1965 Pontiac Tempest Post Coupe 4 Speed Bench Seat With Ohc & Dual Exhaust on 2040-cars

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This Hoonigan mechanic's twin-turbo Trans Am is wonderful

What do you drive when you work on rally machines for a living? Probably a Subaru WRX, and that's what Gregg Hamilton had for a while until working on his car felt too much like his day job. So when he moved from New Zealand to the US to work for Ken Block (with a few stops along the way) he bought something entirely different. This is Gregg's 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. It's a throwback to another time, but it's anything but stock. It has that magic combination of a big V8 with a manual transmission and rear drive, just like the tin-top racers Gregg watched in his Kiwi youth. He bought it sight unseen from its previous owner in Alabama, and has been tinkering with it ever since. There's something about the flared wheel arches and the classic Firebird gold-striped black livery that has us smitten. Scope out the six-minute clip above from Petrolicious and see if you don't fall for Gregg's Pontiac as well.

Sell Your Own: 2006 Pontiac GTO

This is part of an occasional look at cars for sale in Autoblog's classifieds. Want to sell your car? We make it easy and free. Quickly create listings with up to six photos and reach millions of buyers. Log in and create your free listings. In the early '60s, Baby Boomers born immediately after World War II were beginning to buy cars and enjoy their own distinctive music. This wasn't yet the drug culture; rather, it was the drag culture, more Jan and Dean "Dead Man's Curve" than Beatles "Lucy In The Sky." And a Baby Boomer's desired ride, more often than not, was Pontiac's GTO. Introduced as a manned-up option for Pontiac's compact Tempest, the early GTO was 389 cubic inches of romp and stomp. And with a marketing campaign that hit Middle America via what it watched and ate (TV ads and cereal-box promos were a big part of the GTO launch), there was no escaping it. Like most performance coupes and convertibles, 10 years later it was became an emasculated version of its once lusty self. And then it was gone. Its revival, championed by General Motors executive Bob Lutz, was not by any stretch the Second Coming. Starting in 2004, GM modified its Australian-built Holden Monaro to approximate the excitement of the original formula: a coupe body propelled by a big V8. But the Holden's sheetmetal was quietly styled, and even the 400 horsepower available by 2006 didn't electrify buyers. With hindsight, the resurrected GTO is enjoying more attention and, slowly but surely, increasing in value. This for-sale example shows well, enjoys low mileage, and is – naturally – priced well above what is perceived to be its market value. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Junkyard Gem: 1992 Pontiac Firebird

Last spring, this series featured a 1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS in a Northern California junkyard, an example of the final model year for the highly successful third-generation GM F-Body. On a later visit to that yard, I spotted the Pontiac sibling to that car, a Firebird that was born the same year at the same Southern California factory. When the Chevrolet Division introduced the first Camaro as a 1967 model, the Pontiac Division got its own version of the F-Body called the Firebird. While the two cars were built on the same chassis and looked very similar, the first-generation Camaros got Chevrolet engines while their Firebird colleagues got Pontiac engines (including the innovative SOHC straight-six). The 1970-1981 second-generation Firebirds still had some Pontiac-only engines, but Chevrolet and Oldsmobile power crept under some hoods during that period. The third-generation Firebirds first appeared as 1982 models, and they drew from near-identical stockpiles of GM running gear (including the distinctly agricultural Iron Duke four-banger, which could be considered a Pontiac-derived engine). When the Camaro got the axe after 2002, the Firebird's neck was put on the same chopping block. When the Camaro returned for 2010, the Pontiac brand was sputtering to an agonized halt during its final year and there was no chance of the Firebird's return. This car is a fairly ordinary coupe, though it does have the mid-grade 205-horsepower 5.0-liter Chevrolet small-block V8 instead of the base 140-horse 3.1-liter V6. A 5.7-liter small-block was available as well. A five-speed manual transmission was base equipment, but few Americans wanted a three-pedal setup by the early 1990s. This car has the optional four-speed automatic. The MSRP with 5.0 engine, automatic transmission and air conditioning (which this car has) started at $14,304. That's about $31,868 in 2023 dollars. It was built at Van Nuys Assembly in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County. By the dawn of the 1990s, the Camaros and Firebirds made at Van Nuys Assembly had become known as the worst-built GM cars made in North America, and the plant was shut down forever soon after this car was built. Today, a shopping mall lives where the factory once stood. This car managed to drive more than 150,000 miles during its life, so it beat the odds. The thrid-gen F-Body was pretty antiquated by the early 1990s, but the fourth-gen cars handled better and looked up-to-date for the era.