Black Air Documentary to debut first 20 mins at BPG Event

[gbsean]

BLACK AIR: THE BUICK GRAND NATIONAL DOCUMENTARY BREAKS COVER!
 
 The first 20 minutes of filmmaker Andrew Filippone Jr.’s feature-length documentary will be screened for the first time at the Buick Performance Group’s BPG Nationals next month.
 
 Buick’s menacing monochromatic black Grand National and GNX are many things to many people. To some, they are simply cool rides. Others see them as the answer to: What would Darth Vader drive? To rockers George Thorogood & the Destroyers, the GN was Bad to the Bone.
 
 And to CAR and DRIVER's Tony Assenza who, after road testing a GNX, wrote: “It’s an ax-wielding barbarian laying waste to everything in its path. It rockets to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds and squirts through the quarter-mile in 13.5 seconds at 102 mph!”
 
 Andrew Filippone Jr. sees Buick’s uncharacterist ic GN and GNX iteration black cars as more than merely modern muscle. “They’re survivors,” he says. “These cars were limited in so many ways – styling, pedigree, chassis, cubic inches – and yet they transcended all of that. In spite of all the obstacles, all of the unfortunate circumstances, they rose.” He respectfully tags the Bad Boys from Flint,  “strange & curious misfits.”
 
 Filippone has spent four years tracking down GN and GNX owners, racers and collectors, media who road tested the cars, and the key players responsible for engineering, styling and marketing at Buick & GM. He steers BLACK AIR into novel territory for a car film, exploring issues of culture, social class, inheritance, and privilege ingrained in the turbocharged V6 Buicks, and away from the usual focus on mechanics and performance. Yet, there’s no shortage of GNs and GNXs doing what they do best – smoking tires and intimidating people - in this feature-length documentary!
 
 The first screening of an excerpt from BLACK AIR will be shown at the BPG Nationals on August 4 at National Trail Raceway in Hebron, OH. This year BPG is celebrating The Class of 1987, the last year for Grand Nationals and GM G-Body models and the only year for GNX production.
 
 For more information about BLACK AIR: The Buick Grand National Documentary, please visit
 http://gnmovie.com/
 
 Andrew Filippone Jr.’s film portfolio can be seen at http://www.steveisnothappy.com/
 
 For more information about the BPG Nationals, August 3-4, 2012, please visit http://www.buickperformancegroup.com/
 Or contact Tony Rose, 216-470-8844.

[Shimy87]

I cant wait to see this!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks!!

[daveismissing]

It was a strange and curious misfit.

 

Though born a Buick, the Grand National was clearly something else. It was

too quick and too brutish to carry that stodgy name. There was something inside

the car trying to get out.

 

Its straight-line 0-60mph acceleration was extraordinary. Nothing in the mid-1980s could match it.

Not Corvette. Not Lamborghini. Not Ferrari.

 

But, in spite of this talent, the car was little more than a curiosity, a sidebar in debates

about the performance elite of the day.

Its roots as a Buick Regal, a conventional, mass-produced personal luxury car, marked it as an outsider, something too ordinary

for serious discussion.

 

Its shortcomings were obvious and plentiful – a boxy design, a mediocre chassis,

an undersized engine, an electronically limited top speed, and an unremarkable pedigree.

But with just six cylinders, an intercooled turbo, and fierce black paint,

the Grand National became a legend. In its final year of production, outfitted in

GNX trim, it was the quickest production car in America, reaching 60mph in only 4.7 seconds.

 

Impossible? Ridiculous? After road testing the Grand National for Car and Driver,

Technical Editor Csaba Csere remembers thinking, “there’s no way this can

go that fast.” But it did, test after test, and on streets across the country.

 

The only Grand Prix it could qualify for was the “stop light” kind, but that was enough

to prove its worth.

 

But, how to reconcile these opposites? This car that straddled worlds, where did it come from? Where did it fit?

 And now, two decades after its passing, what is its legacy?

 

In BLACK AIR: The Buick Grand National Documentary, these questions – and more –

- are answered by the people who built the car, who wrote about the car, and who own the car.

 Featured voices include Lloyd Reuss, the Buick General Manager who launched the Grand National project;

 Tony Assenza, the Car and Driver Editor who dubbed the GNX an “ax-wielding barbarian;

” Richard Clark, the renowned owner, enthusiast, and collector; and many, many others.

 

On December 11, 1987, Buick built the last Grand National. 25 years later,

BLACK AIR arrives to commemorate this landmark car.

 

“Black Air is the Buick Grand National documentary we always wanted” (Jalopnik)

“Black Air: The story of the Buick Grand National" (Autoblog)

“Black Air: The Buick Grand National Documentary” (Inside Line)

“Producer explores the Buick Grand National in Black Air documentary” (Autoweek)

“Video Preview of Black Air: The Buick Grand National Documentary” (Hot Rod)

[gbsean]

as an FYI the press release I posted also went out to all the Major Automotive magazines of which some above are mentioned...

[gbsean]

https://rumors.automobilemag.com/buick-regal-grand-national-documentary-to-debut-august-4-at-buick-performance-group-meet-156749.html

[gbsean]

http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2012/07/black-air-buick-grand-nationalgnx-documentary-to-be-previewed-at-bpg-nationals.html

[phil_long]

Like a written preview of a dope movie!!!