Firebird Trans Am

Why this car exists

By 1970 the Trans Am was the top of the Firebird range, the car that got Pontiac's biggest engines and the handling work to go with them. The second generation was meant for the 1970 model year and missed it. Wikipedia records that the debut was delayed until February 26, 1970 by tooling and engineering problems, and the short season shows in the numbers. tran-zam.com, working from the Firebird histories of Gary Witzenburg and Michael Lamm, counts 3,196 Trans Ams for 1970, 2,116 for 1971 and 1,286 for 1972. The 1970 car offered two Ram Air 400s; only 88 got the Ram Air IV. By 1972 the line was one engine, the 455 H.O., and Old Cars Weekly recalls a model whose future seemed dim.

The Super Duty, 1973-1974

Pontiac answered emissions rules with a bigger engine. Hagerty credits Special Projects engineer Herb Adams and his team with developing the SD-455 as if it really would be their last, with a reinforced block, forged rods and pistons and new heads. It was special-ordered, priced at $521 in tran-zam's account and $550 in Wikipedia's. tran-zam counts 252 SD-455 Trans Ams for 1973 and 943 for 1974, and Hagerty's 1,296 SD-455 Firebirds less 101 Formulas lands on the same 1,195. The Cars and Coffee detail is the test car. Car and Driver ran it through the quarter-mile in 13.75 seconds and Hot Rod in 13.54, but Hagerty notes the engine was a prototype rated 310 hp with a Ram Air IV camshaft that production cars did not get. Production SD-455s were rated 290 hp, and Motor Trend got 15 seconds at 98 mph from the same car.

The bird on the hood

What sold the car was cheaper. Wikipedia lists the big hood bird as a $55 option for 1973, and Hagerty credits it with taking sales from 1,286 in 1972 to 4,802 in 1973 and 10,255 in 1974. By 1975, with a 200 hp 455 H.O. that came only with a four-speed, the count was 27,274. For Pontiac's 50th anniversary in 1976 came the first black-and-gold car, 2,590 built, and the first Hurst T-tops.

The Bandit years, 1977-1979

Smokey and the Bandit opened in May 1977. Old Cars Weekly quotes Pontiac records of 15,567 Special Editions that year, the Y81 hardtop and the Y82 T-top, and the top engine, the W72 400, was rated 200 hp. Not every Trans Am had a Pontiac engine. Cars for California and high-altitude counties got the Oldsmobile 403, and by 1979 the 403 was the standard engine. The W72 rose to 220 hp for 1978, the WS6 package added four-wheel discs for 1979, and the 1979 Tenth Anniversary car cost $10,620. Production peaked at 117,108 that year.

The turbo and the end, 1980-1981

Pontiac's own 400 did not survive 1980 emissions rules, and no 1980 Firebird could be had with a manual. The replacement was a turbocharged 301 that, per Jalopnik, began as a student project at the General Motors Institute in Flint. It made 210 hp and 345 lb-ft and paced the 1980 Indianapolis 500; 5,700 replicas were built. Production fell to 50,896 for 1980 and 33,493 for 1981, the last year of the generation.

The sources retrieved for this page are better on production than on faults, and the page says so rather than filling the space. Rust is the one every source agrees on. Octane names the rear chassis rails, spring mounts, floorpan and the base of the windshield, and says T-top cars with leaking panels are usually worse. Interior plastics do not wear well and suffer from UV exposure. NHTSA's recall database lists, for the 1979 and 1980 Firebird line, a campaign for a lower control arm ball joint to steering knuckle nut that may not have been torqued to specification, which could let the joint separate, and a 1979 campaign for a brake-light and cruise control switch assembled with the wrong lubricant, which could leave the rear stoplights dead. A tire-information placard recall also covers 1977 and 1980 cars. The engine history explains some faults. Wikipedia says the 500577 400 block used from 1975 was a lighter, weaker casting with less nickel, until the W72 went back to the stronger 481988 casting late in 1977. The Hurst T-top, per Wikipedia, gave installation and quality-control trouble from the start in 1976. The turbo 301 began as a student project and was offered only with an automatic. No source retrieved gives US repair costs or owner-forum complaint counts, so none are quoted.

Most second-generation Trans Ams can be identified from paper, because the production tables are detailed enough to test a claim. A 1977 Special Edition should be a Y81 hardtop or a Y82 T-top; Old Cars Weekly, tran-zam.com and Motorious agree on those codes, and tran-zam counts only 384 Y81 cars with a manual. From 1978 a black-and-gold car may be a Y82 from Norwood or a Y84 from Van Nuys. Octane's advice is to make sure a Special Edition is not an ordinary Firebird with gold trim added.

For a car sold as an SD-455, the counts are 252 for 1973 and 943 for 1974, with 72 and 212 manuals. That is a small enough population that documentation, including a Pontiac Historic Services report, carries more weight than parts; a 455 casting alone proves little, since the L75 455 was the standard 1973 engine.

Engine and gearbox should fit the year and the market. A 1977-1979 car first sold in California or a high-altitude county should have the Oldsmobile 403, which Old Cars Weekly calls mandatory there, and every 1979 Tenth Anniversary car with a four-speed has the W72 400. A 1975 or 1976 455 H.O. should be a four-speed car; tran-zam lists no automatics. Any 1980 Trans Am with a manual is not original, and the turbo was automatic only in 1981 as well.

Octane names the rear chassis rails, spring mounts, floorpan and the base of the windshield as the rust areas, says T-top cars with leaking panels are usually worse, and notes interior plastics suffer from UV. NHTSA lists a 1979-1980 Firebird recall for the lower control arm ball joint nut, worth checking against the car's paperwork.

As of September 2026, no classic.com benchmark for this generation could be retrieved: its market pages for the 2nd Gen Trans Am returned a browser check or a login prompt, so this page carries no median. What follows are dated US sales, and each is a single car. conceptcarz.com tracks 113 auction sales of the 1970 Trans Am, the most recent at Mecum's Tulsa sale in June 2026 for $74,800, with a high of $200,000. For the Super Duty, a highly original 1974 SD-455 four-speed with 15,985 miles sold at Broad Arrow's Amelia Island auction in March 2023 for $173,600; its first owner paid $5,567.75. A modified 1974 SD-455 built up by its original owner, a Pontiac engineer, sold at RM Sotheby's Fort Lauderdale sale in 2013 for $64,900. For the Bandit cars, a 1977 Special Edition showing 14 miles sold at Mecum Harrisburg in July 2022 for $440,000 including fees on a $400,000 high bid. Cars tied to the film or to Burt Reynolds sit in their own market: $450,000 in December 2014, $550,000 at Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale in January 2016 and $495,000 in January 2022, for cars described as promotional cars; the sources do not establish whether any two are the same car. A 1980 Turbo Y84 with 750 miles made $110,000 with premium at Barrett-Jackson in January 2016, which Sports Car Market called a $25,000 to $35,000 car in normal low-mileage form.