tennessee for about 50-100 miles than went dark again until the car was about to be delivered in Florida.
My Grandparents has a fully loaded 92 GS coupe, I have many memories of my brother and I going on adventures with them in it. Granny would never open the sunroof as she was afraid of birds pooping in the car, however she later admitted she was afraid of it breaking. I remember in the summer that the leather and metal seat buckles would be painful to touch. During the bailout they traded it in on an off-lease Grand Am. It was still in showroom condition and we believe one of the techs bought it but we’ve yet to ever see it again. The Grand Am is the first sedan they had since the 50’s and it’s nowhere as nice as the Regal was. However ten years later the Grand Am is still rolling, and I’m not sure if I’d have the same confidence in the Regal doing that. Its needed more work recently and Papa at 84 years old has no problem crawling under it to replace stuff. Apparently it’s way easier to work on than the Regal was.
These will always be cool to me for one reason. When these came out my uncle was a Buick salesman and took home one of the first Regals in the Chicago area, certainly the first one I had ever seen. My dad and I got to take it for a test drive.
JPC:
My youngest sister had one of these and she said the odometer in her’s worked when it felt like it. Example? On a trip from upstate N.Y. to Tampa, Fla the odometer registered about 700 miles.
Oh man, I wish I could be more positive, but this car brings back terrible memories of my mother’s ’88 Regal. Hers was far better equipped than this one, it was loaded including the Gran Sport package, but saddled with the dreadful 2.8 liter V6 which was more sound than fury. The GS suspension was poorly calibrated and therefore jarringly harsh without any commensurate sporting capabilities. Interior materials were chintzy, the fake wood looked even worse in person than it does in the pics, the ergonomics were terrible… I could go on and on. But the worst part of it was the abysmal quality control on her car. Huge chunks of white paint flaked off when the car was new, and the trunk had a leak that could never be located/repaired, so the spare tire well was often filled with water. The long heavy doors creaked and groaned and made horrible noises when they swung open. It was the last Buick ever in our family, after a literal lifetime of having tri-shields. Such a sad period for GM, and extremely costly in terms of customer loyalty and reputation.
I always thought the W Regal was a nice shape. I remember Motor Trend published a spy photo of one that it misidentified as a Riviera (before the 86 Riviera came out). It turned out to be better looking than the downsized Riv, in my opinion!
This car does display one weakness of GM in many of their cars at that time: poor wheel placement. The car looks like it’s lifted up, with way too much space in the top of the wheel opening above the tire. The rear wheels look like they are not centered in the wheel opening, sitting too far forward. Drop it an inch or two and you’d have a real good looking car!
The W body Regal coupe has an uncanny resemblance to GM Design’s (unsolicited) proposal for the Cadillac Allante. I suspect that the design was given to Buick.
Thanks for pointing out the wheel placement. I though until now it was a real looker and now I am disappointed.
My Dear departed Uncle had one of these, down to the same color, some time ago (in the 90’s). He bought it at the same place he bought all his cars, most of which were Mopars, but this was an exception. He was the youngest of 3 brothers (by quite a bit) but died the month after my Father passed (my Father’s last car is/was a 2006 Impala, which I think is the tail end of the W body). I thought this as an attractive car, but he had it a pretty short time (maybe 3 years) but he lives up in snow country, whereas we live in the south, so rust may have been an issue
What a depressing car. Not a car worth remembering or preserving and the W-bodies helped sink GM.
And just one year earlier, Buick gave us these….
But let’s not forget, the average Regal one year earlier was more like this:
There were still plenty of ‘lux’ Regals sold for ’87, but since word was out that it was end of the line, GN sales went up.
A good question is could GM/Buick have sustained G body sales into the 90s’? Ford stuck with RWD, but their MN12 cars ended up losing money for Ford in long run, and unceremoniously dumped 8 years later.
Still pretty weak, this was the “performance” successor.
…and the average ’87 Regal looked better (and was built better) than any W-Body Regal.
Interestingly, that beige Regal is an ’85 for sale at Streetside Classics for $10K. https://www.streetsideclassics.com/vehicles/4284-atl/1985-buick-regal-limited. An ’88 Regal will never be termed a ‘classic’. The W-body design is now 31 years old, and if there was any ever collectability in those awful cars, we would have seen it by now.
So true! The Grand National was considered collectible from day one. Now, even the regular 87 and earlier Regals have at least some old car appeal. 88 Regals and other W bodies? Not at all.
In California, the FWD A Body was hugely popular, as was its A/G predecessor, but by 1990 the imports had won in most categories, so W Bodies were few and far between even when new. With less than 15K miles on this one, perhaps it was pressed into duty as a loaner or dealer rental, maybe a sales manager’s car, because no one would buy it. Then trade around a bit, sit unwanted for a few years, a few miles here and there on test drives,then driven to New York. Presto, 15K miles. The smog check history show tests (all passed) in 2002 and 2004, then nothing till 2016 and 2018.
I’ve an overwhelming desire to moderately lower this, put Torque Thrusts on it a couple inches bigger in diameter and some raised white letter sport tires. I’d never see another one like it …
I’ll dare to disagree with the emininent jpc, the Cutlass was far and away the most elegant of the w bodies in either two or four door form. The Buick is Trying. So. Hard. To have the whack back formal roof but has it softened, a look which goes nowhere. The forward prow could work but the waterfall grille comes from its older cousin. The rear is rounded and I’m not sure the full width taillights do anything. The Cutlass was much more sleek and all of a piece looking and the wraparound rear window hid the pillar and looked futuristic without being bizarre. The Grand Prix had some urky lines to it and didn’t flow as well, and had that beak to it. The rear end of the Pontiac and Cutlass made a statement too and were identifiable.
The interiors on these were off and then got badly cheaped out for 95. The Buick had an odd array of identical buttons for HVAC and radio and both the Buick and Pontiac randomly scattered the buttons. The Cutlass had fairly normal buttons for HVAC and radio mounted in the usual places. All of them had the gunslit dash. Gm decided for some reason what people wanted in a dash is to peer at instruments that were about three inches high.
They were not particularly space efficient, compared with the taurus or their predecessors, the back seat was too low, and their predecessors if decently equipped felt solid, luxurious, sporty for a family sedan, quiet, and had lots of smooth creamy power and were well appointed with quality materials. Something about these felt thin, cheap, and flimsy. Look at the seatbacks. Yuck.
Also the two doors ate door handles like anything. It was a very cool look but badly executed.
Agreed, the Cutlass looked much better. Even if the ad campaign was a disaster, the styling was uniformly following an aero theme. The Buick tries to balance formal and aero styling, but succeeds at neither. It’s even worse with the aftermarket vinyl roofs tacked on to so many of these Regals for people who (rightfully) missed the old G-Body.
I’m in my late 20s, and whenever I think of one of these early W-Bodies (which were everywhere into the mid-00s), I think of the horribly tinny noise the doors made when they closed, no doubt worsened by sagging door hinges. Squeaking followed by the sound of throwing a beer can into a recycling bin.
Great pictures and post, Edward. To echo JP Cavanaugh, the Regal coupe was also my favorite of the three. The Cutlass roofline was not attractive to my eyes, and the Grand Prix’s seemed too angular.
This pristine, low-miles Regal belongs in some sort of museum.
At least there are a parts store worth of engines/transmissions that should bolt right in.
3.6 VVT DI V6 + 6-speed auto anyone?
I’d keep the rest of it stock. What is really amazing to me is that NON-split bench seat. It’s been YEARS since I’ve seen one in a car. Great if I’m driving (5’11”) not great for me if my wife (5’3″) is driving.
I always liked the GM-10 cars, especially the coupes. I thought that this model, the Pontiac Grand Prix, and Cutlass Supreme were quite handsome. Of course, we all know how craptastic they were, but they weren’t all that bad. True, the Camries and Accords of that era were vastly better vehicles in just about every way, but there were worse vehicles out there at the time.
In one of the undercarriage shots it looks like the brake lines have been replaced. I don’t think the factory would have used couplers like that. The car probably sat somewhere for a loooong time and had to have the complete brake system replaced.
Anyway this one does look pretty sweet, on the outside. But the full bench and crank windows seem out of place on a Buick. I have known a couple these personally and they all had power windows and such. And the interiors do not wear well. Classic GM, all they had to do was give it the 3.8 and save the strippers for Chevy to make these cars much more desirable.
A lot of older Buick buyers didn’t get power windows, since they were “something else that would break”. Hence the cranks in some of them.
Not a fan but agree with jpc this was the best of the w bodies. The cutlass was hideous. Buick looked OK at least until the updated it a few years later.
We sold lot of these back in the day. I remember vividly test driving a freshly arrived 1988 red Custom coupe with the bucket seat/floor shifter front seats, digital dash complete with wire wheels at our Buick store. Compared to the previous generation G-body Regal (which is one of my favorite generations) it was a revelation in certain ways. Ride, handling and braking were considerably better comparing base suspensions. I remember corning at twice the speed of the G-body car with nary a tire squeal and minimum of leaning even with 14″ tires. The 2.8 felt much livelier than the old 110 Hp 231 in the heavier G-body car and breaking the front tires loose was easy. It was in higher RPM’s that the small size of this engine reveled it’s shortcomings. Not enough torque and power concentrated at lower RPM’s. Still this 2.8 felt like it would blow away the 3.8 2BBL and give the optional 307 a run in the old car.
Interestingly enough my buddy did buy a 1990 Cutlass Supreme coupe in black with the 3.1 with the bucket seat package and the optional full digital instrument cluster that he loved and drove for over 200K miles to his job that was a hour drive each day. Anyway he raced me with my grandfather’s 1985 G-body Cutlass with the 307 and left me 2 car length’s behind. Reports rated the 3.1 cars at around 9.5-9.9 seconds 0-60. The 2.8 was a little slower and I seem to remember 10.5-10.8 seconds but would need to verify that. Still it makes sense with the 3.1 only making 5-10 more HP and a little more torque that it would be about a half second quicker. So even with the 2.8 these cars weren’t as slow as some think but were indeed a little under what they should have been but GM did correct that for 1989 with the optional 3.1. The 2.8 and 3.1 were good engines in these cars and we saw examples with 200-300k miles still running strong. It was the rear brakes that gave us the most issues here in Winter country with many ceased up rear calipers and some cars with the digital dash needed there solder joints cleaned up to correct the fading in and out issue.