Sometimes it doesn’t pay to look too heavily into the future. Pontiac learned that lesson in the early 1980s when it began gearing up for the introduction of the redesigned F-Body Firebird and moved away from all-out performance. Hot Firebirds are back now, but it’s been an uphill climb for Pontiac. The marketing mavens had shuffled their Tarot cards in 1981 and decided that the Firebird most people would want would have a European flair, with a V6 engine that was thrifty with gasoline and would crank out about 150 horsepower. Lou Wassel, Firebird marketing manager, says it was a great plan except for one thing: “$3.50 gasoline didn’t happen…” he says now.
So when the new Firebird and Camaro came out in 1982, Pontiac was pushing its S/E model and rival Camaro was touting its Z28 and, later, its IROC-Z. Performance car buyers flocked to Chevy, and Pontiac was left at the gate. “Our market share was falling, Ford was coming back with its Mustang GT, and the IROC was coming on strong”, says Wassel. “The S/E model was supposed to have been 20 percent of our sales and by 1984 it had fallen to 8 percent. It just wasn’t doing its job.”
So Wassel got together with his aides and did a detailed analysis of what was wrong with the Firebird. “We paid attention to what the automotive writers had been saying about our car, as well as what was being said in the letter to the editors columns”, he says. What they found was that although people wanted a Firebird with whopping V8 performance – which is what made the Trans Am the muscle car of choice in the 1970s – they also wanted adult sophistication. “We learned that people didn’t want any more screaming chickens painted on the hood”, Wassel says. “The potential Firebird owner has grown up. He is mature and no longer wants all the spits, spats, and spoilers he wanted in high school”.
While deciding what tack to take with the top-of-the-line performance Firebird, Wassel and some of Pontiac’s designers visited an engineering facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. While there, they saw an SR-71 Blackbird spy plane and became enthralled. “Here’s a vehicle that is so dramatic, even decades after its design, that it is arresting in its presence”, says Wassel. After that encounter, Pontiac went out to create a Firebird that said high-performance without having to shout. What they came up with is the Trans Am GTA, a car that is virtually devoid of decals and sports a monochromatic paint scheme. What says performance for the car is its ground-effects spoilers, wide Goodyear “Gatorback” tires mounted on gold lace aluminum wheels, and, most importantly, its 5.7-liter V8.
Crank up the 210-horsepower V8 and you’re rewarded with a deep, sexy rumble. Slipping the automatic transmission into gear and then standing on it will bring on an even bigger rush. The meaty Goodyears break loose and the GTA rockets away. As the transmission snaps into second, the Goodyears emit a slight chirp. Sixty flashes by on the digital speedometer in about 6.7 seconds and the quarter-mile is reached in about 15 seconds.
It’s reminiscent of the 1960s, but only to a point. “In the 1960s, a car was measured in terms of ‘how fast can I get down Woodward Boulevard’,” says Wassel. “Now suspension, ride, and value are all part of how a car is measured”, he says. He admits the 225-horsepower Mustang GT is quicker in a straight line than the GTA. Even an IROC-Z equipped with the 5.7-liter V8 has 15 more horsepower and is quicker in the quarter-mile. But pure speed aside, the GTA is a well-rounded package. Four-wheel-disc brakes, front and rear stabilizer bars, gas-filled shocks, quick-ratio power steering, and comfortable, articulating front seats are all standard.
A fully-optioned GTA will run between $18,000 – $20,000, a slight step up from the IROC-Z. If that price of admission is too high, Pontiac offers the 5.7-liter V8 in the less luxurious Formula model for thousands less. The only major impediments to greatness for the GTA are its inane arcade-style digital dashboard – please steal the gauges from the IROC-Z, Pontiac – and the lack of a manual transmission. Wassel says Pontiac is looking at further refinements for the GTA, including the question of a five-speed transmission and getting more horsepower out of the 5.7-liter V8 engine.