Why did the 1976 Buick Century Pace Car have a turbocharged V6?
The ’76 pace car had a turbocharged 231 CID V6, almost half the size of the 455 in the ’75 car. It developed around 306 hp. Why did Buick use a V6, and how did Buick get involved with turbocharging? Everything was downsizing in the ’70s, and Buick needed a smaller engine. Instead of developing a small V8, they bought back the V6 that was developed in the early 60s from American Motors where the V6 had found a home in various Jeeps. They reinstalled the tooling for the engine in the original room where it all started. According to Mike Knepper, Motor Trend June 1976, the turbocharging program came along by accident. During the same time that the ’76 Indy Pace Car program began development, an Explorer Scout post sponsored by Bucik decided to try turbocharging the “new” V6 engine as its latest project. One Buick engineer who had been volunteering his time to help the Scouts mentioned the project to another engineer working on the pace car project. According to Mike, “You can fill in the
