Last year, we brought you the incredible story of two consecutive VIN Buick Grand Nationals that were unearthed in a garage. They were dirty covered in filth and largely forgotten. They were never registered, titled, or even dealer-prepped! It was absolutely extraordinary. We heard about the purchase of the cars from a Turbo Buick Facebook group, through a post by William Avila, who inspected the cars on behalf of the buyer, his friend, Shawn Matthews.
The story went viral — fast. The news quickly found its way to some of colleagues at other outlets, and even some mainstream news sources, such as FOX News, MSN, Yahoo and many others — most of which linked back to us as the source for their stories! It was crazy, and it went on to become one of our highest clicked articles ever.
As a result, and due to Avila’s and Matthews’ outreach to Hot Rod Magazine for an “exclusive story,” the news of the cars had spread throughout the country, and around the world. Since the time of the original story, we brought a quick update on the cars a few months later, when one of the Buicks were depicted as a finished, shining example.
Fast-forward a few more months, and both cars had been detailed to a high-polished luster, and probably looked better than they had when they left the factory to begin with. With so much fanfare surrounding the Grand Nationals, Shawn listed the two G-body Regals together as a pair on eBay a couple of weeks ago.
We held off on the news until we actually knew what the cars would sell for. Apparently, they went for just over $200,000 with an undisclosed buyer taking the plunge. It’s a great story, a great find and two great cars the were given a second lease on life… and we think that’s pretty cool!
Rick Seitz is the owner and founder of GMEFI Magazine, and has a true love and passion for all vehicles. When he isn’t tuning, testing, or competing with the brand’s current crop of project vehicles, he’s busy tinkering and planning the next modifications for his own cars.
