This amazing looking 1980 Pontiac Trans Am popped up on Marketplace for sale in the town just south of us here in the Greater Cleveland, Ohio area the other day. Asking price is $25,000. She's all show and no go - not that that's a bad thing.
In the waning days of GM divisional autonomy, Pontiac found itself in a pinch with their top-of-the-line Firebird models as the 1970's melted into the 1980's.
With ever stricter government mandated EPA and fuel economy standards tightening their figurative nooses, Pontiac had no choice but to discontinue use of the 6.6-liter V-8 engines, either the Pontiac 400 or Oldsmobile 403-cu. in. engines, that had made the Formula Firebird and Trans Am if not the fastest accelerating cars made in America in the late '70's, certainly one of them,
Rather than use Chevrolet's 190-horsepower, "LM1", 5.7-liter V-8 from the Camaro Z28, for 1980 and 1981, Pontiac bolted an AiResearch turbocharger to their 4.9-liter V-8 and, voila. Turbo Trans Am. They made a Formula Turbo too. However, Pontiac deemed it too expensive to set up a turbo 4.9 to get through California's tougher emissions standards, so the 1980 and 1981 Trans Am was available with a "turbo delete" option. Our Facebook Marketplace gem here is one of those, ahem, rare birds.
That's not the travesty it might appear to be at first although twenty-five-grand seems like a ton of money for a top-of-the-line Trans Am that doesn't have all the bells and whistles. Trust me, though, if you're going to buy a 1980 or 1981 Formula Firebird or Trans Am, one without the turbo is the one to get. In the end, it's ultimately a far more reliable and easier to live with automobile.
The "turbo" 4.9 made 210-horsepower and 345-lb ft, numbers that, on paper, were comparable to the big 6.6 engines and bested the LM1 Chevrolet engine by twenty-horsepower and 65 pound-feed of torque. That non-turbo 4.9 there make 170-hp and 240-lb ft.
Problem was in real-world driving. With the turbo 4.9, remember now, we're talking 1980 here, try as they did to minimize it, there was considerable "turbo lag", which is the delay between flooring the gas pedal and the turbo actually doing anything. And when the turbo "boost" was used up, drivers had to wait for it to literally spool up again.
That on again, off again, "is it there?" throttle response got old fast; no pun intended. At the time, the cars were lamented for not being the smooth and instantly responsive beasts they most recently were. Now they're unicorns of a bygone era, unicorns with extremely hard to find parts if something go kerflooey. Oh, and they will. Suffice to say, you don't find many working, "original", 1980 or 1981, turbo 4.9-liter Trans Am's out there. Let alone one of these things.
The normally aspirated, LM1 Chevrolet V-8 suffered none of the ills of the turbo Pontiac engine. Being a small block Chevrolet, they were bullet proof reliable.
The Pontiac 4.9-liter V-8 came out in 1977, Pontiac's answer to Chevrolet's 5.0-liter V-8 they introduced in 1976. No powerhouse, it was a typical General Motors, no-frills, durable, powerplant Pontiac stuffed into anything they could fit it into. Oldsmobile and Buick used it as well.
1977 to 1979 Trans Ams with the Pontiac 400 were timed going from zero-to-sixty in 6.7 seconds, Oldsmobile's powered T/A's were nearly two-seconds slower. At best, Turbo 4.9's got there in a tick over 8.2-seconds. I've yet to come across any published data on zero-to-sixty times for non-turbo, 1980 and 1981 4.9-liter Trans Am's, but I'd guesstimate 10-seconds. That's not that bad actually. These cars are heavy, credit the 3.42:1 gears out back maximizing the modest thrust of the non-turbo 4.9.
With the non-turbo 4.9-liter Trans Am like this, buyers got the Turbo T/A's wonderful WS6 ride and handling packages along with the screaming chicken and to-die-for decals.
As we say, it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car fast. No doubt this one's a blast and half to drive fast. $25,000 worth though?
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