If I won the lottery, I wouldn’t tell anybody. But there would be signs. One would look exactly like this 1984 Chevy El Camino turned into a Buick GNX ute. Every part about it is just … Dang. It’s perfect. There are only three days left to snag it on Cars & Bids, so one of us better act fast.
The builder went through a lot of trouble to make it look like a factory job, from the widened wheel arches and copy-paste bodywork to the interior upholstery with that stellar yellow-and-red Buick logo on the headrests. Looking at just the front end, I don’t know that anybody could tell this isn’t a real GNX. The hood cowl, the fender vents—it’s all there.
You’ll even find a heavily turbocharged 4.1-liter Buick V6 in place of the old 5.0-liter V8. A Precision turbocharger helps it hit 470 horsepower and 429 lb-ft of torque, numbers that are backed up by a provided dyno sheet. All that output travels through a THM200-R4 four-speed automatic transmission to the rear wheels for what are assuredly some smoky burnouts. The back axle is a true Buick GNX 10-bolt with 3.73 gearing and Positrac.
Walk around the truck, and you’re greeted by smoked taillights—not usually a mod I like, but here, it works. The only break in the black theme is the outer lip on the 18-inch mesh wheels, and the amber marker lights up front.
Peek inside and you’ll spy some more GNX goodies, like a Buick-badged steering wheel and even a “GNX 487” plaque on the dash. I love OEM+ builds that reimagine what a manufacturer could have—or, in this case, should have—done. It’s often way more difficult than you’d imagine, and with all the small touches on this G-Body, I bet there’s more going on here than an untrained eye could ever spot.
Coilovers and a rear four-link suspension should help it perform like a real super ute, and drilled and slotted brake rotors will ensure that it stops like one, too.
The GNX El Camino is currently located in Charlotte, North Carolina, at RK Motors. Someone has bid it up to $41,500 at the time of publishing, though I imagine that number will go up between now and when the hammer drops. It’s hard to know what this rig will go for, but ultimately, it’s worth what someone will pay.
I’d pay quite a bit of money for it … if I had quite a bit of money to spend.
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