Pontiac Trans Am

For today’s drag-race special, we have this closely fought battle between two cars from the early 70s. Both these models were at the top of their game back in the day and you’ll see why, in this stock head-to-head, that was staged during the annual PSMCDR at the Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton.

While pure stock drag racing remains a popular class to this day, here’s taking a look at what it was like gunning it down the drag strip back in the 80s.

This video with its grainy lines and off-beat commentary, about two of the greatest names amongst muscle cars going head to head, sure does ring the nostalgia bell pretty hard. Strangely, the video has the correct aspect ratio of 16:9 rather than the 4:3 which was the norm back then.

The most invariable aspect of a muscle car is the V-8 engine. You just can’t have a muscle car without a V-8. However, there are exceptions, albeit very few. You probably know of the Buick GNX, nicknamed “Darth Vader’s car”, which had a 3.8-liter turbocharged V-6, and, in 1987, was quicker than a Corvette. But, there was another car with the same engine – the 1989 Pontiac Trans Am 20th anniversary – and here’s what you need to know about it.

The cinema has made many cars famous – the Ford Mustang, Dodge Charger, Chevrolet Corvette, and even imports like the Toyota Supra have achieved iconic status, due to no small part, to the movies they’ve starred in. Among these is the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and it was “Smokey and the Bandit” that inspired this 1978 Pontiac Trans Am resto-mod, built by “Ryan’s Rod & Kustom”.

Muscle cars and drag races go together like ham and cheese on a sandwich, but that doesn’t mean the strip belongs only to the American V-8 engines. The guys at Hoonigan are giving us another “This vs that” drag race, where they usually put two very different vehicles against each other. This time, it’s a tastefully modified 1988 Pontiac Trans Am vs a 2020 Ferrari 488 Pista. At first glance, the results may be obvious, but there is a catch – a Le Mans start to two of the three drag races. How will this affect the drag race?

When it comes to pony cars from the muscle car era, no vehicle from GM is more iconic than the Chevrolet Camaro. Introduced in 1966 as a rival for the popular Ford Mustang, the Camaro was joined in 1967 by the Firebird, Pontiac’s take on GM’s pony. Even though it had a solid following, it wasn’t as popular as the Camaro.

But that changed in 1977 when a Trans Am version of the Firebird was featured in the "Smokey and the Bandit" film. Sales nearly doubled and surpassed 100,000 units a year in 1979, enabling the Firebird to outsell the Camaro for the very first time. Although it wasn’t as powerful as its predecessor from the 1960s, the late 1970s Trans Am is a pretty cool car. Cool enough to make a stop by Jay Leno’s garage.

David Hasselhoff is set to reprise his role as Michael Knight in what appears to be a remake of his classic ‘80s TV show, Knight Rider. I said "appears to be" since details about this project are still scarce. There is a trailer, which shows the Hoff in his trademark leather jacket and aviators, waiting for a black car in the middle of a desert. The car, of course, is KITT, and those who were fans of the TV series will definitely appreciate the solid nod to the show’s opening sequence.

The mysterious project is called Knight Rider Heroes, and if there’s anything to be taken from the trailer, it has the makings of a “mentor-student” story with Knight handing over the crime-fighting responsibilities, and presumably ownership of KITT, to an equally mysterious young man. That’s as far as the trailer went, as it skipped out on some other important details. For one, there’s no word on whether it’s going to be a TV series, a movie, or even a reality show. It also doesn’t say if the project is being backed by a prominent Hollywood studio, or any studio for that matter. The only company that’s attached to the project is Knight Media Industries, which may or may not be a real company.

Christopher Rutkowski, the creator of the Aficionauto series that featured the same visual treatment as the trailer, did tell Autoblog that a new Knight Rider project is in the works. Hasselhoff will be there, as will be the original KITT (Pontiac Trans-AM) and not the newer version (Ford Shelby GT500) that appeared in the ill-fated 2008 remake. There’s also an official website - knightriderheroesmovie.com - but a quick look at the site doesn’t reveal anything.

By the way it looks now, there are still too many unanswered questions to take this project seriously. I hope that something comes out of it because I’m a huge fan of the original Knight Rider series. But, until more details are unveiled, I’m taking this one with a grain of salt.

Early Pontiac Trans Ams are very easy to love. They had classic muscle car 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 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 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.