Yikes 23 Years Ago
 

Saturday night, Summer 1976.....I get the call that there is a V8 Vega in town looking for a race. Just my luck...my '65 Lemans is out of commission with another blown 10 bolt. I'm heartbroken to have to miss the opportunity. We're all gathered at the Dairy Queen (including the Vega) when a Class of '73er pulls into the parking lot in is '73 White Trans Am. Well, the Vega dude is calling out anyone and everyone and Trans Am dude accepts! Nobody's giving the TA a chance in hell, as by '73, the 455 was known to be only a shadow of it's former self. So kinda picture the American Graffitti scene of cars heading out of town. We raced "between the bridges" on a farm road north of town. About 5/16 mile between bridges with a slight curve at the end. Everyone is mostly wanting to see what the v8 Vega can do. So the line up and on the 3rd honk they're off. Jaws drop and and looks of puzzlement on everyones faces. "I thought he said the Trans Am was stock?" The TA obliges the Vega to two more runs, but same result. Baffled, we all head back to the Dairy Queen. the Vega heads back to the bid city with it's tail tucked between it's 50s.
I am then educated on the 455SD. I have to have a ride. He obliges...we head out of town to the bridges and he makes a pass. Wow! He then proceeds to continue on and through some twisties. I am white knuckles. I've never been through curves at 80-90 with radials squealing. come to find out, he had been doing hill climbs with some success.

The TA guy was just in town visiting his folks so never saw the SD again. Next time I saw him he had traded it in on a Porsche 914!

Well, thus was the start of my obsession with the SD. Fast forward to 2001, I find an ad for a '74 SD in of all places Juneau Alaska....$10,000.00 Repainted an ugly lighter shade blue metallic, I don't care. We do the deal...he pays to ship it by barge to Seattle. I pay for shipping from Seattle to TX. Drove it for a week or two and then start my 1st ever restoration. 2 years with a very patient wife allowing the 4th bedroom to be used as parts storage. Could never have done it without this board's help.

Cleaning out some boxes and came across the only two photos I have of the car. Got the hots for an '03 Cobra and sold the TA in '04. Many cool cars later this one will always be one of my favorites.

Nice story! (except for you selling it :eek:)

Know where your SD is now?

:confused:

No Sir. I sold it to a guy in Dallas. I think he sold it to a guy in Philly, maybe? Anyway Philly guy gets my number and we go over cars history. I ask him to keep an eye out for my cheap gold wedding band that dissappeared somewhere in the engine compartment. Rumour is car may be in Louisiana now, back in possession of the brother of the guy I purchased the car from. Not sure. Kind of an odd interior. White seats with blue door panels, headliner and carpet. Wish I could find current owner. Would love to visit the old girl some time.

Great story! Cool car!

One night cruising Rt 30 near Greensburg Pa. Just going speed limit in my nee 74 SD. I come apon a 1965 Blue GTO(my favorite) out for a cruise. Really nice looking car. Windows were down at the light and I said nice car. He said you wanta race I said no. He said what did you buy the car for? Ok I said let's turn around and go through opposite way. I'm in the fast lane and tell
him go when you are ready. He did,I did when my turbo 400 hit second gear I went by him like he was sitting still.His car sounded like a tripower. He never came near me afterwards.One car I had trouble with was a 65 427,425 4spd vette.Cars I remember that i raced,Hipo Mustang,couple70s
corvettes.They were surprised. One even said you put that SD455 on scoop! Heeeehe

Cool story, and sweet TA!

I hear ya on the 03-04 Terminator Cobras. They're mean SOBs, and great cars all around. I want an 04 Mystichrome, or my second choice would an 03 Sonic Blue.

I'll pass on a Super Duty racing story from the original owner of my SD Formula. After waiting nine months for the car to show up he was a high school senior. The fastest car in school was a souped up mid sixties small block Corvette who was chomping at the bit to get a piece of the brand new SD Formula. They raced from a light that had a marked off quarter mile. The Formula hole shotted the Corvette across the intersection and kept the faster Corvette at its passengers door crossing the finish line... The guy refused to ever give the Corvette a second chance.

What awesome cars Pontiac built for us and gear head management cleverly got into production. Kind of the same way they started the first muscle car ERA with the 64 GTO they ended it with the Super Duty Firebird.

V8 Vega's were fairly common when I was in HS in the mid-late '70's. A few V8 Pintos, too. Crappy little cars with cheesy interiors that were slower than my '66 GTO with a junkyard '67 Catalina engine that cost $150. And the GTO had a nice interior, 4 speed, and looked cool. I never understood the 'mystique' of the Vegas and Pintos. Light car, big power, I guess. The ones I ran against were poorly constructed and didn't work very well.

11 years of legendary Pontiac performance excellence that forever changed the performance car industry. :)


Back when the ‘73 SD T/A made its debut I read an article in Hot Rod magazine where they did a few tuning modifications to a new one and got it to run 13.50s. It had 3.42 gears and I’m almost positive a TH400 automatic.

They put some better rear tires on it for traction, welded some flanges into the exhaust to be able to uncork it, did minor distributor mods to bring the advance in quicker and played with secondary metering rods from what I recall from reading that article with great interest.

I found the article particularly intriguing as a young teenager because I was already a car nut by then and was lamenting the death of the performance car, the SD Firebird was pretty much the last gasp at that time.

Does anyone have any off the showroom floor actual performance data, in other words time slips from one of these cars from back in the day?

456 RWHP with just a tune and exhaust. It was a beast.

Oh they're awesome cars! They're mean looking with that front & rear bumper, and the rear wing.

What were the "Terminator" Cobra's? We built quite a few of those 4.6 engines. I remember the two & three valve motors making 6-700 HP and the four valves commonly made 900-1100. We did a couple of serious builds that cranked out 1300-1400 to the rear.... I recall some of them had a special tag on the valve cover.

Okay Bart, I guess we'll talk about the Super Duties. I've talked to several folks over the years about racing unmodified cars at the track. Most of them ran low fourteens and the ones that remembered the mph they were 99-101. All of them were 3:08 A/C cars. I would think high thirteens were realistic with the 3:42 gears. I also feel another reason they had such a great reputation was they were fast on the street. From a roll to 80 mph they'd be real hard to beat. It's incredible that Pontiac gave that a thought somewhere I read they gave up the idea of using a looser converter with the RAIV because it would be slower in a street race.... Blows my mind they thought that way

You're the second person to mention the magazine build up story. I'd like to find it. Cars magazine did a similar deal. I think it was a four part series. I collected those magazines. They went about modifying the car bit differently than what we'd do today. I remember a picture of the car jacked up with the bumper jack so they could install slicks.

Take a look at the test section I posted a flier I wanted you to see. My local track is having a VW event!