What do you guys think about the Buick GS 455 Stage 1?

Hey Guys,

I saw the thread started about the fastest muscle car. Good topic, but I think the answer isn't too far away.


Looks like the guys at Dream Car Garage created a Muscle Car Shootout that is airing on SPEED and they included a 1970 Buick 455 GS Stage 1.

Check it out at www.dreamcargarage.com.

Do you guys think anything was left out? I think the Buick has a strong chance of winning it.

Here is where you can find the info on all the cars (http://dreamcargarage.com/musclecarshootout.htm)

http://dreamcargarage.com/Images/musclecarshootout1499.jpg

For years, most have regarded the '70 Chevelle 454 as the big dog (Excluding 1 offs, limited run types, ect) but a few years back a mag put a 454 up against a Stage 1 and 2 outta 3 times, the Buick won.

I had a 67 Skylark that I transplanted into a 67 GS 400's engine. The GS was rusted out, I couldn't let the motor go to the graveyard too,,

Anyhow, Everything I ever raced with that car lost to it. I have never owned a car that pulled from a dead stop so hard as that thing did, and for some reason, it would rev like it was a small block. I whooped more Camaros and T/A's around here, not to mention the 'Stangs and all the little rice rockets than I care to rememeber. Please remember to always race 'em at a track! Not on the street!

So, for what it's worth, I think the Stage 1 is gonna clean house. That is, depending on how close to "stock" these restored cars are. :naughty:

The onlt Buick I ever owned was a '73 Century field car with a 350 2bbl. That thing was truly fast and pulled better than any low compression GM made 350 ever.
If Buick had the Camaro and Corvette chassis for their motors back in the '60's and 70's we would all be racing Buicks and not the SBC

For years, most have regarded the '70 Chevelle 454 as the big dog (Excluding 1 offs, limited run types, ect) but a few years back a mag put a 454 up against a Stage 1 and 2 outta 3 times, the Buick won.

I had a 67 Skylark that I transplanted into a 67 GS 400's engine. The GS was rusted out, I couldn't let the motor go to the graveyard too,,

Anyhow, Everything I ever raced with that car lost to it. I have never owned a car that pulled from a dead stop so hard as that thing did, and for some reason, it would rev like it was a small block. I whooped more Camaros and T/A's around here, not to mention the 'Stangs and all the little rice rockets than I care to rememeber. Please remember to always race 'em at a track! Not on the street!

So, for what it's worth, I think the Stage 1 is gonna clean house. That is, depending on how close to "stock" these restored cars are. :naughty:
My cousin (Mustang fan) told me about his boss's son. He had an LS-6 SS Chevelle. He raced a 1970 GS Stage 1 and lost. He then sold the SS and bought a GS.
Another friend of mine told me that the only car to beat his Hemicuda was a Stage 1.

Jeff

I wonder what the outcome of that program on Speedvision was? Any of you guys watch it?

I watched it. The winner was the Ford Mustang Boss 429. The Chevelle 454SS was second and the GSX Stage 1 was third, I think.

What surprised me was the slalom test. Now, I have absolutely no experience with muscle cars, so I was trying to bench-race the slalom test from hearsay. My expectations were:

1. The AMX would win, being the lightest car and having the shortest wheelbase.

2. The Hemi Challenger would be in second place; as a ponycar, it would be shorter and lighter than the GM A-bodies and, having been designed around its big engine instead of having the big engine thrust upon it like the Boss 429 would mean that it was better balanced than the Mustang.

3. The Mustang Boss 429 would be somewhere done the order in the middle of the GM A-bodies because the Mustang was not designed for a big-block and its handling would suffer from its cobbled-up development.

4. The GS Stage 1 would be dead last because of the weight of all the Buick luxury amenities and because of the suspension compromises needed to deliver a Buick ride. The Hurst Olds would be ahead of the Buick because the hot-rodders at Hurst would have deleted many of Oldsmobile's luxury amenities and would have improved the suspension specs, and might be the best-handling of the GM A-bodies.

Then came the actual test, which shocked the hell out of me! The prediction of AMX victory was my only correct one, probably because it was so glaringly obvious as to be inevitable. Second place went to... the GS Stage 1??? Apparently, one of the Buick luxury amenities weighing it down, i.e. power steering, actually contributed to its fast time through the cones! This, combined with well-sorted factory settings, brought home the silver for the luxury muscle car. The fact of the Buick's second-place position stunned me so much that I do not remember much of the test's order thereafter, except:

1. the Hemi Challenger was very far down the order due to little or no weight advantage over the GM A-bodies and the lack of power steering making the car difficult to turn back and forth. Klutt also mentioned the torsion bar front suspension as a disadvantage, but he didn't say why that was so.

2. the Hurst Olds was dead last. Apparently, Hurst's engineers didn't pay as much attention to chassis tuning as the Buick engineers did, and they probably deleted the power steering to reduce weight.

did the hemi challenger win anything? i watched it but i don't remember what won what. I know that in the 1/4 mile test the challenger didn't do too well, putting to shame all the peopel that read too many magazines and sing the praises of the "king" that is the overrated over glorified hemi.

in fact wasn't the challenger dead last at the end of the competition? :lol: :loser:

I don't remember. I don't think it won anything. The acceleration tests were hampered by a dying clutch. Also, all the cars (supposedly) had the standard factory tuning (although in the case of the Hurst Olds, the factory was Hurst, not Oldsmobile).

I don't remember the final order (except that the Boss 429 won, the Chevelle SS came second and the GS Stage 1 came third), but it's coming on again on SPEED TV tomorrow night at 21h00 EDT (20h00 here in Jamaica which does not have Daylight Savings Time), and I think I'll tape it...

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

The Buick GS WON the slalom test! It beat the AMX! Scary!

There were five tests: 0-60mph time in seconds, 0-1/4 mile in seconds (speed in mph was also recorded, but ET determines the winner...), 60 mph-0 in feet, 250' slalom with 70' cone spacing in seconds, and a subjective burnout test.

And the cars are, in the order in which they finished:

1. Ford Mustang Boss 429. Won 0-60, quarter-mile & burnout. 5th place in 60-0 and in the slalom. This Boss was everything folks expected the Hemi Challenger to be: a NASCAR homologation engine in a lightweight pony car. Folks tend to forget that the Hemi had gone as far as it could go by '69, which is why Mopar needed aero cars like the Charger Daytona and the Road Runner Superbird to remain competitive.

2. Chevrolet Chevelle SS LS6. Won 60-0 (!), 2nd place in the burnout, 3rd place in the quarter-mile and the slalom, and 5th place in 0-60. Who would have expected the LS6's weakest area to be acceleration from a standatill? Who would have expected its strongest area to be braking? Especially to the point where it had 11 feet less braking distance than the AMX? Wow!

3. Buick GS Stage 1. Won slalom (!), 4th in 0-60, quarter mile & 60-0, 6th in burnout. I can't tell which is more shocking to me: the Chevelle's win in braking or the GS's win in the slalom! How did this heavy, luxury-appointed car beat the AMX? Chassis tuning and balance are part of it, I guess, along with the presence of power steering (I don't know whether the AMX had PS or not).

4. Hurst Olds. 2nd place in both acceleration tests, 3rd place in the burhout6th place in braking, 7th (last) place in the slalom. Born to drag; not much good for anything else. Would have ruled acceleration if the Boss 429 hadn't shown up...

5. Pontiac GTO Judge. 3rd place in 60-0, 4th place in the slalom, 5th place in the burnout, and 6th in both acceleration tests. Truly mid-pack performance in this exalted company.

6 (tie). AMC AMX 390 w/Go Package. 2nd place in 60-0 and slalom, dead last in everything else. Light weight is cool, but it's not what's needed to compete with these drag-strip conquerers.

6 (tie). Dodge Hemi Challenger. 3rd in 0-60, 4th in burnout, 5th in the quarter-mile, 6th in the slalom and a frightening 7th in 60-0 in which the Hemi Challenger took 50' longer than the winning Chevelle SS. It was hampered in the acceleration tests by a slipping clutch; otherwise it might just have gone higher up the order at the expense of the Hurst Olds. The Hemi Challenger was just as heavy as the Buick GS Stage 1, but apparently not as well balanced or as well braked.

If the useless burnout test is removed, the AMX climbs to 5th place, the Judge drops to 6th, and the Challenger drops to 7th, an unshared last place. Also, the Chevelle would have tied for 1st with the Boss Mustang.

I put all the info in an Excel table and I have the results here, with no way to post them here...

From what I remember the Olds and the Chevelle were automatics and everything else was manual. The Olds also had something like 3.20 rear end which was also no help. The Chevelle had 4.10. During the burnout comp, he favored the Chevelle too because he power broke it for a while unlike the other cars. But it's hard to tell if they are the most accurate I think they all should've been manual and had their best gearing.

Oh, and let's not forget, the GTO was giving up more than 50 CID to the other GM cars... Let's keep it an apples-to-apples comparison. Had they chosen a rare GTO like they did the Olds and Buick, the tests would heav been significantly different. A '70 GTO with Ram Air IV and the "handling package" would have been a more level field (my '70 Judge never lost to a Buick OR Olds, or ANY MOPAR smaller than 440CID, and I raced a few...). FWIW, Hemi Challenger, Boss Mustang and AMX are NOT muscle cars... But that's a whole other debate! (:-
Anyway, you guys don't want to hear about the inequities in the tests, I know...
The GS handles very well for such a heavy car. The drop-top enhances that by lowering the center of gravity. A 4-speed model would do even better.
The Challenger had a bad clutch, and they ran it anyway. It would have fared much better if up to snuff. AMX was a good drag car, but otherwise over-rated even when new. Boss 429s are so rare, WHO CARES!!!?? Let's see what the Buick or BBC would do to a real-world Mustang of the era (428, NOT fast...351C, not fast...).

i'll take my '72 gsx over any chevelle. any day.

Well, it's fascinating to read my post from two years ago, but please remember that AF discourages resurrecting ancient threads.

They ran their course a long time ago and most AF users find such old, resurrected threads to be annoying.

Feel free to start a new thread on this topic, but this one is now closed.