A car believed to be the only survivor of six 1971 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am promotional cars known as Tirebirds will be one of the lots at the Mecum auction in Houston, Texas, December 3rd to 5th.
These Firebirds were used to promote the BF Goodrich T/A 60-series radial tire, created to cope with the massive amounts of power being produced by American muscle cars in the late 1960s. In 1970, BF Goodrich approached T/G Racing (founded by Jerry Titus and Terry Godsall) of Tarzana, California, which was running a team of Firebird Trans Am racers in the first year of the second-generation GM F platform Pontiac.
An agreement was reached for T/G to fit these cars with the T/A tires. After a short development period and a promising debut in a four-hour race at Mosport, the team headed to Watkins Glen for a two-day SCCA meet. German-Canadian race driver John Cordts won a race on the Saturday in very hot conditions and another the following day in the wet, on both occasions using tires on which he could drive his Firebird Trans Am back home if he wanted to.
These results persuaded BF Goodrich to deepen its association with T/G Racing. The team’s duties included building six Tirebird promotional cars with the same white-on-blue color scheme as the racers. The only one still known to exist was purchased in late 1971 by Tom Senter, editor of Popular Hot Rodding magazine. Berger returned the car to street specification and replaced the original 310 horsepower 7.5L Pontiac 455 High Output V8 with a 450 horsepower Chevrolet LS6 454 engine supplied by Berger Chevrolet of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
A later owner swapped the manual gearbox for a GM 400 automatic, apparently to make it easier for his daughter to drive this very special Firebird Trans Am to school. This transmission and the Chevrolet engine are still in the Tirebird, but the car has been brought back to its original color scheme after being painted Ferrari Fly Yellow by Tom Senter in 1972 and dark blue metallic by John Motroni in 2004.
The Tirebird is being offered for sale after what Mecum describes as an immaculate restoration and with extensive documentation.
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Comments
Great trip down memory lane to some glory days for the SCCA and TransAm racing. The T/A radials were the hot setup back in the day and led to the development of the Goodyear GT Radial and Eagle GTs in the late 70s and early 80s. Burned through a lot of both on my ‘77 Cutlass and ‘79 TransAm. Lots of happy miles.
Likewise my ’71 Monte and ’65 Impala SS. Sure do miss that SS (and those days).
Beautiful car, but without the original motor and trans its cuts price nearly in half
Who cares? I would drive this daily as is, don’t care what the value is.
Pontiac with a LS motor for shame
It was always cool back in the day if you have a set of Ta on your car that was awesome part back in the day Raceway lot of Trans Am in I will be forever thankful barjan products fine and I mean font that has brought me
The cost of restoration will be hard to get back in the sell price without the 455. Pontiac people are Pontiac people. I am one.
I currently have a 70 formula 400 with ac and a 4sp the engine is not original but put new heads cam and throttle body on its ok but was thinking about swapping to a 6.2 ls
What’s a good bid for this car??
Probably sell around 75k
The problem with the car is the drivetrain. No Pontiac guy wants a big block chevy in a trans am. The auto lowers the value too. The 455HO and 4 speed would be what was originally there. That would maximize value. I have seen this one for around $150k on Hemmings. It would be lucky to sell at half that.
Nice car to have with the history one of the only one left …. ls engine no id still like to own it
The 450 hp LS6 engine was installed by the editor of Popular Hot Rodding in 1972 and published in numerous magazines. It’s part of the special history of this car. See http://www.BFGTirebird.com
I might do a tribute car out of my 71′ original Pontiac 400 with I think rare 3 speed manual transmission? Right color to start anyway!