News & Press

CAR FEATURE: GOLDEN BIRD

RICK SEITZ
28 JULY, 2016
Photos by Joe DiDario

A Lifelong Firebird Fanatic finds his Golden Bird in an Unusual Situation

Your author is just going to start this off by pointing out that one of my all-time dream cars is a ’78 Pontiac Trans Am — due largely to Smokey and the Bandit, but partly because it was the year that performance was again on the rise, after being emasculated by the EPA and CAFE. Available with the W72 package and with the WS6 handling suspension, dished wheels and 4-wheel disc brakes, it was the best of both worlds; Hollywood frame and (some) actual performance to back up its image.

Various other project vehicles, time, money and effort has kept second-gens out of your author’s garage up to this point, but some day I hope to remedy that. Until then, I’ll have to admire cars like this particular example, owned by Larry Middleton from Hackettstown, New Jersey.

Larry scored this ’78 T/A out of a classifieds section of Special Interest and Auto Classifieds dating back to May, 2004. As he tells us, “I was in the market for a BMW M3 at the time, because I had always liked the way German cars handled. In an ad that read, “1978 Trans Am G-Machine. EFI 455, T-Tops, gold/tan, many suspension mods, Herb Adams & Trans Am Specialties parts, nitrous, 200 MPH speedo, one owner …..etc., etc.”