3rd Car..... The Pontiac obsession starts...
So here I was in my early 20's and making some money now working full time after dropping out of college and about to make my 1st major car purchase.
This is where my car hobby hits a turning point, and in hindsight, I make the wrong choice, but I still have no regrets...
I was a car enthusiast but really just a wheelman, I enjoyed driving…. Fast and aggressive… but at this point had NO experience with getting my hands dirty working on them, and this would influence my next purchase.
I was about to spend a decent about of money on this next car, so that opened up my choices.....
The year…. Somewhere around 1985. Smokey and the Bandit came out in 1977 and of course influenced a lot of us car guys, me included. So one of the cars on my list was a 2nd generation Trans Am…
The other car on my list was a 1969 Camaro Z/28…. And what is now a car that is valued at over $60,000+ for a clean number matching car, could be bought for low to mid teens in 1985…. Here is where I might have gone wrong. A few of my fellow car buddies reminded me that car was very temperamental to be used as a daily driver. I was told the dual point distributor would alone be a headache to keep in tune. So with my very limited technical knowledge, I removed this car from my list…..
So Dad and I went car shopping, with me looking for a mid to late 70’s TransAm. On a little side note, during our shopping on car dealer row on RT22 …. I took at a 76 Corvette 4 speed… and proceeded to scare the crap out of the poor salesman….
And here is where my Father’s influence came into play….. remember, he was not a car guy… So if a 77 TransAm is nice, then a 3rd generation 1982 TransAm MUST be better…. And since this car was about to be financed by the bank of Dad, I listened.
So my 3rd car was purchased, a 1982 TransAm. It was a beautiful car, but the anemic small block chevy 305 was no Pontiac 400 that I was hoping for… 160 rip roaring horsepower.
Of course, I cannot leave anything stock, I proceeded to do things to this car. Custom rims were a must, and also a decent stereo. The biggest mod was having T-Roofs cut into it. Cost me $1200… and yes they leaked a little, but worth every cent. One of the other things I had done was having the rear window tinted, and at this point, not many tint guys could work with that window, it was one of the most complicated pieces of glass ever installed in a car. But I found a guy who could tint it with 3 strips vs. other tinters using many more. Most guys were just installing louvers, but I wanted to be different.
The biggest problem was that these early TransAms were not very durable, and with me trying to get every ounce of those 160hp to work for me, I ended up blowing up the rear twice and that weak Turbo200 trans once….
It was a great looking car…. Rattled badly, and was slow, but I still miss it to this day…
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