Early Pontiac->ke70 Trans Ams are very easy to love. They had classic muscle car->ke507 looks and huge amounts of power. But by the late 70s, emissions-neutered engines were just sad, and the styling was overcompensating by getting more outrageous. Liking these later Trans Ams is something of a guilty pleasure, 'cause they're just so cheesy; but they still have their fans, and the reviewer in this video->ke278 and myself are two of them. And the Trans Am in the video is one of the easiest of its generation to love, as its a rare Turbo model.

GM->ke1024 would figure out how to make turbocharging genuinely badass a few years after the car in this video was made, and while the 1982-1987 Buick Grand National was amazing, this '81 Turbo Trans Am isn't quite there. But that's okay, because the audacity it takes to cover the entire hood of a car with a giant screaming chicken (the common slang term for the Trans Am eagle logo, it's used several times in the video without explanation) sort of excuses a lot.

Burt Reynolds' 1977 Pontiac Trans Am

The reviewer makes it very clear that this isn't a fast car, but it was reasonably quick in the context of the era, and is just a huge amount of fun. And what's great about the Trans Am is that it isn't fun in spite of how ridiculous it is, it's fun because of it. It's a car that is almost impossible to look at without thinking of Burt Reynolds, and as the reviewer points out, it has a design that surely must have been heavily influenced by cocaine. It's excessive in all areas except horsepower, and that makes it lovable.

Read more about Reynolds' Trans Am here.