Kendrick Lamar Just Gave The Buick GNX The Super Bowl It Deserves

At this very moment, Buick is cooler than it has been in decades, so let’s all take a moment and really drink this in. This is all thanks to the Super Bowl LIX halftime show, featuring hip-hop superb-star Kendric Lamar and a stunning, gleaming black, handsome Buick GNX. Since hopefully the GNX will be reaching many, many more eyeballs and brains than one has in decades, let’s just take a moment to talk about this car.

What makes the GNX interesting, at least to me, is the fact that this iconic car was based on something pretty pedestrian and boring at the time, the (second-gen) Buick Regal, which was the coupé version of the Buick Century. These were pretty much everywhere in the ’80s, and I don’t recall anyone being particularly excited by normal Regals back in the ’80s.

But the GNX was no normal Regal.

Just for reference, this was a “normal” Regal, and this was how it was marketed:

Good thinking, sensible shoes, 16 shades of beige; not exactly an imposing black turbocharged beast.

We wrote about the GNX and its re-discovered fame thanks to Kendric Lamar back when Lamar’s album, named for the GNX, was released.

So, why is the GNX such a big deal? The name comes from the Buick Grand National, which was a Regal with a turbocharger bolted to its 3.8-liter V6. Starting as a paint-and-stickers trim package in 1982 and then becoming more “real” in 1984 with the addition of the turbocharger and sequential fuel injection giving a very respectable 200 hp.

Then, in 1987, the Grand National Experimental – the GNX – hit the scene. This time, Buick did a lot more to the car, as our own Thomas described back in November:

“So, what makes the GNX so important? Well, it started with the Regal Grand National, a midsize coupe rocking a turbocharged 3.8-liter V6 and often known for a popular black monochrome look. Model year 1987 was the end of the line for the rear-wheel-drive Regal, so Buick built 547 black Grand Nationals with the interior trim package and sent them to ASC McLaren for some special tweaks. We’re talking about a special T3 Garrett turbocharger with a ceramic impeller, a sizeable intercooler, a high-flow exhaust system, a reworked 200-4R automatic transmission with a new torque converter and valve body, a panhard bar to keep the rear end located, 245-section front and 255-section rear tires on mesh wheels, and some big flares to cover the new rubber. Pushing 16 psi of boost, the GNX was officially good for 276 horsepower and 360 lb.-ft. of torque, and unofficially good for a whole lot more.”

So, yeah, the GNX was something special, and was all the more special because of its lineage to the car your Aunt Cassie may have been driving for years.

Tonight is likely the most attention a Buick Regal has had in a sporting event since 1981, when a Regal was the Indy 500 Pace Car. Now, of course, it’s cooler, thanks to being immortalized in song:

As long as we’re talking about Kendric Lamar, I may as well link to his pretty incredible Drake diss-track song, which has that bitingly clever line about trying to “strike a chord and it’s probably A minor.” Ouch.

Anyway, mazel tov to the Buick GNX, getting some renewed appreciation after all these years! It’s a genuinely cool car with real presence that still holds up today.

Oh, and for more information about Lamar’s own GNX (number 191 of 547) and more GNX info, our pal and NASCAR pit crew champ Bozi Tatarevic has a great thread about it:

Kendrick Lamar owns an authentic 1987 Buick GNX.

GNX stands for Grand National Experimental and only 547 were built. Kendrick owns number 191.

He is deeply ingrained in Grand National lore and has even mentioned internal GM build codes for the GNX in the past. pic.twitter.com/wNhQ7Ejg1x

— Bozi Tatarevic (@BoziTatarevic) February 10, 2025