[ghaines]

Have a 78 T/A with a sticker on driver door that car was altered by Hurst. It has no engine or tranny,interior, or gas tank. A/C set-up, rear, tilt wheel, air shocks, t-tops,scoop with air cleaner set-up and all the air dams and lower plastic goodies. What or how were these cars packaged from hurst? I'm trying to figure out what I have to start looking for if I decide to put it on the strret again. I sent info to PHS by fax to hopefully get a quicker response on how it came equipped but would like to get a jump on things that might be available to me now. Thanks, Glenn

[ghaines]

Have a 78 T/A with a sticker on driver door that car was altered by Hurst. It has no engine or tranny,interior, or gas tank. A/C set-up, rear, tilt wheel, air shocks, t-tops,scoop with air cleaner set-up and all the air dams and lower plastic goodies. What or how were these cars packaged from hurst? I'm trying to figure out what I have to start looking for if I decide to put it on the strret again. I sent info to PHS by fax to hopefully get a quicker response on how it came equipped but would like to get a jump on things that might be available to me now. Thanks, Glenn

[Brian Baker]

Sounds like you have a S/E (special edition) T/A. Hurst was responsible for installing the T-tops, but I thought by 78 they all had Fisher T-tops. Anyone else want to chime in?

[Ccass]

All Special Edition cars got the smaller Hurst T-tops from what we can tell.

[rocky]

MY BUDDY A FEW YEARS BACK HAD A 78 S/E WITH THE HURST T TOPS MIGHT BE A CAR WORTH HOLDING ON TOO

[ghaines]

I got a fax from PHS about 2 hours after posting. Well worth extra $10 bucks if you need quick information. It lists all of the options and car color and interior. Thanks for the replies. I will start this when my GTO is painted.

[dyingbreed]

Ccass,
Nice to see you in this section with all us T/A "junkies." Thought you were a GTO man !!!

ghaines,
Brain Baker is correct! 1978 and later models had the Fisher T-tops. I have heard that some Hurst edition T-tops made their way into a few early 78 models though. My car is a 1978 gold SE (Y88) with the gold tinted FISHER T-tops.

As far as the Hurst editions, I also think they built the "Ratchet shifter" used in some T/A models, which was was similiar to the Hurst his/hers shifter.

db

[John Witzke]

The label referring to being altered by Hurst meant that Hurst Corp. modified the car by adding T-Tops. For the 1978 model year all Firebirds built with Hurst T-Tops were produced only at the Norwood OH plant. According a Pontiac memo dated April 27 1978 all Firebirds with the exception of the gold Y88 Trans Am and Firebird Redbird were available with both styles of t-tops. All gold Y88 Trans Ams came with the Fisher style tops while the Fisher top was the only t-top style available on the Redbird.

As far as the 1978 black special edition cars, the only difference between UPC codes Y82 and Y84, black special edition Trans Am is the type of T-Top. The Y82, UPC code WY9 has a Hurst T-top and the Y84 UPC code CC1 has the larger Fisher T-top. It appears that all 1978 Y82 cars were 400 engine cars and only produced at the Norwood, OH plant. According to Pontiac Car Distribution Bulletin 78-F-12, November 22, 1977, the last date to preference an Y82/Y84 car was November 30, 1977. Production of the 1978 Y82/Y84 was originally to be cancelled December 23, 1977. It appears production of the Y82/Y84 cars may have carried over until late January 1978. A build sheet was recently discovered from a 1978 Y82 car that indicates a January 23, 1978 build date. The Y84 was finally released for production on November 29, 1977, one day before the order cut off date. All Y84 cars were produced at the Van Nuys, CA plant. Production of the Y84 with the 400 engines was limited to only 88 (68 automatic and 20 4-speed) cars. Pontiac records do not indicate how many of the 68 automatic Y84 special editions were W72 cars, however, all 20 4-speed Y84 were W72 cars. Additionally there were 210 Y84 cars produced with the Oldsmobile 403 engine. There were a total of 3,345 Y82 Trans Ams produced during 1978.

Hope this helps,

John Witzke
POCI Tech Advisor
1977-79 W72 400 Performance Package

[Rinker07]

I purchased a1978 trans AM had it for 6 years I special ordered it with a hurst package .That was the hurst 4-speed manual and the hurst T-Tops

[JEC3039]

I'll add here that I recently purchased a '78 Y82 car with a PHS-documented build date of Feb 7, 1978, so it appears at least one Y82 build (perhaps the last one?) went beyond the Jan 23 date that John indicated from back in 2002.

[johnta1]

That date the shipped date on the PHS?

[JEC3039]

There were four dates on the printoff of the microfilm that PHS sent me. They were:

2-7, 2-7, 2-16, and in the bolded box 3-8.

I believe the early date is the build date, then the ship date, then the invoice date.

In any event, on the cover sheet that PHS included in the package they state that the build date of my vehicle was 2-7-1978.

I would try to paste a copy of the microfilm here but it's just not legible.

[johnta1]

And what was the cowl tag date, like 01C?

[JEC3039]

Oops. Date code is 01A.

But once the car was assembled at Norwood, didn't it have to go off to Hurst to have the t-tops cut it?

If so, is the cowl tag reflecting when Norwood was finished but the PHS microfilm saying 2-7 is when Hurst was finished? Meaning when the car was "officially" finished??

[johnta1]

There may be 2 PHS' for your car?
Look at bottom and see if it has to dealer codes.
I'd say the date on PHS is when it went to the dealer, probably after it went to Hurst.
If it has a PHS to Hurst the date on it would possibly be for when it went to the factory/dealer?


Just looked at some PHS' I have pics of and it looks like it's not like the older PHS' so doesn't show if it would have had 2 PHS?

[JEC3039]

I wrote to PHS last night and asked why the "long" discrepancy between the cowl tag date and the Dealer Invoice dates, and whether that length of time included Hurst having the car for a while to install the t-tops

Received a nice note back from PHS this morning as follows:

"The date on the trim tag is the build date for the actual body (by Fisher). The date on the Dealer Invoice we sent you is the build date for the car when it was assembled."

So I take this to mean the time the vehicle spent at Hurst for installation of the t-tops was already accounted for when GM cut the invoice to the dealer, which itself was triggered when Hurst told GM the car was finished and ready to be transported out. (In a previous thread I already learned from Peter Serio that the vehicles were not transported back to the Norwood plant for disposition, the vehicles went straight from Brighton to the receiving dealerships (if local) or to the distribution marshalling center to be put on the appropriate long-haul carrier or rail head as the case may be.)