Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Cars from the 80's just weren't romanticized like cars from the 70's, or better yet the 60's. Folks tend to forget how many slant six powered dodges there were that were losing a drag race at every light. It's common to think that every challenger had 440 six pack, but the truth is, that car was much more rare than the common, non-performance models...I doubt you'll ever see that fascination with 80's cars. While the modified f-body's are great performers, and the stock performance oriented models are decent street machines, there were very few cars that really stood out. I mentioned the 89' Turbo Car since it wasn't surpassed as being the fastest production firebird until the introduction of the LS1 in 98, and in all honesty, i don't know if it was surpassed until the horsepower increase came on the T/A towards the end of it's production...but even though until the waning days of trans am production, the fastest trans am ever was a 3rd gen that little tidbit will likely always be forgotten.
Cars from the 80's just weren't romanticized like cars from the 70's, or better yet the 60's. Folks tend to forget how many slant six powered dodges there were that were losing a drag race at every light. It's common to think that every challenger had 440 six pack, but the truth is, that car was much more rare than the common, non-performance models...I doubt you'll ever see that fascination with 80's cars. While the modified f-body's are great performers, and the stock performance oriented models are decent street machines, there were very few cars that really stood out. I mentioned the 89' Turbo Car since it wasn't surpassed as being the fastest production firebird until the introduction of the LS1 in 98, and in all honesty, i don't know if it was surpassed until the horsepower increase came on the T/A towards the end of it's production...but even though until the waning days of trans am production, the fastest trans am ever was a 3rd gen that little tidbit will likely always be forgotten.
I am from that era and no one I knew thought that way. We looked for the displacement badges or exterior identification and listened for cam lope or exhaust.
1. When it comes to this topic, lay-people tend to omit the Firebird from the discussion, hence the title of this thread. granted, they are essentially the same car, but the most noteable high end performance variants were Pontiacs: The '89 Turbo Trans Am, and faster still (and much rarer), '91-'92 Formula Firehawks.
2. as has already been said, Third Gen F-Bodies suffer from "turd gen" syndrome. being of the 1980s, they are not remembered fondly, as were their predecessors.
a. by the 1980's peoples' attitudes about cars had changed, and as a society, we were no longer as fascinated with muscle cars.
b. 3rd Gen saw a wild redesign that would have seemed too different or too futuristic for many older hot rodders or people still drawn to the body lines of the iconic "Bandit" cars.
c. 3rd Gen saw the introduction of electronic fuel injection which would have been intimidating and/or problematic to many older hot rodders.
d. too many variations - most of them bad. other than the Turbo Trans Ams and the Firehawks, there are only two types of "good 3rd Gen" performance-wise. LB9 (5.0 liter TPI/5 speed manual transmission) and L98 (5.7 liter TPI/700R4). these combinations are most commonly found in IROC-Z, 91-92 Z28, Formula, Formula 350, Trans Am, Trans Am GTA. in the first few years of production (82-84), performance was definitely compromised. so, Thirds got off to a poor start (i.e. bad first impression), then there's the V6's and 4 bangers; add on to that all the lower end models (RS, Base Firebirds) and all people remember are 80's Camaros being slow - and absolutely slower than 80's Mustangs. the fact is that stock for stock, an 89-ish L98 F-Body was/is faster than any 80's Mustang. mod for mod, and we again have a debate.
3. Third Gen legacy suffers at the hands of the Third Gen Community.
a. the only reason we all still obsess over cars of the '60s is because people hot rodded them. if those cars were kept stock and left to their typically 15 second 1/4 mile times, they would be forgotten. but people modded them to make them supercars. that is why a '68 Camaro is collectable, and that is why a stock one is valueble. but alot of Third Gen guys (see Thirdgen.Org) dont want to "molest" their cars, even if its a crappy RS or something. they want so bad for their car to be worth something NOW, and they overlook the necessary supercar phase without which the entire generation is relegated into being simply forgotten.
my opinion is that they will likely remain a niche because of people are generally ill-informed about the performance, and they have an almost insurmountable amount of both deserved, and undue negative publicity.
ideally these cars can be made into very potent street machines as they are basically (along with Fox Body Mustangs) the last bastian of lightweight musclecars. my Formula 350 weighs 3300 pounds. styling wise, there hasnt been anything like them before or since. and they are more aerodynamic (especially the Firebirds) than anything before or since. with a modern powerplant under the hood, the advantages are clear. and WS6 suspension is still very good even by today's standards.
the car in the pic is my 89 Formuala 350. it is stock appearing but has been modded.
I am from that era and no one I knew thought that way. We looked for the displacement badges or exterior identification and listened for cam lope or exhaust.
he's talking about people in general, several decades after the fact.
1. When it comes to this topic, lay-people tend to omit the Firebird from the discussion, hence the title of this thread. granted, they are essentially the same car, but the most noteable high end performance variants were Pontiacs: The '89 Turbo Trans Am, and faster still (and much rarer), '91-'92 Formula Firehawks.
2. as has already been said, Third Gen F-Bodies suffer from "turd gen" syndrome. being of the 1980s, they are not remembered fondly, as were their predecessors.
a. by the 1980's peoples' attitudes about cars had changed, and as a society, we were no longer as fascinated with muscle cars.
b. 3rd Gen saw a wild redesign that would have seemed too different or too futuristic for many older hot rodders or people still drawn to the body lines of the iconic "Bandit" cars.
c. 3rd Gen saw the introduction of electronic fuel injection which would have been intimidating and/or problematic to many older hot rodders.
d. too many variations - most of them bad. other than the Turbo Trans Ams and the Firehawks, there are only two types of "good 3rd Gen" performance-wise. LB9 (5.0 liter TPI/5 speed manual transmission) and L98 (5.7 liter TPI/700R4). these combinations are most commonly found in IROC-Z, 91-92 Z28, Formula, Formula 350, Trans Am, Trans Am GTA. in the first few years of production (82-84), performance was definitely compromised. so, Thirds got off to a poor start (i.e. bad first impression), then there's the V6's and 4 bangers; add on to that all the lower end models (RS, Base Firebirds) and all people remember are 80's Camaros being slow - and absolutely slower than 80's Mustangs. the fact is that stock for stock, an 89-ish L98 F-Body was/is faster than any 80's Mustang. mod for mod, and we again have a debate.
3. Third Gen legacy suffers at the hands of the Third Gen Community.
a. the only reason we all still obsess over cars of the '60s is because people hot rodded them. if those cars were kept stock and left to their typically 15 second 1/4 mile times, they would be forgotten. but people modded them to make them supercars. that is why a '68 Camaro is collectable, and that is why a stock one is valueble. but alot of Third Gen guys (see Thirdgen.Org) dont want to "molest" their cars, even if its a crappy RS or something. they want so bad for their car to be worth something NOW, and they overlook the necessary supercar phase without which the entire generation is relegated into being simply forgotten.
my opinion is that they will likely remain a niche because of people are generally ill-informed about the performance, and they have an almost insurmountable amount of both deserved, and undue negative publicity.
ideally these cars can be made into very potent street machines as they are basically (along with Fox Body Mustangs) the last bastian of lightweight musclecars. my Formula 350 weighs 3300 pounds. styling wise, there hasnt been anything like them before or since. and they are more aerodynamic (especially the Firebirds) than anything before or since. with a modern powerplant under the hood, the advantages are clear. and WS6 suspension is still very good even by today's standards.
the car in the pic is my 89 Formuala 350. it is stock appearing but has been modded.
An ex-girlfriend had a 1980 Pontiac Trans-Am with the 400 C.I. V8, T-tops, and everything. It had the looks, but not the performance you'd expect from such a large powerplant. The Firebird/Trans-Am had a brief surge in popularity, that probably surpassed that of the Camaro in the late 1970s, and we all know why, Burt Reynolds drove one in the 1977 hit movie Smokey And The Bandit.
Many have mentioned performance of the V8 power-plants of the 3rd generation Camaros, and Firebirds, and I'm sure back in the 1980s/early 1990s, any small V8 that produced over 200 HP was considered "High Performance".. Of course we saw the significant increase in horsepower and efficiency with the introduction of EFI in the late 1980s.
Not to be out-done by Chevrolet, for a while I was wondering if Pontiac was going to come up with their own retro Firebird/Trans-Am, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Not to be out-done by Chevrolet, for a while I was wondering if Pontiac was going to come up with their own retro Firebird/Trans-Am, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.
Considering there is no Pontiac any more, that's a fairly safe bet.
Finally a thread in the automotive section I can relate too. I've had 7 Camaro's over the years. My first was a 79 TA I bought about 1982 after I first got married. Nice car for a young couple at the time. Then I bought a 1969 RS Z28 in 1986 that sat until 1990 when I restored it. I built my wife a 1967 RS 250 6 cyl that she loved, but had no AC. Next up was a super clean 1981 Z28 350. This was one of my favorites for drivability for whatever reason. We bought a 1992 RS in the mid 90's as we started to mature, and I built a 1987 IROC for my son. The last was a 2000 SS LS1 that I thought was junk.
I now have a glass car in the garage that I bought new in 2004 with 25,000 miles on it. I also have a 1955 Willys CJ5 with a loosely based L98 350 TH350C, and it runs great. I've been tuning TPI as a hobby for the last 10 years and can tell you there's a lot of people that get big power from these motors. It's also a favorite of the street rod crowd, because the injection unit just looks cool. I really liked the 87 I built for my son with the 305. I bumped up the compression, and put the manual trans cam in it. It ran pretty hard for what it was, and cornered really well.
The pic of the black convertible shows how nice these cars can be!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The Firebird/Trans-Am had a brief surge in popularity, that probably surpassed that of the Camaro in the late 1970s, and we all know why, Burt Reynolds drove one in the 1977 hit movie Smokey And The Bandit. 
