That's a high school kid's car. That’s the car Burt Reynolds drove in "Smokey and the Bandit" parts One, Two, and son of. You can’t take your kid’s mother to the theatre in one without getting hooted at by every jean-jacketed probationary driver’s license holder on four-well-worn Fat Tracker 60 Series’.
All of which is to say that it’s been a while since any right thinking car person took a Trans Am seriously. Given that, who would blame you for wondering why Pontiac has gone and made a 5.7 liter 210-bhp version of a ‘Vette engine in a Trans Am (as in the Camaro IROC-Z). It’s got 45 bhp more than a 5.0 liter Trans Am (and boots to 60 mph 1.5 seconds faster) and is called the GTA, as in “Grand Turismo Americano”, according to a joke told by Pontiac general manager Mike Losh.
Would its badge happen to mean the top Pontiac guy doesn’t take this car seriously? “I’ve been spending most of my summer in a Trans Am and I think it effectively has the most fun potential of our line”, he says. Fun, you’ve noticed by now, is serious business in Detroit these days.
Fun, in Trans Am terms, is not what it was. Early '70s Trans Ams had screaming chicken cartoon decals on their hoods. In contrast, the GTA is monotone, from the bare clearcoat on the roof right down to the extra-wide skirts under the doors. Not a lick of chrome or pinstripe: tapered, Euro-cut, clean looking, and more grown up.
Older Trans Ams (up to 1974) reached their peaks in exterior gaudiness and performance at the same time. In 1973-74 a 455 ci / 7.5 liter rated from 250 to 310 bhp powered the Trans Am. They were screamers. Appearances came to stand for function. Thus, because the frenzied hood decal and shaker scoop were matched to all that power, buyers equated exterior image and performance. Trans Ams came to be the cars to have. Camaros, in those days, were drab looking cars, painted in monotones, for heaven’s sake. Camaros were for the dictaphone transcribers pool.
Times, of course, change. The Trans Am lost its edge over the Camaro, partly because of its silly graphics and partly because of the demise of the monster V8. More recently, Trans Ams have lost marketing ground because of Chevy’s heavy promotion of its IROC-Z Camaro. Performance ground was lost most recently when Chevrolet-Pontiac-Canada (CPC) product planners decided it would be a good idea to put 5.7 liter Corvette engines in more cars, and gave Chevy the first sales shot. Pontiac had to wait until this fall; IROC-Zs with 5.7 liter engines have been on sale since last spring.
Pontiac’s current product planners remember what car they wanted back when they went to their senior proms. They know their male, 33-year-old average Firebird buyers drift back into those same memories. And they’ve deduced that of the almost 100,000-strong Firebird buyers group (half as big as Camaro-philes, two-thirds of Mustang devotees), there are those with just the right Pontiac Trans Am demos: the division predicts the GTA customer to average $50,000 per year and be 35 years old. These richer-than –plain Trans Am-aspiring grads may want to sweeten their memories and get a hotter version of the current car. A GTA version. Pontiac expects 7,600 will.....
Why richer grads, why the high demos? For one thing, the GTA will likely cost over $14,000. Trans Ams have traditionally run higher than Mustangs and Camaros, which list at around $11,000 and $13,000 respectively. Still, it’s a lot easier to afford than a $30,000 Corvette. Moreover, a used Camaro / Mustang / Trans Am is infinitely desirable because it’s acquirable. Thus if you buy a GTA now, with the 5.7 liter, seven years down the road it will be a teen’s dream car with everything but the Corvette’s body and chassis.
Which explains why high school kids turn off boom boxes and peer out of study halls when you drive by in a GTA.....
In fact, in the past year, no test car we’ve driven has turned so many pre-college heads. When we squeezed the GTA out of a Pontiac buyer clinic in Cleveland, we got only two miles from the nearby Sunoco station (incidentally, Sunoco 260 – the fuel of the ’74 Super Duty Trans Am – is now called “Ultra”) before this proved true. Two kids on an old Honda 350 with rusty pipes paced us for nearly a mile just to give us an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Stares peered out of a jacked-up (yes, they still do that) Monte Carlo. It’s as if they’re grateful you’re somehow keeping up a used car cycle that will provide their peers with top-notch rides in 1993.
This is a car that could command more respect for a high school coach than 30 laps and 100 pushups. Only, as we’ve seen, high school coaches are not exactly in Pontiac’s target income group.
If you are, you get treated to a fabulous image car. A car desired, mostly, by those who can’t have it right now. There are those, however, who want it no later. The first night we had our test car in Detroit, it last an hour and a half before a slim jim lock pick opened it, and the plastic around the steering column and ignition switch was reduced to scrap. This on a well-lit busy street, and in front of an unmolested Buick Grand National Regal, behind a new Pontiac 6000STE. Later that night the temptation overcame another hopeful thief. We found the driver’s door wide open in the morning. This in a quiet upscale suburb (Mike Losh’s very own, incidentally). Fortunately, the damage previously caused in the city likely foiled the second attempted larceny.
For more reasons than offering a moving target for potential criminals, you can’t and shouldn’t sit in this car. It’s made to rumble. The only available transmission is a 4-speed overdrive automatic, and at 60 mph, the car’s gutsy 210-bhp V8 is barely idling under 2000 rpm. It’s waiting for its morning coffee at legal speeds, with its exhaust humming so low you feel more of it than you hear. From a stop, the 3435 lb. coupe jumps up to 60 mph halfway between six and seven seconds, only growing loud at about 40 mph, just before the automatic box makes its one-two shift. Even then, it feels as if it’s choking. To correct this, you briefly think, you have to push more air through the cylinders, and in another few seconds you’re doing 90 mph. This is where the GTA feels really comfy. It sounds like it’s just starting to work. It’s also screaming at you to move to roadrunner country in Nevada or it will die.
If you follow the engine’s advice, stay in the valleys. The GTA will handle tight mountain roads with as much aplomb as it accelerates, but mountain roads get cold and that leads to frost heaves in the pavement, and the GTA clearly doesn’t know what to do with bumps like that. Noises that you can’t feel come from the suspension, and you shouldn’t ever try accelerating through a rough corner in the GTA. It is firmer than a 5.0 liter Trans Am, thanks to whopping 245/50VR16 tires, full three section sizes and an inch in diameter bigger, and a heftier anti-roll bar. It feels almost identical to Chevy'’ 5.7 liter IROC-Z, and both cars are worlds harsher than Ford’s newest and just-as-quick Mustang GT (still a secret for a couple of weeks – watch this space).
At this level of acceleration, the GTA will keep a Corvette at bay, a Ferrari level, and a Porsche 944 Turbo in check. All for more or less half the money. That kind of thinking makes a lot of sense when you’ve only had your learner’s permit a few months and have to pick a dream car from a tiny database of experience.
For you older guys who just want to relive those wonderful days of yesteryear, the GTA will do just fine. As long, that is, as you keep it on the smooth part. There’s nothing like a good frost heave to wake you up from a dream....."
Base Price:.......... $14,000 (est.)
Wheelbase (in.):.......... 101.0
Length/Width (in.):.......... 191.6/72.0
Curb Weight (lbs.):.......... 3435
Powertrain:..........: Front-mounted 350 cu. in./5.7L ohv V8,
iron block and heads, 210 bhp @ 4000 rpm, 315 lb./ft. @ 3200 rpm,
rear drive four speed automatic
0-60 (sec.):.......... 6.5
Top speed:.......... 142 mph
MPH at 1000 rpm in top:......... 32.5
Suspension:.......... Independent front struts, A-arms, coil springs,
anti-roll bar, rear live axle, two trailing arms, longitudinal
traction arm, Panhard rod, coil springs, anti-roll bar
Brakes:......... Vented front and rear discs
Tires:........ 245/50VR16
MPG/range:......... 19.6 mpg X 15.5 gal. = 303 miles
