The interior on today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe Trans Am seemingly took its cue from the texture of an elephant’s hide, or somebody named “rumpled sackskin.” We’ll have to judge if its price makes it something you’d let inside at all.
Earlier today, Jalopnik invited the awesome Maggie Stiefvater to talk about all the reasons why we resident meat-sacks put ourselves in machines and go for a drive—and enjoy it. Some of you chimed in with your own misguided reasoning.
I’ve always felt one of the most unsung contributions to motoring was the introduction of the full-hood identifying graphic, first seen on the Pontiac Firebird starting in 1970. While many people may find these Screaming Chickens cheesy or campy, I’m certain more cars would benefit from similar treatments. Here, let…
Ever since the Great Beetle Recovery, we’ve been getting requests to run stories to help find stolen cars, and we try to, as much as we can. But this one about a lovely, stolen 1968 Firebird is different. Not just because of the striking car involved, but because of how the car wasn’t just physically stolen — it was …
Some may call it sacrilege, but I actually found the Pontiac Firebird to be the prettier, albeit more overlooked sister of the Chevrolet Camaro. Especially in the second generation, when you could get that silly and wonderful flaming chicken on the hood. But now you can have the tailpipes right on your computer.
At last week's burnout competition in Vernon, Texas, one Firebird did a burnout so massive, the car caught on fire. As the announcer rightfully points out, that's why they call it a Firebird.
James Garner comes up on this site a fair amount. Some months ago we solved the mystery of the James Garner 4-seat Indy Car, and this past weekend attended the Rockford Gathering, which must be the epicenter of James Garner-related activity.
Why were people buying Pontiac Firebirds in 1986? According to this vintage dealer promo from the Pontiac "newsroom" it was—among a variety of other reasons—because people were looking to make a statement that was "just as characteristic as the car itself".
Nothing says 1980 like a car lot with almost nothing someone in the cult of the automotive obsessed can drool over. Times were dark in the automotive world in 1980—the malaise era was in full swing and there weren't many cars to get excited about.
Last week, during the Street Car Super Nationals in Las Vegas, Drag Radial racer Eric Peterson's '69 Firebird went off line, hit the opposite wall, bounced back across the strip and caught fire. And then, The Burnout.
Several decades later sophistication is hardly the word that comes to mind when you think about Pontiac Firebirds from the late 1970s, but that is the angle they were using to sell the Firebird Formula back in 1979.
Revisiting past glories can sometime end up sullying not just the visitor, but the original memory. Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe 1979 Trans Am attempts to make the car what its predecessors once were, but does its price mean throwing your money down its past-glory hole?
At least we think they love them, we are having a hard time explaining this bizarre picture taken at the 2011 Autoexotica in Russia any other way. Apparently in the land of oddly dressed models and questionable car modifications (more commonly known as Russia), the cheesy custom Pontiac Firebird is king.
If you foolishly thought Boating was the great American sport for 1968 this Pontiac Firebird commercial from the same year was quick to correct. The great American sport for '68 was actually "wide-tracking".
Photographer Gary Stubelick has mastered the technique of light painting and taken it to its natural zenith: Painting a Pontiac Firebird with a road flare. Check out his other work here.
When people think about the malaise era, great cars are not always the first things that come to mind. Although it wasn't the best automotive decade, some great cars were still produced. What is your favorite car from the 1980s?
Since the new Camaro launched, customizers have attempted to build the Trans-Am a deceased Pontiac couldn't. From Lingenfelter to the Bandit Trans-Am, then The Firebreather. Now there's the HPP Trans-Am Concept, from the same people who built the Retro Daytona.
The movie Tron must have had a profound effect on GM's marketers, who apparently decided that the semi-computerized Quadrajet on the Firebird's 305 engine was really a time machine!
