I wanted one of these so bad when I was a teenager I could taste it.
I wanted a blue one back in the day, but I could’ve forced myself to accept a black one if someone twisted my arm hard enough. This next is the part that will kill ya.
LOT S132.1 HARRISBURG 2022 JULY 27-30
1977 PONTIAC TRANS AM SEHIGHLIGHTS
Odometer reads 14 miles
Which would certainly help to explain the totally pristine, museum-quality condition of this sweet little creampuff, no?
I will never understand buying a car and putting 14 miles on it.
Nice car but I prefer the earlier models, ’67 – ’69 myself.
For it’s time the ’77 TA was probably the fastest US production car that year. It certainly was a looker too.
In historical context it was woefully underpowered. As was all the “muscle cars” from about 1973 to the mid 90s.
Since the 1990s the new “muscle” has improved immensely. Give me a new Camaro SS, Mustang or Hellcat over a classic muscle car any day of the week. Unless of course the older car had been seriously upgraded for things like braking and handling and comfort.
Which means you’ll need to spend 150k on a restored and upgraded late 60s early 70s Camaro, Mustang, or Charger at the very least.
I don’t know how much they cost right out of the box these days but I bet it’s still in 5 figures. Meaning you’re saving 70-80k easily.
Mike,
When you have a chance, the daily has expired.
In the old Off Topic you asked why Peelousy was going to Taiwan.
My gut feeling? This is all Theater set up between Biteme/Peelousy and the ChiComs to deflect from the fact that the ChiComs own much, if not most, of DC and especially Biteme.
Also, there’s probably some inside deal for Peelousy that her husband can frontrun inside trade on and make another illicit fortune on.
This way, Biteme and Joetato get to appear to “Stand Up To The ChiComs” and try to pretend they aren’t the bought and paid for Stooges they really are. It’ll fool a lot of gullible and/or willingly ignorant folks.
I’ll put my comment in the new off topic.
Man, I had forgotten how far Detroit fell in the 70’s. The engine is the 6.6 liter / 400 CI, with a 5k redline. Bah. Good looking but anemic car.
Horsepower probably in the mid 200 range.
Clogged up exhaust and decompressioned, smaller cams and carbs etc
The Envirowhackos have always hated classic American Cars the most.
Yea, the classics are hated even more than the dreaded SUV.
The blue one I wanted so desperately way back when was actually the 1976 model, 76 being the year I turned 16 and got my driver’s license. If I remember right, that was the last or next to last year for the venerable old Pontiac-built 455 engine, which was a hoss for sure.
Alas, the sticker price for one of those cars was 4000 smackeroos, which my dad informed me in no uncertain terms was WAY too rich for our blood. He was working as a benefits administrator for Blue Cross/Blue Shield back then, making in the neighborhood of 2-250 a week. The mortgage payment on the house was a whopping 98 bucks a month, which the old man bellyached about each and every month.
Gas, I believe, was around 30 cents/gallon, no more. Which would’ve been a damned good thing for any poor soul driving a 455 ci T/A; I seriously doubt it got much more than 12 miles per, bless its muscle-car heart. I had a great big stack of sales brochures on ’em that I had collected from various local dealerships, all to no avail.
Instead, I wound up with a ’66 Mustang whose previous and original owner was my high school’s auto-shop teacher, kicking off my lifelong, like-father-like-son love affair with the Blue Oval. That little beauty would absolutely FLY, too. In those days, the thing to do every Friday and Saturday night was to cruise Franklin Blvd in Gastonia, drag-racing stoplight to stoplight from the east end to the west. The stout little 289 under my baby’s hood shocked the living bejayzus out of many a 350 Chevy owner who I’d forced to eat my dust.
My beloved ‘Stang survived a little over a year’s worth of my lead-footed abuse, including I don’t even know how many wrecks–which damage eventually necessitated a nice appliance-white paint job applied in his backyard paint shop by a Mt Holly paint-and-body man known hereabouts as “Elvis” Frye–before it gave up the ghost completely.
Yep, them were the days, my friends.
Still one of the “hot” ones for ’76, but the 455 only put out mid 200s in horsepower. Some have said they dyno tested into the 300s and car companies were known to fudge their HP numbers a little for insurance and then emission reasons.
But that’s also probably why the 455 ended in 1976. They were told not to fudge it any longer and so they dropped it.