Beauty In Blue!
 

I imagine many of you know of this TA first hand. No "Shark Tank" candidate here. Especially nice with a Sandalwood interior.
Went to $80K in just a few hours. Where do we suppose it'll end up?

ENJOY!! https://bringatrailer.com/listing/19...r-iii-4-speed/

Wow! That is absolutely beautiful

We'll know in 6 days. Amazing it went from zero to 80k in 3 hours.

That's a beauty for sure.

It will pull 140k. Lordy lordy!!!....

the shark tank comment made me laugh;
I was thinking that myself.
From my cursory glance I saw a wrong year part.
lol

But I agree it looks awesome!
I love the colour combination, and that the interior appears to have been restored properly.

I personally don’t care for A/C, but I totally understand why so many people do (which is why the option typically spurs more interest).

Did many people here recorded the ebay auction shown near the end of the pictures?
(not that it matters much)

I saw the trim rings/bezels on the gauges. Wasn't sure about the alternator, couldn't see it well enough. What did you see?

And I agree on the AC. That's always a buzz kill for me.

I agree about a finding a couple "quibbles" on even this one.
How about the painted black front sway bar? That's a "no-no" for Van Nuys builds. Nothing that can't be easily fixed though.

I purchased that car in Las Vegas Nevada in 2004. The guy I bought the car from had owned it since 1973. He didn't hot rod the car, he just used it as transportation. He drove it to work, and when it broke, he fixed it, etc.... As a result, the car was in very original condition when I got it, although it was old and tired. One of the first things I did was to have the entire car steam cleaned, top and bottom. It was on the steam clean rack for four hours. Afterwards, I took lots of photos.

The front suspension showed signs of having been worked on, (replacement ball joints as I recall), but the control arms had not been painted, the suspension looked original to me. The front sway bar was black at that time. I seem to recall remnants of black paint on the rear sway bar as well. The exhaust system was the original one.

The car had an incorrect alternator when I got it, but while I owned it I purchased a correctly restored 1100903 alternator from John Pirkle Sr. in Georgia which went with the car when I sold it. That alternator is on the car now. I don't recall the exact date code, but I think it was dated February of 1970. I've been involved in the restoration of this car since the owner lives about 10 miles from me, and I can say that much discussion was had over the correct color of the alternator pulley, silver or gold. I know there is some debate regarding this.

That said, this car got gold in class and best of show at last year's TA Nationals, so I guess the judges liked it.

The incorrect glove box door;
the 1970 part was one of the "one year" parts - it had two small square recesses, while the 1971+ glove box door had a single square recess on the right, with a large flat area for the maintenance schedule sticker.

It quite literally jumped out at me.

1970 'One year' (working) parts list; item "C12"


Chad shared some GREAT pictures of the 1970 & 1971 (& later) glove box doors here

I need to add this, so I don't come across as nit-picky - especially since my car will never be perfect (non-numbers drive train exclude it from ever being perfect - but I can try to make it as correct as possible ;) );
I would expect any restored car to have replacement parts, so even though I could see a wrong part, that doesn't detract one iota from how beautiful of a car that it appears to be.

I actually got off the phone with another forum member, apparently he went there to try to help the car be as correct as possible.
Considering some of the other "shark tank" candidates are so quickly picked apart, the overwhelming positive consensus seem to speak for itself.

I've read that standard interior cars built before April got the black rings, and all deluxe interior cars got chrome? But this is a deluxe built in April, so I would think they should be chrome regardless, right?

My O3C 70 has black rings, but it's a standard interior car.

I've looked at hundreds of '70 T/As over the years, and have been able to identify no rhyme or reason to chrome vs. black gauge bezels.

For the first month of production at both plants, almost all of the cars got the black gauge bezels. After that it was a mix of black and chrome that seemed pretty random at both plants. My conclusion from that was that Pontiac just wasn't getting enough of them to put on every car ... which could have been related to quality issues with the plating?

FWIW,....my 05D Van Nuys TA is a one family owned, so I know the complete history and it has chrome gauge bezels.
As Keith said, no rhyme or reason..

Well, that's good news for me about the bezels because I'm putting in Dakota Digital gauges which have black bezels. I was considering options for refinishing them but now I'll just leave them black.

What are you guys' takes on the quibbling about the number stampings? I always wonder how much of that is the quibbler trying to scare off other bidders so they can swoop and grab. Rocky R. vouched for the car and the judges yesterday.

Dash ashtray appears to need a new spring on the protector guard. No one would know but they took a pic showing it fallen over, maybe that's why.

I've noticed Rocky is pretty active on BAT auctions, spreading correct information and knowledge on Ponchos. It's amazing how many idiots end up in the comment section on Pontiac auctions.

I think that if a car has been vetted by knowledgable people in the hobby, that any people bringing into question the stampings are probably doing it just to be a shirt disturber.

(the typo was purposeful, that is exactly like something I would say in person)

I liked the story about the car shared here and on BAT;
This along with the old auction listing, and all the paperwork only serve to prove that the sellers are not trying to hide anything about the car.

I’ll repeat what I said on the BAT site that those stampings look perfectly good to me and after seeing hundreds of other 70 Trans Ams and some original engines with similar miss stamps I have no doubt this is original motor. I also know this car particularly well (although not as well as Chris) since it was back here in Buffalo almost 15 years ago and a good friend did much of the restoration.

The engine stamp looks EXACTLY like the one on my '72 T/A. One side of the gang stamp goes much deeper than the other side. The detail work done looks Fantastic to me!!