Kendrick Lamar’s next album is named after his Buick Regal GNX

You don’t have to be a Kendrick Lamar fan to vibe to his latest self-titled album GNX. Car lovers will instantly recognize the three letters that belong to one of the fastest (and coolest) cars from the 1980s. You know we’re talking about the Buick GNX.

Lamar talks about it too. Apart from GNX is the name of his album, number 12 is also called. Dare we say, there’s a bit of an old-school West Coast vibe about it, but we’ll leave such criticisms to the professional musicians. Our attention falls on the black 1987 Buick GNX that graces the thumbnail of every album track on his YouTube channel, never mind the teaser video below.

Yes, cool cars and hip-hop are awfully cliche, but there’s a bit more going on here. Lamar bought a pristine GNX — presumably the same one in the video — earlier this year. According to Complexthe car is special to the Grammy-winning artist as it was the same kind of car his father had back then.

Almost the same anyway. Baby Lamar came home from the hospital in his father’s 1987 Buick Regal. It was the standard version of the popular 1980s two-door luxury coupe, with the Regal T-Type and Grand National being performance variants with the infamous 3.8-liter turbocharged V-6 . They dueled with today’s 5.0 Mustangs and IROC Camaros, but the GNX was a very different beast. Compared to 245 horsepower in the 1987 Grand National, the same engine in the GNX was massaged to 276 hp. That was also a conservative estimate, and Buick also upgraded various suspension and chassis components.

The result was one of the fastest accelerating cars in the world for that era. It could hit 60 mph in under five seconds, a number not far removed from legends like the Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959. Only 547 were built, and if you want one today, be prepared to pay well over $100,000.

We don’t know how much Lamar paid for his GNX. But we love that it still commands respect nearly 40 years after it was built.