Congratulations to Angelo Vespi and his highly modified 1987 Buick Grand National for being named Goodguys Rod & Custom Association’s 2025 PPG Street Machine of the Year
Goodguys Rod & Custom Association, the world’s largest hot rodding association, presented their 2025 PPG Street Machine of the Year Award to Angelo Vespi and his wickedly amazing 1987 Buick Grand National. The car was selected from a field of over a dozen other highly modified street machines during a special ceremony July 12th at the Goodguys 27th Summit Racing Nationals presented by PPG in Columbus, Ohio,
Built by Dutchboys Hotrods in Vicksburg, Michigan, over the course of four years and nearly 10,000 hours, the highly modified Grand National raises the bar for modern street machines. Originally, Vespi came to Dutchboys with the goal to build the ultimate Grand National, and being named the Street Machine of the Year, solidifies their achievement.
One of the biggest challenges when working on a vehicle built in the mid ‘80s is the form and fitment of the steel body panels combined with many plastic pieces that warp, crack and fit poorly even when new. The Dutchboys team replaced all the plastic panels with their own hand fabricated and machined metal panels throughout the body, tightened every gap, formed the fender flares and even the made the bumper strips from aluminum. The final touch was a menacing black finish, to carry on the Grand National heritage.
The factory chassis was pushed aside as the Dutchboys designed a custom frame and channeled the body over it to achieve an intimidating, low stance and fitment for the custom machined 20-inch wheels. A front subframe and rear suspension setup from Detroit Speed were incorporated to the new frame providing performance handling with huge Baer brakes pulling the GN to a stop.
Originally, Grand Nationals were powered by a high performance, turbocharged 3.8L V-6 Buick, but Vespi wanted to double the fun by adding twin turbos feeding into a Mast Motorsports 7.0L LS engine. The fuel delivery, boost and ignition are all managed by a Holley EFI system with the engine easily producing over 1,000 horsepower!
The interior pays homage to the original Buick design, but there is not an original piece to be found. Avant Garde Design 3D scanned the entire interior and set about 3D printing and machining all new panels, seats, trim, pedals, and handles. Once complete, everything was wrapped and stitched in leather and suede materials with a flat screen display from Holley monitoring the drivetrain and controls.
It took a little longer than anticipated, but the Dutchboys and their partners created the ultimate Grand National, which they call the GNXS, after the uber-rare GNX offered in 1987 only. Congratulations to Angelo Vespi and the team at Dutchboys Hotrods for being named the Goodguys 2025 PPG Street Machine of the Year!
Goodguys will be crowning seven more vehicles to complete for their “Top 12 of the Year” awards program presented by BASF over the remainder of the 2025 season including Muscle Car of the Year presented by Snap-On, Muscle Machine of the Year presented by Griot’s Garage, Custom Rod of the Year presented by Vintage Air, Truck of the Year (Early) presented by LMC Truck, Truck of the Year (Late) presented by Dakota Digital, Custom of the Year presented by Fuel Curve and Goodguys’ Most Bitchin’ presented by BASF.
Build Details: Feature Story
The Goodguys Rod & Custom Association hosts legendary classic car shows around the United States each year bringing together Hot Rodder’s of all kinds, families and vintage auto appreciators for weekends of good times