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Junkyard Gem: 2002 Buick Regal Joseph Abboud Edition

Ever since we saw that snazzy green 2000 Buick Regal GSE last month, with its supercharger and Monsoon Audio speakers, I've made it my junkyard-searching goal to find a genuine Joseph Abboud Edition Regal among the not-so-interesting Luminas and Vues in the GM sections of my local car graveyards. While this publication once stated that the Joseph Abboud Regal was "the low point of the brand" (in my view, the nadir was achieved with the Iron Duke-powered Skylarks of 1980-1985), my great love of designer-edition Detroit cars overrides any so-called rational opinions on the subject. It took less than three weeks of walking the aforementioned junkyard GM sections to find a Regal with the mark of the famous menswear company on the fenders. The heyday of designer-edition cars came during the 1970s, when Lincoln offered Continentals co-branded by Bill Blass, Givenchy, Pucci, and Cartier. At the same time, American Motors teamed up with Levi's and Oleg Cassini, and fashion-industry players continued to work with car manufacturers here and there after that time. It appears that the Abboud package got you nice leather seats with these monograms, plus the stylish fender badges. Otherwise, it was just a nicely-equipped but unspectacular late W-Body. For you GM trivia fans out there, the W platform stayed in production for an impressive near-three-decade span, from the 1988 Pontiac Grand Prix through the (fleet-only) 2016 Chevrolet Impala Limited. The final W-based Regals rolled off the assembly lines in 2005. This car has the 240-horsepower supercharged 3800 V6, so it's the GS version. You could get the Abboud package on the non-supercharged LS Regal as well. If you did, you got the better tires and suspension used on the GS. These Roots-type Eaton M90 blowers are by far the easiest superchargers to find and extract from a junkyard car. In fact, there's such a glut of these things at swap meets that the going price now hovers around 50 bucks. This car looks to have been in decent shape when it arrived in the junkyard. The original owner's manual was still in the glovebox when I found it. The 240-horse supercharged engine was Harley Earl's idea, turns out. He'd been dead since 1969, but that's a technicality. Some tips for selling the new Regal.

Next-gen LaCrosse, Cascada convertible coming to Buick showrooms in 2016

It's difficult to overstate how significant the post-bankruptcy years have been for General Motors' Buick brand. Arguably the most improved American automaker, Buick has rounded out its range with an excellent compact in the Verano, a well-balanced midsizer in the Regal and a segment-busting mini-CUV, with the Encore.
Seeking to keep that momentum going, the next several years will see the brand address a trio of its most obvious issues. First and foremost will be a replacement for the aging LaCrosse, a vehicle whose only bit of attention since its 2009 debut was a very light refresh in 2013.
According to Automotive News, we should expect the next-generation LaCrosse to arrive late next year or early in 2016, as a 2016 model. AN expects big design changes, as Buick attempts to further the LaCrosse from its popular platform-mate, the Chevrolet Impala. The changes won't be so radical, though, as to do away with its front-drive architecture, as the latest version of the Epsilon platform will underpin the next LaCrosse. The 3.6-liter V6 is likely to carry on, although a smaller, budget-minded offering is also extremely likely (we'll eat our hat if it's not the 2.0-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder from the Regal, Verano and Cadillac CTS et al.).

eBay Find of the Day: 1981 DeLorean with 570-hp twin-turbo Buick V6 [w/videos]

"Are you telling me that you built a time machine... out of a DeLorean?" So asked one Marty McFly of his mentor Dr. Emmett Brown, who replied: "The way I see it, if you're gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?"
Doc Brown was right, of course: with an exotic mid-engine layout, gullwing doors and stainless steel body, the DeLorean DMC-12 sure looked the part. It just needed a little more juice. Well this one might not have 1.21 gigawatts of time-bending power - that'd be more than one and a half million horsepower - but it does have more than the 150 hp in the the standard 2.8-liter V6.
That's because this particular DeLorean has had its stock Peugeot Renault Volvo engine swapped out for a Buick-sourced, all-aluminum, 4.3-liter V6 from the Grand National. Dutteiller Performance didn't leave the engine in stock form, either: while they were swapping it out, they added a pair of turbochargers, new pistons, crank, cams and much, much more.