[Alvin]

Originally Posted by gtohurstjudge

Just wondering, what kind of reaction do you get with your late
70's T/A at car shows? I own several no. 1 condition show cars of the muscle variety,
but the last few years when I show my 79 T/A at an all makes show or even a Pontiac Show
I sometimes feel like the Maytag repairman! (loneliest guy in town). Usually one or two people
at a big show will go nuts over it and stare at it for twenty minutes because it is the nicest one they've seen, but these people are always previous owners of a 79 T/A back in the day.
The other folks other than previous 79 owners look at the car like it's a rusty Volkswagen
Beetle. As a point of reference, this car is a POCI 400/400 points concours D'elegance winner
and has beaten all the stock 79's on the showfield at the T/A nats the two times it was there.
When I show my GTO or Chevelle SS they have a crowd around them all day. Does anybody
other than previous owners of the cars give a flip about them? Just wondering what kind
of reactions you guys get at shows. Personally I love my 79 T/A and think that nobody
ever built anything better looking or cooler to cruise around in, but Joe public just doesn't care. I've owned my T/A a long time, and this attitude from the general car show public
seems to get worse every year than the last in my experience. What do you guys think?

The “no respect” aspect you mention could be from the redesign for 1979. Some are from the “love it”, some are “hate it” only liking - insert any years from 19701/2 to 1978 here - that year as "the best" camps.

“A nose only a mother could love”!

...were my first thoughts back in the fall of 1978 when I saw the restyled front end of the then new 1979 Trans Am.

At the time, the “Mean Look” nose on the 1977 & 1978 Firebird was the best ever to me. How could they have been so blatantly ruined it!?? The Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am didn’t look like this!!!
At the time, ALL of the gear heads in school agreed that it was a major styling mistake! But, after time, it grew on me. Now I really like it. So much so, that I bought one.



Although the new nose was questionable to me at the time; I instantly loved the new, for 1979, “black-out” tail light treatment.


I especially liked the look of the - contrast at night - car wide reflective treatment (our car below). It was very stealthy, very cool.


So, over time, tastes and acceptance of styling can change. Mine sure did. And after all: That was 33 years ago – wow!!!