1984 Buick Regal with 4.1L V6 engine, rear-wheel drive, metallic light brown/gold color with cloth interior, 4-door sedan, paid ~$15,000 in 1984 (not adjusted for inflation): that was my car.

Related Trims/Models (GM's G-Body: 1978-1988)
The most likely variants of the Regal that you'll find in a classified ad, especially among American car enthusiast circles, are the ones with the famous turbochargers: T-Type Regals and Grand National (both are 2-door coupes, and you can spot them by the bulge on their hoods). The 1984 Buick T-Type Regal came with a Garret Turbocharger good for 200hp and 300 ft/lbs of torque, stock. Grand Nationals only came in black, so if you found it in any other color, it has been repainted. With a little bit of modifications, you can have yourself a muscle car ready for the drag strip... :) I believe most Regals were sold with 3.8L V6 SFI engines. Diesel engines were available but they were so unreliable that you probably won't see any diesel Regals in existence (and if you do, stay away from them!). The G-Body style has changed very little from about 1978 to about 1988 (when the new bodies came out and the Regals stopped being "muscle cars" and became more sedate front-wheel drive family cars, up until 1997). Remember that in the 80s, GM produced identical cars under different brand names with little differentiation: The 1978-1988 Regal and Grand National belongs to the "G-Body" class, which includes the Pontiac Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass, and Chevrolet Monte Carlo. (I couldn't dig up much information or specs on the 1984 Regal: Please correct me if you spot an error and I'll edit accordingly.)

This was the first car (and first of many Buicks) that my family bought in the United States and has stayed with us up until 1997, being passed on over the course of 13 years from my father to my mother to a teenager me. :) I grew to be very attached to this car and I miss it because I practically grew up with it to a point where I could tell you a story my life in the U.S. using the Regal as a reference point... We did not get any luxurious options: only A/C and Cassette. It was driven in Los Angeles for 7 years and in New York for the remaining 6. The cloth seats held up very well over the years, but they were not as comfortable was the velour seats in my current '88 Buick Century, but much better quality than the hard, short-thread cloth seats found on midsize/economy cars today. It was not a luxurious car by any means, but it was reliable and had quite a bit of power for a family sedan and it guzzled gas like there was no oil crisis.

Pros
* Power: In typical big-displacement American fashion, this engine gave you power when you asked for it. No problem there. Being my first car, I got weaned on this nice 6-cylinder and I thought all cars gave you this much power (which is why I can't stand 4-cylinder cars even to this day)... I can only imagine what the turbocharger in the T-Type/Grand National will do! The automatic transmission has a tendency to "lurch" a bit if you accelerate too hard or cause it to downshift fast. Buick doesn't make manual transmissions, so you have to live with this. The shifter is on the steering column, just the way I like it, so you have nice bench seating in the front.

* Solid, reliable: This Regal required no major repairs and the car is very solid with good amount of steel everywhere. Doors are heavy enough to close with a "thud" and the body holds up well in fender-benders. I'm talking from experience: In 1996, some maniac hit-and-run driver in a big white van side-swiped my car, but the dent was pretty minor on the body panels (well, my driver side mirror was dangling off) considering the impact (it was LOUD!). The chrome bumpers (yes, not lame plastic ones they put on cars now!) had a plastic strip on it, so little bumps with immovable objects did nothing to the car. :) This car never broke down once in its lifetime (except for a blown tire on the freeway my senior year in high school: someone slashed my tires).

* Great visibility all around: The rear window is excellent in that it is almost flat and perpendicular to the ground, which makes backing up a cinch. I took my driver's license test in this car and parallel parking was the easiest part (with help from the over-boosted power steering)! The only bad thing is that the "aerodynamic" oval side mirrors are a tad bit too small for my tastes: Rectangular ones would have made me happier.

Cons
* Styling: The rear end of the sedans were ugly. It was wedge-shaped and it looked like the back of the car should have been the front of the car. Take a look at the rear of this guy's car to see what I mean (Oldmobile Cutlass): http://www.icaco.hu/myolds/in.html , or like the Lincoln Mark VII of that time; simply, strange and ugly. The coupes (T-Type, Grand National) had a better, flatter rear that I think looks fine. But it is a Buick after all, so you can't expect any head-turning style to come from them. But on the coupes, if you got yourself some good rims and big, beefy tires, it has a subtle, masculine look to the car that screams "80s muscle car" without being too flashy. :)

* Fuel consumption: It won't guzzle gas as much as a V8 or a sports car, but it is one thirsty car: As a poor high school and college student, that amounted to a lot of allowance money spent just to drive this thing!

Quirks
* The rear windows do not roll down at all-- they are fixed. Instead, the tiny little glass behind the rear windows rotate outward about 85 degrees. I remember as a kid, I used to hate sitting back there on a hot day because I couldn't get any wind back there without asking my parents to open their windows! These things are prone to breaking, and I managed to break one of them and it required soldering the "hinge" back on to fix it.

* The fuel cap and opening is BEHIND the license plate holder, smack in the middle of the rear of the car. The spring-loaded plate holder needs to be held down as you refuel.

* This is a rear-wheel drive car, which is nice for sporty driving but not a good idea in snow/ice. There is no ABS, traction control, or any other modern technology to help you out. It's all about using your head, staying calm, and pumping your brakes. I did a good amount of hair-raising spins and skids in this car... Definitely get winter tires if your climate demands it.

* The gauges are a bit strange for those of you not used to it, and the climate controls are stranger still. The speedometer is not circular but a long rectangle, and you see the top half of the needle on your gauge. The climate controls are sliders that you move to select your setting, which requires you to take your eyes off the road to adjust.

Maintenance/Repairs
Overall, this car proved to be fairly reliable. For 13 years up to its untimely death (accident), nothing major went wrong with the car. There were however some issues that came up, most of them after 10 years of driving:

* The factory AC Delco cassette player motor blew out. I couldn't find a replacement motor for it and I didn't want to pay outrageous money to have it fixed, so I was stuck with radio (ugh!) for the last 3 years of this car's life.

* Around 10 years later, the "Oil" warning light sporadically came on and off and many visits to the shop confirmed that nothing was wrong with the engine/oil, maybe a loose wire for the indicator? We just ignored it and that worked for us.

* You'll need to do regular maintenance replacements such as brakes, tires, oil changes, radiator flushes, wiper blades, headlights, timing belt, air filter, etc. which doesn't rack up expensive bills. That's one advantage of owning an American car: parts and replacement are readily available and cheap, and almost all shops in America will work on your car. NOTE: The Air Conditioner uses freon gas (our car required one recharge after moving to New York), and I think current U.S. laws forbid you from doing it yourself: you must have a shop do it.

* The chrome bumpers began to show some surface rust at around 10 years. If you care for looks, you can probably get them restored by folks who know how to work on chrome. The body panels never showed any sign of rust (it spent 6 years in New York, 7 years in L.A.) and the paint was still very metallic and held up well (we waxed the car religiously for the first 4-5 years).

* The headliner began to peel off and sag from the roof due to the humidity of the New York summers, right after we had the car shipped out from California. (Exact same thing happened to my Californian '88 Buick Century: http://www.epinions.com/auto-review-4624-12617567-39B54DF0-prod6 )

Summary
All in all, it turned out to be very solid and reliable car for my family so I would not hesitate to say that if you find one in great condition that has been cared for by their owner, it will probably serve you well.

I'm glad Buick still kept their Regal line alive, but it doesn't have the same appeal to younger enthusiasts like the Regals and Grand Nationals of the 80s did. While the new 2001 Regal GS/GSE comes with a Turbocharged 3.8L V6 (GM's Series II 3800), it only comes as a 4-door sedan, it is a front-wheel drive, and is way too sedate/"family sedan" like its Century twin. If I can find an excellent condition T-Type or Grand National (1987 seems to be a popular year), I'd definitely buy one over the new, 2001 models, no doubt.

Links:
* Website for Turbo Buick enthusiasts:
http://turbobuicks.com/

* A collection (webring) of pages dedicated to the G-Body:
http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=gbody&id=26&hub

* Someone's personal page with photos and window sticker price w/options listing for '84 Buick T-Type (and '87 Grand National):
http://edchapman.tripod.com/cars.html

Price:
(15000 in 1984).
Current value, if excellent condition: ~$1000-$1400 (sedans, non-turbo) to ~$3000-$3500 (T-Type/Grand National)