These are pictures taken by me on December 21, at roughly 3 AM EST. This was the night of the Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse. These pictures were taken in North Florida with an Olympus Digital Camera. I only wish I had a better zoom on it. I have a digital Zoom function, which certainly enlarged the Lunar Image, but the clarity suffered drastically. At least I got the shots. Hope you enjoy them.

The very first shot you see is prior to the Earth blocking the Suns path of the moon and was taken about 10PM, Dec. 20th. The remaining pics were the ones taken at roughly 3 AM on the 21st.

This was my 1989 Dodge Ramcharger, with 99,600 original miles on it. It is still in original condition and is a numbers matching truck. It has a 318 CID engine with a 3 speed 727 Transmission. It is a 4x4 and a very solid truck. The engine still has over 60 Lbs of oil pressure and has had the oil changed every 3000 miles or less since I've owned it. I have had it for over 10 years now. It has Power Windows, Power Locks, Power Steering, Power Brakes, and A/C. It all works still. It is also a shift on the fly type 4x4, so you can shift from Hi 2wd to Hi 4wd without stopping the truck. You do have to stop in order to go to low 4x4, however.

Business sort of stank for the last few last years, so I had to do what I had to do. I MISS MY TRUCK!

I'm thinking it is almost time to let the Ramcharger tribute rest and start a tribute to my sadly departed 86 Grand National. It left before the truck did, lousy economy. Check back in the future, I think I'll start rounding up pictures of that amazing black beauty and get them on here.


Alas, the time has come. As of today, I deleted a number of my 89 Ramcharger to make room for some pics of my departed 86 Grand National. Don't panic, all of you Dodge fans, I did leave a few up there for you to see, but I dumped about 10 of them so this other past tense awesome ride of mine can share some space on here.

Ever since I was a teen back in High School (Graduated in 87), I fell in love with the massive machine built by Buick, known as the Grand National. This started out as a concept car that was supposed to do what no other car had done before, compete and beat the Corvette at its own game, speed. And this car had a bunch of it at least when it came to quarter mile competition.

That being said, these cars were know to go from zero to 60 mph in roughly 4.9 seconds and did the quarter mile Drag strip in under 14 seconds at over 100 mph. And these numbers were common for the stock cars, right off the showroom floor. Spend a little bit of money and time, and these numbers came down drastically.

One of the parts that amazed me the most about these cars is, they made all of this power from a little V-6 engine. 3.8 liter to be exact. According to the old school of thought, you can have a drag racing car with anything less than a V-8, the more cubic inches you had, the faster you could go. Buick, took that thinking and threw it right out of the window. The Grand Nationals first hit the scene in 1982, but it took until 86-87 year models for Buick to perfect the cars, which they pretty much did. By this time they were using intercooled Turbos and building gobs of torque. And then they were done, only to live on it History!

For the majority of their lives, Black was the only color you could get the car in. From what I have read and heard, there was an exception to this in the first year, when the cars were two toned black/gray and I have also read about a white car that was build as well, I believe it was an 87 model, but have not seen either in person as of yet.

Well, in the early 2000's, I was fortunate enough to run across a very clean low mileage 86 Grand National sitting in a Buick Dealership showroom in Sarasota Florida, and as fate would have it, I had the money at the time and didn't hesitate to live this dream I had been harboring since I was a teen. I bought it and had the pleasure of taking care of it until 2009, when the rotten economy pried it from my possession.

It had 17K original miles on it when I bought it and 27K on it when I sold it. I will probably never be in a position to buy another one, at least not that clean, but I have been honored to have had the chance to own the one I had. It was a joy to drive, comfortable and I was never beaten on the street with it, not that I was out drag racing it all the time. The car did have a way of pushing other drivers into challenging it, and it always stood up to the challenge.

Enjoy these pictures of it, for they are all I have left of the car.




Yes, I didn't hesitate to put this Black Beauty into car shows. I was always the only Grand National at each and every show I entered it in and the compliments always flowed in a positive direction. Oh, and a good eye might notice the tip of the Ramcharger in one of the pics, back in the good old days when I owned them both. DOH!