Those among us fortunate enough to be around in the 70s when this amazing automobile came out drool whenever we regard it. Imagine getting a vehicle from the factory with a 455 cubic inch engine in it!This automobile kicked butt! Then if you probably did some work, like we probably did to ours, as in having the engine blue outlined, balanced and a load more, it did even better. Let’s just say it was doing miles better then one hp per cubic inch!
This was the era of Smokey and the Bandit movies. Good ole boy Burt Reynolds drove a black Trans Am in the movie and everyone and his uncle all of a sudden wanted one. Of course, by that time the ones they were selling were watered down versions with no where near the power of the original ones.
Since we’re not sure of the statute of restrictions, let’s just say that any stories are presumed to start’Once on A Time’.
One of our favorite stories is when we were getting onto dawn road late one evening and a Camaro rolled up next to us and started revving his engine, well you can imagine the rest.Here was a poor soul who had not a clue of what was in store. Since we do not believe in street racing, it definitely was a good thing we were both going onto the entrance ramp. When we were satisfied that no one was on the parkway at that time of night, we let the Beast Out To Play. We never did see any more then his fading headlights.
One of the funniest moments was when we lived in upstate NY and my hubby went to the store to pick something up and this guy in a Mustang 2 pulled up next to him and my man had fun ( hey, we are all titled sometimes ). As Chuck tells it : You see at that time a local car dealer was running a television spot featuring a Mustang 2 just destroying a Trans Am. So this gentleman pulls up next to me, gunning his engine for all he is’s worth. The light changes, he chirps his tires and flashes me a big smile as he is taking off. Well, I idle away from the light,give it sufficient gas in first to pull even with him, then drop the hammer, lighting up both tires, throw second, light them up again and then ease off. Drive down the road to the store.
When I come out of the store this bloke has finally got there and is waiting for me and says,’but the commercial says Mustangs will beat the pants off the Trans Am.’ I very blithely replied,’Not this Trans Am!’
They don’t make them like this anymore. It’s sorrowful when you concentrate on it! Those of us who lived and grew up in the era of the muscle automobiles, street rods, saturday night cruise nights were very,very fortunate. I feel sorry for the youth of today that they missed out on all of this.
So what happened to that great 455 Trans Am, sadly the cruel upstate NY winters aren’t kind to autos and rust took the Trans Am from us. However, we probably did replace it – with a customised 1973 Vette, which we drove cross country to California, but that’s a full nother story!
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