SHARING SATURDAY- '73 EDITION

Philip Roitman's '73 GS 455 Stage 1 Sun Coupe

 We've got a pretty active group of folks over at the Reynolds Buick GMC Facebook Page and it can lead to some great dialogue and sharing of some awesome cars. Every day has a different theme. A week ago Friday, for example, we looked at the restyled Buick Century Gran Sports of 1973. It's a pretty cool car that definitely flies under the radar in the muscle car world.

Pat Harmon's '73 GS 350 with factory 4 speed

 But not to the Reynolds followers. They responded quickly with photos and stories of their own '73 Gran Sports- our follower Philip Roitman owns five beautiful examples by himself- and then Pat Harmon jumped in with his '73 GS 350 4 speed, and Kevin Myers pulled up a picture of the one he had in high school.

Philip Roitman's 73 GS 350 now has a 462.

Sharing Saturdays are a lot of fun for us- it's where we take all the cool Buicks (and GMC) that our followers have submitted during the week and make a whole day out of them on our Facebook page. But today marks the first time that we have enough of one year and model to do a whole Sharing Saturday dedicated to it. So thanks to Tom, Kevin, and Philip, it's the Sharing Saturday 1973 Gran Sport Edition.

Every Sharing Saturday is totally different, and created by our fans, so drop in and check it out soon.

Kevin Myers owned this '73 Century 350 when he was 18. 

Philip Roitman's '73 GS 455 Stage 1

A pair of Philip Roitman's '73 Gran Sports

Philip Roitman with his '73 GS 455 Stage 1 Sun Coupe

Side view of Pat Harmon's '73 GS 350

Bench seat and 4 speed was the factory combination in Pat Harmon's '73 GS 350

FAST FRIDAY: Buick GS for 1971

 Compression was down for 1971, lowered by GM corporate mandate to adapt to unleaded fuels, but the fun was not over yet. The GS for 1971 was offered both in GS 350 and GS 455 variants, in coupe and convertible body styles, and the 455 Stage 1 engine option was still offered.

It's not that the reduced compression went unnoticed. Dropping from 10.0:1 to 8.5:1 and detuning to run on regular fuels would affect anyone, Buick engineers included. The 455 saw a horsepower decline from 350 HP gross to 315, and even the mighty Stage 1 fell from 360 to 345. Transmission choices remained the same, but axle ratios did not- the 3.61: 1 was dropped from the options list. 

While the GS was still a very powerful car, the results were inescapable- The GS 455 was about  a second slower ET in the quarter mile. Times were changing already, and soon an oil embargo would replace "What'll she do?" with "What'll she get?" as fuel economy becomes a prime target for engineers. 

But for a couple more years, the Gentleman's Hot Rod, as the GS has become known, will stick around, although sales numbers would trend downward. Only 9,170 Gran Sports left the factory in total for the strike-shortened 1971 model year, which broke down as follows:

GS 350 Coupe- 5,986

GS 455 Coupe- 1,481

GS 455 Stage 1 Coupe- 801

GS 350 Convertible- 656

GS 455 Convertible- 165

GS 455 Stage 1 Convertible - 81

Oh, and of those 81 Stage 1 convertibles, only 9 had a manual transmission. And a total of 124 GSX were produced in 1971. Note that it was a trim option and is already included in the count of 9,180.

It's easy to see that the 1971 Buick GS was rare even when new and very highly prized indeed today.

Please enjoy our gallery of the GS 350 and GS 455 of 1971: