The V6 buick engine has been used in both front & rear wheel drive cars. Available in both odd & even fire The engine was used in the v6 Holden VN commodore back in 1989 changes were made for it to be used in the Australian Made Commodore.With the new engine used in Australia the bugs were ironed out & Holden stuck with the v6 Buick for many years until it changed to the ECOTECH V6 engine.

The Buick 3.8L V6 has been used to power many Buick and other GM vehicles. The original V6 Buick engine design started in the early 1960s when Buick created a V6 based on the all aluminum 215 V engine. The first Buick V6 engine known as the Fireball was 198 cubic inches. In the later part of 1963 the Buick V6 had the bore size increased to produce the 225 cubic inch engine, the 225 cubic inch Buick V6 engine was built for just on 4 years until 1967. Demand for the Buick V6 in the 1960s was something that never took off its unusual internal design was an uneven firing engine that produced a rough idling engine and vibration problems. Buick sold the V6 1960s engine to Jeep in 1967 when Jeep renamed the Buick 225 to the Dauntless where it was used in Jeep CJ models Jeep engineers tried to over come some of the V6 buick engines vibration problems by increasing the flywheel weight.

When the gas crisis hit in the 1970s Buick seen the market wanted a light weight inexpensive engine and the deal was done again and this time Buick brought the tooling back from Jeep about the only major change to the engine was the bore size was increased to 3.800″ and Buick stuck with its odd fire single journal crankshaft

After 7 years of production some time around 1977  Buick engineers realised that to make the engine better in design the engine needed to run smoother and loose the vibrations. In the change over point in 1977 Buick produced both the odd fire and new common pin even fire crankshaft, a new camshaft and distributor firing system was also needed to turn the engine into an even fire engine. The new V6 Buick even fire engine used the same engine block configuration as the oddfire engine.

 The Buick 231 V6 was made also as a 3 litre engine and was fitted as a front wheel drive engine in some of the early 1980 Buick cars, The factory turbo 3.8 was only available in a few models of the Buick Regal, Buick Riviera, early 1980s Monte Carlo

A change that V6 Buick engines under went was in 1985 the sump went from 14 bolt  to 20 Bolt.

In the late 1970s Buick produced a factory carburettor turbo set up, pictured is an incomplete factory turbo kit from a 231 v6 buick engine.