[unruhjonny]

Question:
Who influenced you to pontiacs, pontiac performance?

Answer:
I don't know that I can answer that.
I do recall my dad having a couple second gen Firebirds when I was younger (born 1977), but by the time I was thirteen, he moved eight hundred miles away, so any influence he may have had was kinda gone...

I always kind of liked cars;
As a kid, my favorite toys were often Hotwheels, and I clearly recall my favorites to be a '63 Splitwindow Corvette, and the 'Hotbird'...
I recall my uncles on my dad's side always kind of liking cars, and one of my uncles in particular had a '78 Z28 for a short while...
Another uncle had an '88 GTA, after suffering through driving a Chevette, and being gifted a V6 third gen Camaro... I loved that GTA.

I had a friend in grade eleven, who was actually a weirdo, but at the time his dad was letting him drive their (then only ten year old!) 1983 Firebird SE, it was a V6, but it was enough to reignite my interest in cars.
I come from a GM family, and since the Mustang didn't really interest me (stylistically) I naturally veered towards the Camaro & Firebird.
I bought a couple of those readers digest books (does anyone recall the red padded cover Camaro book, or hte silver padded cover Firebird book?), then the odd magazine...
Then I bought a 'Popular Hot Rodding' magazine which was a Firebird special - and I was hooked!
Shortly there after I found HPP...
I loved the looks of so many years of the Firebirds (I really do like them all), and through my interest in Firebirds, I became interested in GTO's and early 70's Grand Prix's...
But I dreamed of a 70-73 Formula with a manual transmission (at hte time I had never driven stick, only heard of the merits of stick)...

After high school, my dad and step-mom (through my step-mom's mother; step-grandmother??) gifted me my Formula;
But it was my choice - within a reasonable price range, I could pick anything I wanted...
Looking back, maybe that was the pivotal moment for me.

If you have never taught a kid with zero experience to drive stick on a car with over 400 ft-lbs of torque, you should... just wear a neck brace! (my bad; I was so worried about blazing the tires and losing control!)

Maybe it's a good thing that the GTO's still demanded a hefty premium over same year Firebirds back in 1995;
I have never looked back.