By the time Doug Wonner was old enough to walk, he was already breathing in lacquer thinner and VHT. Raised in Salem, Ohio, just a half-mile from the Quaker City Dragway, the sounds of race cars and the smell of burnt rubber were just part of the childhood experience. While other kids rode bikes or played stickball, Doug and his friends were sneaking through the trees to catch bracket cars running down the track.

“I followed my dad around the shop when I was little. He was a body man and mechanic,” Doug says. “I laugh now thinking about it. I’d be helping him spray a car, dragging the hose behind him while he smoked with no respirator. That was normal back then, you didn’t think twice about it.”

The garage was a classroom, and Doug was the sponge. When he turned 16, he bought a 1972 Cutlass and worked on it every chance he got. That led to a string of cars: a ’73 Nova that became a back-halved race car with his brother, followed by solo projects once the racing itch fully settled in. It wasn’t long before he had a dedicated drag car of his own, and by the early ’80s, Doug was deep in the street and strip scene in the area.

“In Alliance, Ohio, where I did most of my growing up, the cruising scene in the mid to late ’80s was unreal. Everybody had a car. Everybody was working on something. It was just part of the culture. That’s how we came up,” he says.

But life has its ebbs and flows. Circumstances led him to sell off his car in 1994, stepping away from racing, and finding new direction. He later started a family, and along with his wife Linda, built a small RV dealership from the ground up. The car bug wasn’t gone, it was just on the shelf. For years, Doug and Linda worked NASCAR events at Michigan Speedway, helping in the garage area and staying close to the action, and that kept the desire to build and drive something fast ever-present.

Years later, in a casual conversation, Linda asked him what his dream car would be, if he were to buy or build one.

“I told her I didn’t want a race-only car. I wanted a nasty street car, something I could drive to work, take to car shows, or put on the track when I felt like it,” Doug recalls. “And she didn’t just nod and move on…she encouraged it. She wanted me to chase it.”

Soon after, he found what he was looking for on the TurboBullet forum: a 1987 Buick Grand National street car that had already been set up to be a performer. The car was located in Marysville, Illinois, just outside St. Louis, and Doug didn’t hesitate to grab it. He made the trip and trailered it home, and from there, the transformation began.

The car he bought was good, but it wasn’t quite his own, so he immediately set out to tweak the build, beginning with the powerplant. A 430 cubic inch LS-based mill was assembled by Mike Lough Racing Engines, featuring custom Wiseco slugs, Callies rods, and a full complement of top-tier internals. A billet cam, Trick Flow 245cc heads, and a Holley low-rise intake set the stage for boost, which comes courtesy of twin 80/92 ball bearing turbos from Midwest Turbo.

“Right out of the gate, it made 1,350 horsepower on a soft tune,” Doug explains. “But I wasn’t really chasing a dyno number, I want to be able to drive it on the street and run a number on the track if I choose to.”

That philosophy explains why he pulled the methanol system and reworked the combination for E85, which has proved more forgiving on the street. A Shearer Fab air-to-water intercooler and Rhodes Race Car ice tank keep inlet temps in check, and a Holley EFI system with a digital dash serves as the brains of the operation.

The horsepower is sent through a two-speed Powerglide and PTC 9.5-inch converter to a fabricated 9-inch housing with 3.70 gears, Strange Engineering aluminum center section and spool, and Moser Engineering 35-spline axles.

The chassis features TRZ upper and lower control arms, Menscer shocks up front and AFCO’s in the rear, with a full 4-link setup. It all rides on RC Comp Exile series fronts and Duece series rears, wrapped in Mickey Thompson ET Street fronts and 275 Pro Drag Radial rears.

In its brief time being utilized on the strip, the car has laid down a 7.98 at 173 mph with a 1.22 sixty-foot — seriously fast territory for a full-interior, street-capable car. But Doug is the first to admit he’s still getting comfortable with it.

“My old drag car ran nines and weighed 2,500 pounds, this thing is 3,500 pounds and making almost twice the power. It’s a completely different animal,” Doug says.

Over the last two winters, Doug’s gone over the car bumper to bumper. He added safety equipment, upgraded the wiring with a Speedwire panel, and installed a CO2 parachute system that can be triggered with a button on the steering wheel. He reworked the fuel system, polished the wiring, and made countless small refinements.

“I like making things better,” he says. “I get satisfaction from cleaning up the details, from making the car safer, smarter, more reliable.”

While he hasn’t raced in an official class yet, he’s attended rental days with tuner Rick Trunkett of Big 3 Racing, who helps provide commands to the Holley system. Doug admits the EFI tuning curve has been steep.

“Rick is a genius, he knows that system inside and out,” Doug says. “But for me, it’s like learning a whole new language. I grew up with carburetors and distributors, so this EFI stuff is intimidating, but I’m learning.”

The plan going forward includes more testing, more street driving, and possibly entering a few small-tire events at Dragway 42. “I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone,” he says. “I built this car for me. If I feel like racing, I will. If I want to take it to a car show, I’ll do that, too.”

Still, the idea of a drag-and-drive event does appeal to him. The Grand National was built with that potential in mind, with a durable driveline, an overbuilt transmission, and a cooling system that can handle long hauls.

“That scene looks like a ton of fun. I just need to build up my confidence with the car. But it’s definitely on my radar,” he says.

Despite the car’s aggressive nature, with twin turbos, a full 8.50-certified roll cage, and more power than most bracket cars, it’s still unmistakably a Grand National. The black paint remains untouched, the factory dash and door panels are intact, and even the rear wheel tubs were upholstered inside to match the original interior.

“I love that it still looks like a Grand National,” Doug says. “People know what it is the second they see it. There’s a certain mystique to these cars.”

Looking back, Doug credits Linda for putting him back on this path. Without her support, he says, the car wouldn’t exist.

“If it wasn’t for my wife, I wouldn’t have this car, plain and simple,” he says. “She’s the one who asked me what would make me happy, and she backed me up when I gave her the answer. That means everything.”

Doug Wonner’s Grand National is a super-quick street car that bridges the stages of his life; a modernized street weapon with roots that trace back to paint booths, Ohio drag strips, and the cruising scenes of the 1980s. But it’s so much more than the machines he built up all those years ago. “I just love that I can street drive a seven-second car,” Doug proudly exclaims in closing.