Me & My Car: Owner’s ’79 10th anniversary Trans Am came fully loaded
The limited-edition Pontiac Firebird models "had more options than some Cadillacs," Roy Davi says.
The Pontiac story dates back to 1907, when Edward Murphy, a leading manufacturer of horseless carriages, established the Oakland Motor Car Co. in Oakland County’s Pontiac, Michigan.
General Motors was just getting established about this time and had acquired Buick, Cadillac and Oldsmobile before 1909, when Oakland Motor became GM’s fourth brand. At first Pontiac was part of the Oakland Division when it was produced in 1926 as a less expensive model in the Oakland line. But Pontiac became a better seller than Oakland, and the Oakland brand was dropped in 1931. Pontiac cars were also manufactured from knock-down kits in Osaka, Japan, from 1927 to December 1941, when something happened in Pearl Harbor that dissolved that program.
Pontiac cars were one step above Chevrolet and one step below Oldsmobile. Pontiac built some great cars and had some memorable leaders including Bunkie Knudsen, Pete Estes and John DeLorean, who produced the famous Pontiac GTO in 1964 and won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year Award for 1965 with the entire Pontiac lineup.
The first-generation Pontiac Firebird was made from 1967 to 1969 and looked very much like the GTO models. The second generation (1970 to 1981) was a completely new fast-back body and only available as a two-door coupe. Firebird engine availability was from a 231 c.i. V6 to a 455 c.i. V8 and offered four transmissions; three- and four-speed manual and two- and three-speed automatic. The 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am became one of the most famous movie cars when it was used in “Smokie and the Bandit” with Bert Reynolds. Actually, none of the 12 Firebirds used in the movie survived, but the Firebird used to promote the movie sold at a Barrett-Jackson auction for $550,000.
This issue’s featured car is a 1979 10th-anniversary Pontiac Trans Am owned by Roy Davi since 2014. Out of 219,000 Trans Am models built that year, Pontiac only produced 7,500 10th-anniversary models, which sold for approximately $10,000 (about $37,680 in today’s dollars) when new.
This special limited edition is loaded with pretty much everything that was available at the time. Its color is platinum silver with charcoal gray, red, and silver stripes and the largest black eagle decal of any Trans Am. It has mirrored glass T-tops, air conditioning, four-wheel disc brakes, power locks, windows and antennae, turbine-polished aluminum rims, a tilt steering wheel AND an eight-track radio, which was only available this one model year (and worth $1,000 today). The Martinez resident paid $17,000 when he acquired this car.
“The paint was in good shape,” he said, “but the underneath chassis was in really bad shape. It was from Minnesota, so there was a lot of salt damage. The brake lines were about to fail, a lot of the sheet metal that holds body parts together had holes in it. One of the cylinders wasn’t firing. I dropped it off at my friend’s body shop, and he had it for about 11 months and took the whole car apart like Legos. Then I got it back and started tinkering with it myself. I fixed up the engine a little bit, then about 10 months ago I had the engine rebuilt and made a little stronger and gave it more horsepower.”
Davi estimates that the engine now is just less than 400 horsepower, as compared to the standard when new of 185. He said he’s invested somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 in this restoration project. The mechanically inclined general contractor sought out a Firebird to purchase for a special reason. Incidentally, all Trans Ams are Firebirds, but not all Firebirds are Trans Ams.
“I had a 1981 Trans Am in high school, and I loved it.” For years he had fond memories of that Trans Am. “Finally, I began looking for one, and it took about a year to find one I really liked.” He found it online. “I found there were basically two classes of Firebirds: really beat up, rusty and dented and really, really nice cars. There was nothing that was sort of in the middle. Then I came across this one.”
In addition to all he has done to the car, he is thinking about repainting it, but the current paint isn’t too bad and while new paint would make the car look better, there is the fact that a car is only original once.
Two 10th-anniversary Pontiac Trans Am models were used as official pace cars: one at the Indianapolis 500 race and one at the Daytona 500 race.
“The anniversary models,” Davi stated, “had more options than some Cadillacs and some Corvettes.”
He drives this car 6,000 to 7,000 miles a year and with a smile says, “It’s my weekend fun car.”
Have an interesting vehicle? Contact David Krumboltz at MOBopoly@yahoo.com. To view more photos of this and other issues’ vehicles or to read more of Dave’s columns, visit mercurynews.com/author/david-krumboltz.