When looking back over the last few decades, it’s fair to say that Pontiac’s Trans Am has been an extremely successful and popular model series — one that has attracted a wide array of buyers, admirers and enthusiasts around the world.

From baby boomers to their children, many have been drawn to this Pontiac’s exciting appeal. After all, who could ever forget those Trans Ams of the early ’70s with their signature macho front-end design — all gaping grilles, menacing bonnet scoops and ‘screaming chicken’ decals, a popular look at the time.

I was also drawn into the spell of the ‘bird’ after the very first time I watched the movie, Smokey and the Bandit, starring a then very young Burt Reynolds and Sally Field back in 1977. Although for me, the star of the show was undoubtedly the black ’77 Pontiac Trans Am, and from that point I knew I just had to have one. I can remember driving from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 1979 with my then new wife, and spotting a Pontiac dealership in a place called Oxnard. Its yard was loaded with dozens of new Trans Ams, in all colours and lined up like soldiers. After a quick U-turn I was wandering around those cars in a flash. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Within what seemed mere seconds, I was approached by a salesman eager to do business, but after a quick explanation to the effect that I was from a small place called New Zealand (which he’d never heard of), he offered to take me out for a quick spin up the freeway. Driving in a brand spanking new Trans Am was definitely one of the highlights of that trip, and after snapping several shots on my trusty old Polaroid, we were back on our way north to San Francisco with memories that will live with me forever.

I actually did end up buying a Trans Am in the mid’ 90s, a car which I spotted in the cars for sale section of this magazine. It was a white, limited edition Trans Am, a 5.0-litre factory Turbo model — not quite the 6.6-litre thumper I had driven in the US, but it still look every bit the part. The Pontiac eventually made way, a few years later, for another of my dream cars — a Corvette.

Good, Bad and Ugly

Fast-forward to September 2001, and General Motors’ announcement that the Firebird/ Trans Am and Camaro models would cease after 35 years in continuous production. According to GM’s hierarchy, people just weren’t buying these cars any more; in other words, they had outlived their worth within GM’s corporate structure. That’s hardly surprising, given the fact that GM had left these cars fairly much untouched since the present model’s 1993 debut. It was as if GM refused to remember its previous mistakes and was intent upon repeating them again.

Remember that by the time our featured ’81 Trans Am appeared, 12 models had already been spawned from the original Trans Am shape that was originally initiated in the mid-to-late ’60s. During the intervening decades, the Trans Am had survived several facelifts and drivetrain changes, and had always been severely criticised for its cramped rear passenger space; its immense thirst in times of fuel shortages; and the fact this was one hell of a big car from the outside for the minimal space it provided inside.

During the good times, when Trans Ams were marching out of dealership showrooms in record numbers and turning huge profits for GM, the model was without doubt the darling of the industry. But when Joe Public started spending car buying dollars elsewhere — probably due to the fact GM had milked the Trans Am’s current design well past its use-by date — it inevitably led to increasingly poor sales. Additionally, Trans Am models during and after the ’80s simply didn’t seem to inspire the same level of enthusiasm achieved by the earlier cars.

Unlucky 13

As for 1981, the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am entered its 13th year of production, the previous 12 in the F-body that made its appearance as a ’70 1/2 model. This was a year of few changes for the Second Generation’s final year, most of which were improvements to quality and the upgrading of standard equipment levels.

As had been the case with the 1980 Trans Am, small displacement engines were the order of the day. The choices included the 4.9-litre T/A Pontiac V8, the Chevrolet 5.0-litre V8, and the highly desirable 4.9-litre turbocharged Pontiac V8. Unfortunately, the truly big V8s were gone, never to return. However, all was not lost, and one performance icon was resurrected from the dead — the four-speed. Sadly for those searching for performance, GM chose to marry the four-speed up with only one engine — the Chevrolet 5.0-litre. This combination went from bad to worse when it was teamed with a 3.08:1 rear axle ratio, delivering somewhat mediocre performance for the day.

Overall, Trans Am performance was now just a shell of its former glory days and, once again, Pontiac found itself in the same doldrums it had endured when the catalytic converter was introduced back in 1975.

Yes, it’s true that performance slowly recovered in subsequent years, only to be lost yet again by ever tightening Federally mandated fuel economy regulations. But, with all due respect to Pontiac, it was still trying. After all, it still had the world’s only turbocharged V8 engine and it had reintroduced a manual transmission. In addition, the Trans Am still retained the handling characteristics and styling flair on which part of the marque’s reputation was based. The signature ‘bird’ logo emblazoned across the bonnet had become one of the most recognised car emblems in the world, whilst the car’s handling capabilities took a back seat to no one.

In 1981 Trans Ams were fitted with P225/70R-15 steel belted radial tires regardless of which suspension package was fitted. The base cars were equipped with either seven inch wide steel Rally IIs or cast aluminium ‘snowflake’ wheels. Those with the optional WS6 or WS7 (without rear disc brakes) suspension packages received the eight inch wide ‘snowflakes’ or turbo cast aluminium wheels. Strangely, Pontiac chose to break tradition and delete the limited-slip rear differential as standard equipment.

The 1981 Trans Am also received GM’s new ‘Computer Command Control,’ an early version of today’s high tech computer controlled engine. Thirteen bold colours were available to select from, not to mention the bonnet ‘bird’ decal, which was still as bold as ever. Additionally, there were several Special Edition Trans Ams; dressed in smart black ‘tuxedos’ complemented with gold pin striping and accents, as on our featured car.

The Looks and the Power

Looking back, the second generation Trans Am certainly made its mark as an automotive icon in the ’70s and ’80s. It not only survived the demise of the big-block V8 and embraced the birth of new technology, but also, the Trans Am resisted numerous attempts by corporate decision makers to bring it to its knees, while the faithful cleaned the old bird up and let her soar.

One old bird that definitely spreads its wings and soars on regular occasions is this 1981 Pontiac Trans Am, owned by Brian Service. Brian is the second owner of this superbly restored example, which has now been in New Zealand since 2007.

Stateside, it was delivered new in Indianapolis, where it appears to have spent most of its life before being totally restored and modified in 2005.

The car is a genuine SE (Special Edition) model that is identifiable by its ‘Y’ code designation, something not always indicated on the cowl tag, and often requiring the original build sheet or other relevant documentation to validate a car’s authenticity. Naturally, this Trans Am has every piece of necessary paperwork to prove it’s the genuine article, as only the SE Model is considered a true ‘Bandit’ which, believe it or not, didn’t just come in the black and gold colour scheme. In fact, the other option was exactly the reverse — gold with black graphics — a stark contrast to the original Bandit.

Actually, there was never an official Bandit model build by Pontiac, but the 1977 box office hit movie sure made it seem that way.

The restoration of our featured Trans Am started as a complete strip down of a totally rust-free car. The rich, original Pontiac Starlight Black paint was re-applied along with the original-style gold graphics. Custom tweed replaced the original doeskin cloth and vinyl interior, with the dash panel and shift plate lavishly finished off in 23-carat gold plating.

However, it was up front, under the bonnet, where the major changes took place. Out went the original, low performance Chevrolet 5.0-litre V8 engine and in went a 1970 Pontiac 6.55-litre (400ci) unit boasting a few rather healthy internal parts, including W/16 ram air heads, Harland Sharp Roller Rockers, Ram Air III camshaft, HEI distributor and a whopping 750cfm Q-Jet carburettor. All these goodies combined to produce 276kW (370bhp) through a TH350 automatic transmission. Other that that, the car still remains and looks totally standard, including those wonderful-looking gold ‘snowflake’ wheels and shaker bonnet air intake.

As often seems to be the case, Brian and his wife, Enid, don’t get to spend as much time behind the wheel of this awesome Trans Am as they’d like. Brian’s time is spread quite thinly, and he can often be found at a race track somewhere racing his historic 1970 Mallock U2 in the Historic Sports Car Series; driving their monstrous 1971 Cadillac Eldorado convertible; or touring around the countryside in their impressive 11-metre American Motor home.

Brian and Enid are keen active members of the HRSCC, Cadillac Club and American Classic Car Club. Enid has also been the organiser of ‘Yank Tank Thursday’ for the past six years, which is essentially a bi-monthly get-together for all American car owners at Botany Town Centre. Naturally, the Trans Am is one of the event’s star attractions, and if this is living your passion, then we can all learn a valuable lesson from Brian and Enid.

1981 Pontiac Trans Am SE – Specifications

Engine  1970 Pontiac V8
Capacity     6555cc (400ci)
Valves    Two valves per cylinder/ ohv
C/R     10.5:1
Max power     276kW (370bhp)
Max torque     657Nm (485lb/ft)
Fuel system     Four barrel 750cfm Q-Jet
Transmission     TurboHydro 350
Suspension F/R     Independent, wishbone, coil springs/ live axle with leaf springs  Anti-roll bar front and rear
Steering     Recirculating ball VPAS, power assisted
Brakes     Power assisted disc front/rear
Dimensions:
Overall length     5032mm
Width     1854mm
Height     1252mm
Wheelbase     2748mm
Kerb weight     1616kg
Performance: Data not available

Words: Ashley Webb Photos: Adam Croy

This article is from Classic Car issue 235. Click here to check it out.

Eighty years have passed since the first Pontiac motor car rolled into the light of day, and the marque has been responsible for some eye-catching machines

There were also some Pontiacs that put up a good fight during the Muscle Car era, continuing through to the oil crisis years with a car that was something of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

I have read that Pontiacs were, for many years, considered to be ‘ho-hum’ cars; not something I would agree with, even in regard to some of the earlier models. In that frenetic decade that bristled with the letter ‘f’, the fabulous ’50s, filled with flashy, fantastic, futuristic, flamboyant, fun-filled and finned four-wheeled flyers, Pontiac shone like a beacon in some areas. Toward the end of the decade, into the ’60s and even further, things just got better.

DeLorean

Someone who had more than just a little influence in the path that Pontiac would take was none other than John Z DeLorean, the man who fathered the Pontiac GTO in 1964. It was the GTO that brought about the phrase ‘factory hot rod’, and although the idea of cramming a large displacement, high power engine into a small-ish car was nothing new, DeLorean manipulated General Motors into putting such a combination into production for the masses. It proved to be a winning combination and the GTO, along with many other innovations spearheaded by DeLorean (a man with around 200 patents to his name), took Pontiac to third place in automobile sales, and the marque showed the highest profit (at the time) for GM.

John’s business performance, combined with the performance of the vehicles he helped create at GM, couldn’t save him from the eyebrow-raising brought about by his jet-setter/swinger lifestyle. It was a lifestyle that GM big-wigs thought was not the stuff of corporate management; well, not one that should be in the public eye, anyway. Rubbing more than just shoulders with the likes of Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch wasn’t what God-fearing Middle America wanted from their business leaders. John’s relationship with supermodel Christina Ferrare, who was half his age and who he later married, was reportedly the last straw. In 1973 the DeLorean/GM coupling was over.

Grand Prix

Even so, Pontiacs continued their assault on the asphalt, and apart from the GTOs there was plenty to choose from in the ‘Poncho’ arsenal. Take the Grand Prix, for example; introduced in 1962 as a hardtop only, the Grand Prix was based on the 3048mm (120-inch) wheelbase of the Catalina. Simple but stylish exteriors blended well with the sporty, luxurious interiors and with a 6375cc 4V, 226kW (389ci, 303hp) engine as standard equipment under the hood this combination turned out to be a winner. Also on offer were the Tri-Power (triple carb) 389s and the ‘Trophy’ series of engines with heavy duty parts and bigger cams.

On top of the power pile was the Super Duty 421 engine with 544kW (370hp), but only 16 were built, in ’62, and only one is known to survive. There was a 2V, lower output engine available, but who cares?

So popular was the Grand Prix that 30,195 units were sold in its first 12 months, and that figure grew to nearly 73,000 units the following year. Sales continued to be strong for a couple more years but the GP did put on the beef, which affected sales, and by ’67 (the year the convertible arrived, along with the 6555cc and 7014cc (400 and 428ci) engines) the Grand Prix was looking positively chubby, even though the wheelbase had remained unchanged. Change did occur at the end of the decade though, and production figures proved that the change was for the better. There was a sales brochure for the ’69 Grand Prix that proclaimed the following: “Occasionally an automobile comes along that takes all the high-flown adjectives some people bandy about and turns them into drivel”. It has to be one of my favourites, and there must have been some truth in it because in 1969 the totally-revamped, fourth generation Grand Prix sold a whopping 112,486 units! Rolling on a new platform, the Grand Prix was now sporting a nippier 2997mm (118-inch) wheelbase and motive power was now the aforementioned 400s and 428s, the torque and power of which could throw your Grand Prix down the quarter mile in just 14.1 seconds. The following year, 1970, not much changed on the outside but there came a new sledgehammer for walnut cracking purposes; the massive 7456cc (455ci) engine.

Jeff’s Grand Prix

The 428s were dropped, but what was picked up was an astounding, ground-pounding 678Nm (500lb/ft) of torque from the 455. (Tyre retailers would have been laughing in their Budweiser.) This engine carried over to a slightly re-styled 1971 model that grew in length by 51mm and featured a sort of boat-tail effect on the rear end. This body style rolled into the 1972 model year, and a ’72 is what caught the imagination of West Auckland’s Jeff Mathews.
Jeff likes his cars to have some point of difference, and one point of difference with this ex-New York GP is the 455 HO motor. A fairly stout stick in any automobile affray even in factory trim, Jeff’s 455 has had a few tricks thrown at it by a competent American engine builder by the name of Bobby Engle. Engle, and N&S Motors, had a contract with some top NASCAR racing teams, and it is second nature for Bobby to screw together engines that make big torque and power while hanging together for the duration of a tough race. It was somewhat more of a challenge to produce a serious street engine that would deliver the goods without making the TH400 automatic transmission puke its innards all over Main Street.

Did Bobby succeed? I can tell you from first-hand experience that he did. The well detailed engine looks fantastic under the hood, and it delivers quite a punch in an effortless fashion out on the road. I drove Jeff’s GP only briefly, but it was enough to rekindle a love affair I’ve had with Pontiacs for more decades than I’m going to confess to. The feeling that only comes from great dollops of torque, once felt, is never forgotten, and imprudent applications of the ‘loud’ pedal are pointless, you’ll just waste good rubber. Once moving you can inch your right foot closer to the firewall, and I can’t tell whether it’s the acceleration doing it or the feeling of having a bucket seat pushed into my back, but the grin just keeps coming.

Net power

Now, you have to ask the question; ‘If the engine made 678Nm in factory trim, what does Jeff’s example produce?’ I have no idea, but even if it’s 15 per cent better than stock you have around 779Nm, or 575lb/ft, of torque to play with, and then there’s the power figure to blather on about. In 1971 the 455 was rated at (as much as) 276kW (370hp). It’s funny how overnight that figure dropped, on paper, to 224kW (300hp), isn’t it? You see 1972 was the year that GM started to rate its engine figures in net terms, rather than gross. This ruse appeared to get the insurance dogs off their heels momentarily, but worse was to come.

As gasoline prices started to rise at about this time, compression ratios dropped to allow customers to use lower-octane fuel. So it was with Jeff’s car originally, but previous owner (since 1974), John Buetti, was the man responsible for employing Bobby Engle and returning the 455 to some semblance of respectability.

The internals of the blueprinted 455 are all new and include pistons that produce a compression ratio more becoming of a Pontiac GP, while the power-robbing emissions equipment has long since been expunged. For occasional-use vehicles I see no problem with this methodology and indeed, finding replacement parts for early emissions control equipment is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Besides, a well-tuned, efficient but hardly used performance V8 engine will pollute the planet far less than a sick and tired import from somewhere east of here that’s running (on a daily basis) on unleaded, carcinogen-laden poop-fuel without a catalytic converter.
When it came to styling, the 1972 model managed a revised grille that somehow provides a more ‘formal’ look, very popular in the ’70s. Another switch was to lower the number of headlights from four to two. My own jury is still out on these headlights, though; from my perspective it looks as though they’d forgotten to fit headlights at the factory, and someone has come along and jammed a Dolphin torch backwards into each side of the front sheet metal. That is, however, my criticism list in its entirety. I couldn’t fault the leather-trimmed interior, though; the comprehensive job absorbed five matching black hides, and even the hood liner coalesces. The black-on-black looks stunning with red stitching, but I’ll bet my last pair of lily-white driving gloves that it’s a bit tricky to keep clean.

Fully loaded

The car came fully loaded too, with power steering, air conditioning, power windows and power seats; all luxury appointments that the Grand Prix is famous for. The trunk has been ‘boxed up’ to improve the aesthetics and has been fully carpeted, providing even more sound-deadening material than the factory included. There isn’t a square inch of this Grand Prix that hasn’t had some tender loving care lavished upon it and it shows; both in the appearance and the drive quality.

For many years after this Grand Prix hit the road the American auto industry took a bit of a turn. It was as if all the stylists had gone home sick, the EPA and insurance industry took the helm, threw asthmatic engines into cardboard boxes with impact absorbing bumpers and called them automobiles. It’s nice to know that as times changed at the onset of the ’70s and the Muscle Car era met its demise there were some folk who had the foresight to purchase and preserve some remnants of that most politically incorrect period of automotive greatness.

I have to say, with a deep sigh, that the Muscle Car era was a grand affair; an affair that’s sadly unlikely to repeat itself.

Words Peter ‘PC’ Callen Photos Jared Clark