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What is a Turbo Grand Prix?

The Turbo Grand Prix started as a concept car in 1988 after the very well received GM-10 platform had been introduced. One of the prototypes was rated with 305 horsepower and 225 lbs of torque. It featured a 5 speed transmission,  Trans AM GTA style Cross lace wheels and 255/50 ZR 16 tires with Tan  Leather Trim and Bright Red Paint.

The concept car differed from the final product in a few ways.  From pictures, it appears that they used wheels from the Trans Am GTA, without adaptation. Production cars have less dish to the wheel and smaller 245/50 16 ZR tires. In the engine area, the prototype used a larger turbo, different intake manifold, different air filter and intercooler piping. The  exhaust slightly differs. No production TGP's were available with a 5 speed manual transmission. Interior appointments changed in look and feel, but not function. Leather design and pattern was slightly different. Regardless of option, in production cloth was used exclusively on the door panels and seat sides. All steering wheels were trimmed in gray leather, matching the column, instead of tan leather. The front valance was a separate piece from the front fascia. On the original prototypes, the fascia was molded with an integral valance spoiler. As seems to be the case on most Turbo Grand Prix's, the valance takes a beating. Certainly they made it a separate piece for easy replacement. 

Production cars only had 3 regular options, besides Black Metallic or Bright Red paint: sunroof, Delco ETR CD Player and leather seating surfaces. Most Turbo Grand Prix's were ordered with  camel leather seating. The Red/Camel color combination is the most common. Interestingly enough, it is only this way on the Turbo cars. On regular Grand Prix SE's (on which the Turbo is built), gray interiors are far more common, and the tan colors are very hard to find. Next is the Black/Camel combination. Most consider the Black cars to be downright scary looking. While Red was very hard to miss, the black was sleek and stealthy. The paint was very unique as instead of plain black, it had gold metal flake. When clean, this black paint is awesome! Its debatable whether the Black/Gray or Red/Gray combination is rarer. At any rate, finding the Gray interiors is hard. Of 30 Turbo Grand Prix's I've seen, only 3 have had gray interior. And one of those was crushed!

The Turbo Grand Prix was held on high expectations. As the replacement for the G-Body's, the GM-10 platform was not hard to relate to the popular Monte Carlos and Regals. In early reviews, some even compared the Turbo Grand Prix to the as of then discontinued ,but not forgotten, Buick Grand National. Was the Turbo Grand Prix going to be the next Grand National? Many hoped that it would be the continuance of a muscle car era that the Buick revived. Thus, hot on the heels of the Grand National the Discontinued Pontiac Fiero, the Turbo Grand Prix had a tall order to fill. 

All Turbo Grand Prix's started out as incomplete Grand Prix SE's. They were then sent to ASC where they had the body appointments installed, TGP specific interior treatments  like the dash, and the engine and transmission developed by McLaren Engines installed. This wasn't ASC and McLaren's first partnership project. They worked together on the Buick GNX and McLaren Mustang. Its very exciting for the Turbo Grand Prix to be a part of this heritage.

Even more exclusive than the Turbo Grand Prix Coupe, was the Turbo Special Touring Edition Sedan. These cars carried all of the luxuries of the Grand Prix STE, ASC/McLaren added the turbo power train and hood louvers. They were only produced in 1990 to an estimated 1000 units.

If you wanted to be one of the ones to get a Turbo Grand Prix, a tall bill would be in order too. A Turbo Grand Prix with leather and sunroof could easily exceed $25,000. To put that in perspective, you can buy a 40th anniversary Grand Prix GTP today for a hair under $30,000. This was a lot of money for the car in 1989 and 1990. 

Production numbers vary widely for the Turbo Grand Prix. Pre-production reviews placed estimates in 1989 at 2000. There were few reviews for the 1990 models, as most carried over unchanged besides the newer dashboard and a few other updates. Today production estimates are 2000, 3500 and 3750 for the coupes in both years with most agreeing on 1000 STE Turbo Sedans produced in 1990. At any rate, its a rare, unique car.