1981 Pontiac Trans Am SE
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| Nailed it! |
A few years back my sister-in-law Andrea and her boyfriend (now husband) Kyle were visiting in December and there was a Mecum auction in Austin while they were there so Kyle and I headed over to check it out. I ended up buying this TA without looking it over too well. The real issue is that I was extremely sick, and just not as sharp as I should have been. The car looked great though so I wasn't unhappy.
Our original plan was to drive it back after the auction, but when we started to drive out of the arena it just didn't feel like a car that was going to make a three hour trip - at night - so I just hired Reliable to deliver it. They showed up a couple days later on a rainy Monday. We hadn't completed our garage expansion yet so I just pulled it in to one of our available spaces to assess my new toy.
Once the sun came out I put my cheap labor force on the task of cleaning it up (she works for Gummy Bears) and then gave it a real once over. The exterior of the car was a 9. The paint and decals were new and the wheels and tires were perfect. It needed new taillight lenses but that was about it. The interior was probably a 5 unfortunately. It was original and really needed to be completely refreshed. I put a new carpet kit in it, but the seats needed to be redone and the dash required complete restoration. Mechanically I put the car at about a 6. It ran okay, but never with confidence. It was a nightmare to start when it sat as well.
After looking it over, it headed to one of the many storage facilities we had at the time where it sat with other cars just getting dusty. Every time I wanted to drive it I had to jump it because it wouldn't fire before draining the battery. This is my friend Barry's truck so he clearly got roped in to whatever this was on that day.
I spent a lot of money and time working on this machine. My thought was that if I could get the mechanics sorted, it would be worth it to completely restore the interior and then just keep the car and enjoy it. I never got it right sadly, so I decided to move on. I considered an LS swap to make it fast and give it modern reliability, but it was an SE model (Y84 Code - Special Edition Black Trans Am) which meant it had value as an original car and wasn't really a good candidate for a resto-mod.
For all the issues I had with the car it only ever stranded me once. It just died while heading home one night right on NASA Parkway.
For all my complaining about the TA, I still really enjoyed the car. It was fun! It put a smile on people's faces and garnered a thumb's up from countless admirers.
The "Screaming Chicken" to me was just awesome. I know Pontiac meant it to be mean when it was new, but I think it's just fun. This is a car that shouldn't be taken too seriously today. It's a terrible car, and epically slow, but still fun to drive.
Here's the reason it was so slow. The Firebird and the Camaro came with many engine options in the late 70's and early 80's....and they were all dogs. Mine had the 4.9-liter - 301 - with a four-barrel which labored to put out 150 horsepower, when it was new. It's a very heavy car as well, so even though it sounded mean - and it did sound great - it wouldn't stand a chance against your average minivan.
But who cares?!? You could make it fast with a simple engine swap (as mentioned earlier) and I am all for that, but really you just need it to be reliable and comfortable to enjoy it.
Here's the interior that let this car down quite a bit. It doesn't look bad at first glance, but I would have needed to replace just about everything to make it nice enough for me to keep forever.
If I could have gotten it running consistently I would have done it. Every part is available and it's easy to work on these things. The exterior was good enough to warrant a complete restoration on the rest of the car because every panel was straight and the gaps were all even - rarely the case on these cars because they were too heavy and sagged in the middle over time.
When it started just sitting around collecting dust I decided to move on. I had owned it for a few frustrating years and just came to a conclusion one day that it needed too much to justify restoring without ruining its originality.
I ended up trading it for this Viper which I was thrilled with. I might relapse and try another one someday but I'm going to go with one I can resto-mod if I do so it will be more enjoyable to drive.
All I have left is the autographed license plate that came with the car, which I have hung in my FOB, and some fun memories and pictures.
Yes, my wife is dressed up like Snowman from the Smokey & The Bandit movies, but we aren't just weirdos who do stuff like this (not "just" anyway). My daughter's birthday is right around Halloween and this was her party, which was costume optional.
This one I can't really explain away as easily so just don't ask. Anyway, fun car, I kinda miss it, but I'm glad it's gone.
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