1989 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 20th Anniversary
Over the last year of increasingly dire news coming out of Detroit, it has become trendy to dismiss General Motors as a company operating without inspiration--a bland, risk-averse company in difficult financial straits because it has been building bland, risk-averse cars since 1975. It's an easy stereotype, but, like most stereotypes, it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, GM has built genuinely innovative and risky vehicles--it's just that most were also fatally flawed (among them the Pontiac Fiero, Chevrolet Citation, Cosworth Vega, Pontiac Aztek ...). And there have also been some truly world-class cars; unfortunately, they are tainted by the company's public failures. Not even the bright light of the Cadillac Seville STS could escape the abject black hole of awfulness created by the Cadillac Cimarron (excuse me, Cimarron by Cadillac).
But even more than the noble failures and the legitimate stars, the truest evidence of GM's inspiration comes in its spurts of odd, unexpected greatness. Every so often GM puts out products so weird and fantastic that they must have horrified the company's stifling layers of bureaucracy. I can't help imagining a team of wild-eyed enthusiasts caged up within the corporate monolith who periodically escape and produce irrationally fun cars before their masters track them down and sedate them.
For a 15-year stretch, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, these fanatics used the black magic of turbocharging to energize GM's ubiquitous but dull pushrod 3.8-liter and 4.3-liter V-6s. And likewise, those newly swaggering engines served as the smoking and bubbling chemical elixir that morphed the stolid, soft, Dr. Jekyll vehicles of the GM lineup (Buck Regal, Chevy S-10) into the wild, animalistic Mr. Hydes (Buick GNX, GMC Syclone/Typhoon). From the original Buick Regal Turbo through to the Grand National and GNX, and finally to the Syclone/Typhoon, the formula of a turbo V-6 and some subtle tweaks turned completely ordinary cars into wonderfully unlikely Ferrari-killers.
After watching the heroic turbo 3.8-liter V-6 transform the meek Regal personal luxury coupe into a beastly, asphalt-consuming muscle car, I wondered exactly what that glorious engine could do under the hood of a real performance car. You know, something low, aerodynamic, and fundamentally built for speed in a way that the Regal simply was not.
Enter the Pontiac Firebird. When I posted about the third-generation Pontiac Firebird back in 2008, I lauded the 3G Firebird's threteningly wedgy lines thusly:
"There wasn't a cheesy bone in the new Firebird's body--at least not yet. Pontiac would eventually tart up the Firebird with screaming chicken decals and goofy scoops, but when the new Firebird debuted in 1982, it was deadly serious and a bit evil. Its European-inspired low wedge design evoked threat; its hidden headlights and serious "face" imparted a sinister aspect, and its front turn-signal "eyes" glittered evilly. Imagine glancing up in your rearview mirror and seeing that Firebird--it was a look designed to inspire damp-palmed terror."
Unfortunately, the Firebird only looked sinister; in terms of performance it had all the menace of Ned Flanders. Even as Pontiac pumped up the Trans Am's visual horsepower, adding back the screaming chicken decals and goofy overdone details, it lagged behind the Camaro and Mustang in the front line of the 1980s muscle car wars. Sure, the Trans Am eventually received the big 5.7-liter V-8; but it was a detuned version of the Camaro's--which was itself a detuned version of the Corvette's. The Firebird was a good handler; it was just lacking the Vitamin H to back up its gorgeous lines.
In 1989, the GM struck again; they applied the GNX's world-beating turbocharged and intercooled V-6 to the underpowered Firebird with spectacular results. Unlike the Regal or the S-10, the Firebird was born to run, and with the turbo V-6 it ran with the best in the world.
The turbo Trans Am finally had the grunt to match its looks. Car and Driver managed a 4.6-second 0-60 run; that's still extreme performance today and simply mind-blowing in 1989. It also handled well and topped out at more than 160 mph. Forget about bit players like the Mustang and Camaro--they weren't even in the same game. The turbo Firebird smoked the nominal GM performance icon, the Corvette, and out-accelerated the expensive Italians, the Ferrari Testarossa and Lamborghini Countach. Again, that's serious speed. If you wanted a clearly faster car in 1989, you had to step up to the unavailable exotics--the Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40.
It's hard to believe that such performance was possible simply by turbocharging the same trustworthy but somnolent 3.8-liter V-6 that could be found under the hood of my grandmother's 1985 Buick LeSabre. With turbocharger and intercooler affixed (and, obviously, some other internal modifications), the turbo V-6 was very conservatively rated at 250 horsepower. Most think the true number was somewhere north of 300 horsepower. Even through the TA's four-speed automatic, the turbo V-6 delivered its thrust like an F-15 on afterburner--smooth, but with an impact like a sledgehammer to the chest.
One of the best things about the 20th Anniversary Firebird Trans Am was that somehow, magically, it was a sleeper. Try to wrap your mind around that--it was a sleeper Trans Am, if such a thing is possible. The turbo Firebird was comparatively unadorned, without graphics or ostentation--it only came in sleek, clean, white trim.
Compare it to its V-8 Trans Am sibling; the Trans Am had the V-8 brawn and all the visual braggadoccio, but the turbo TA was a cold, remorseless killer. The Trans Am was Mr. T; the turbo TA was Robert Patrick's T-1000 from Terminator 2. One looked tough; the other would rip the tough guy's head off without breaking stride changing expression.
Maybe it's just me, but I think the 20th Anniversary TA is a stunningly compelling car. The car was quicker than even the mighty Trans Am SD-455 of yore and upstaged the Corvette; doing that with a turbo V-6 Trans Am in a plain white wrapper took some audacity. The turbo TA also has rarity in its side; the fanatics only produced 1,555 examples before the corporate no-fun police were able to restrain them.
Now that GM is, for the most part, producing genuinely good cars, I find myself missing the oddballs--the Regals, Firebirds, and S-10s turned into superheroes with an application of turbo pixie dust. Before you go bankrupt, GM, would you please scrounge up some of those 1980s-era 3.8-liter turbo V-6s and drop them into something completely unexpected? Like a Buick LaCrosse, perhaps, or a Saturn Aura? just for old times' sake? Please, just one last time, let
the turbocharging fanatics out of their cage.
The lovely 20th Anniversary
Trans Am pictured here was listed at cars-on-line.com for a cool $39,850 and recently sold.
That's a lot of money for a 1989 Trans Am, but given the rarity, the perfect
condition, and the fact that it has only 1,210 miles on the clock, it sounds
reasonable.
The below video below pits a Turbo Trans Am against a new Mitsubishi Evo on the drag strip. As usual with YouTube drag-race videos, the probability of major modifications makes drawing any broad conclusions pointless. Nevertheless, it's still rather satisfying to see yesterday's all-but-forgotten muscle car completely eviscerate one of the fastest representatives of today's trendy Fast and the Furious generation. It makes me smile every time I watch it.
--Chris H.
Chuck on May 16, 2009 at 11:04 AM
"...the turbo TA was Robert Patrick's T-1000 from Terminator 2." OMG, he drove a Pontiac Chevette? LOL! Just kidding.
Shawn on May 16, 2009 at 12:14 PM
I'm going to go into conspiracy theory mode here. I think the suits at GM FORCED the wacky-turbo dept. to only offer the car in stealthy white. Had it announced it's speed, every yokel with money in his pocket would've rushed to get one, and (highly profitable) Corvette sales would've plummeted.
Chris Hafner on May 16, 2009 at 11:56 PM
Shawn: "I'm going to go into conspiracy theory mode here. I think the suits at GM FORCED the wacky-turbo dept. to only offer the car in stealthy white. Had it announced it's speed, every yokel with money in his pocket would've rushed to get one, and (highly profitable) Corvette sales would've plummeted."
That could also explain the limited production run.
Now, I like the Corvette as much as the next guy. More, even. But if the Corvette helped cause the death of all of the fantastic turbo cars, well, my shine for the Corvette has dimmed considerably.
Cookie the Dog's Owner on May 17, 2009 at 07:37 AM
The 'Vette is a profit center for GM, and in recent years one of the few things they consistently get right in design and engineering. From a business perspective, the last thing GM wants to do is issue any product that cuts into Corvette sales. Unfortunately, that's led them to kill off or de-tune or otherwise suppress a number of what would have been very exciting cars.
Stephen Carmona on May 17, 2009 at 09:41 AM
RE: The video post: Nice touch with the painters tape on the fenders. It shows you care about the car.
John Pearley Huffman on May 17, 2009 at 10:26 PM
On a more somber note...
Comedian Sam Kinison was driving an '89 Turbo Trans Am on April 10, 1992 along Route 95 outside Needles, California when he was struck by a drunk 17 year-old driving a pickup. Kinison was killed and his new bride seriously injured. Kinison was reportedly "in love" with his T/A and particularly proud of its performance and rarity.
Besides being, officially, the 20th Anniversary Trans Am, the Turbo also paced the 1989 Indianapolis 500. That was a good enough excuse back then at GM to get the car built.
David Colborne on May 17, 2009 at 10:39 PM
Personally, I think the whole "detune everything to get under the Corvette" topic exemplifies GM's troubles quite nicely. Sure, they could make good cars, but they have to focus so much on brand continuity that they're effectively hamstrung. It's sort of like being a Star Trek writer near the tail end of Enterprise's run - the only way around the suffocating timeline and the pre-explored universe is to start introducing time travel and Nazis.
Morgan on May 17, 2009 at 10:56 PM
Was not the 20th, but I drove a 1986 one of these in silver, and it was a charmed vehicle. Had the crappy 5.0L, but the thing drove 600,000 (I sh*t you not( miles and beyond before we wrecked it for the last time. I was t-boned in it, we fixed it. I drove it into a field and bent the frame, we fixed it. The engine just never quit.
Having repainted it in silver with darker gray air dams and no decals, it (in my opinion) looked great well into the mid 90s.
Robert on May 17, 2009 at 11:07 PM
"detune everything to get under the Corvette" topic exemplifies GM's troubles quite nicely. Sure, they could make good cars, but they have to focus so much on brand continuity that they're effectively hamstrung. It's sort of like being a Star Trek writer near the tail end of Enterprise's run - the only way around the suffocating timeline and the pre-explored universe is to start introducing time travel and Nazis.
Slick on May 18, 2009 at 04:47 AM
boost makes everything better. its a fact.
Richard Fagin on May 18, 2009 at 04:51 AM
Wonderful post, Mr. Hafner. I think this comment says it all: "Every so often GM puts out products so weird and fantastic that they must have horrified the company's stifling layers of bureaucracy. I can't help imagining a team of wild-eyed enthusiasts caged up within the corporate monolith who periodically escape and produce irrationally fun cars before their masters track them down and sedate them."
Sometimes, the masters track down and sedate the enthusiasts even before get they to produce a few super cars. After all, John Delorean really wanted to put a 421 in a Tempest rather than the more tame 389. Oldsmobile would have had to respond in kind with 425 inch 4-4-2s and you can bet a few L-88/427 Chevelles would have been made in Framingham, Mass.
The current re-release of the Camaro is clearly isn't one of the above, considerint=g GM has a perfectly usable LS-7 on the shelf.
Oh, well. Keep this interesting stories coming.
OldCarGuy on May 18, 2009 at 05:35 AM
0-60 in 4.6, top speed over 160 mph. In 1989! Those were and are serious numbers. And it handled. A sleeper indeed, because after producing mediocre performers in similar skin for so many years, no one expected this car to actually live up to its looks!
ILTim on May 18, 2009 at 10:36 AM
"Before you go bankrupt, GM, would you please scrounge up some of those 1980s-era 3.8-liter turbo V-6s and drop them into something completely unexpected?"
Ah, look at the cobalt SS. I had no idea they existed until I test drove one. I was clueless about the car, curious about the out of place boost guage, and FLOORED by its performance! Its really something when you have no idea whats coming the first time you cut it loose. 275hp! Reviews say its extremely well mannered in the handling department, settings records on the nurburnring.
Gstar7 on May 18, 2009 at 11:25 AM
I had a 1989 Formula with the 350. Thought it was fast-one of these SMOKED me!!!
Shawn Verble on July 16, 2009 at 11:45 AM
I got a 89 Turbo TA in the summer of 1990 when I was 17 yrs old. I still have it, 34,000 on the odo. last time at the strip I ran 12.11 @ 113mph with only some bolt ons. I've since done some more stuff to it, but have yet to remove the heads. Going for mid 11 second 1/4 then I will be happy to just go to cruise ins and grow old.
pdennis93 on September 06, 2009 at 11:59 AM
whoever told you the Trans Am received a detuned version of a camaro engine in the 80s was dead wrong. the 350 TPI, 305TPI, hell even the 305 CFI (thats Cease-Fire, err i mean Cross-fire) of 1982-1983 was identical in both F-cars. the only motor the T/A got that the camaro didn't was the 1989 3.8 Turbo motor. the rest were identical in the F-cars.
cj842 on September 12, 2009 at 11:46 AM
Five prototype 2011 Firebirds were stolen from the GM Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan on June 23rd. General Motors management had decided to scrap the cars after eliminating the Pontiac brand. The five firebirds had been loaded onto an enclosed vehicle transport truck earlier in the day and were scheduled to shipped to the scrap yard the morning of June 24th. It is believed the theft was an inside job because of the timing of the theft. It is unclear if the vehicles were stolen by GM engineers or other Pontiac enthusiasts who were aware of the vehicles. Three of the cars were base Firebirds with the other two being high performance T/A models. The locations of the cars are still unknown.
cj89 on May 23, 2010 at 10:29 AM
I have one of these with 44 miles on it. Anyone interested in purchasing? $40,000 firm.
Robert "Triggah" Touchette on December 04, 2010 at 06:38 PM
Love this post. BUT... the F body cars were NOT the same. The engines, true were tuned identically. However, the Firebirds and T/As were all equipped with crappy 2.73 gears, while the Z28 came with 3.23s. So the Camaros did tend to turn better numbers.
bartken5@aol.com on April 08, 2011 at 04:45 AM
help looking for a pulley tensioner for my car can any one help 89 20 th 3.8 turbo can not find thanks