At the 2017 New York Auto Show, a small Florida company stole attention away from every major manufacturer with a car that technically should not exist: a modern Trans Am making roughly 1,000 horsepower from a NASCAR-engineered 455 big-block. Built on a Camaro-based chassis and priced well into six figures, it is less a restoration than a full continuation of Pontiac’s most legendary nameplate. Read on to find out what your money actually buys.
The Pontiac Trans Am has not been in factory production for over a decade, yet at the 2017 New York Auto Show, a small Florida company managed to steal attention away from every new model on the floor with a car that technically should not exist anymore. Built on a modern GM platform and wearing a familiar split grille and fire-breathing bird decal, it looked like a survivor from Pontiac’s glory days, until the hood came up and revealed a supercharged big-block making more than double what any factory Trans Am ever produced. Getting there required poaching engineering talent from NASCAR and handing the exterior design to a studio thousands of miles away in Sweden. The result carries a six-figure price tag before options, so what exactly does that money buy?
Resurrecting a Nameplate GM Walked Away From
Tallahassee, Florida-based TransAm Depot partnered with Swedish design firm Zolland Design to bring the Trans Am name back to life, building this 2017 455 Super Duty on the much-improved Alpha chassis shared with the sixth-generation Camaro rather than restoring an original.
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A 455 With NASCAR DNA
The 455 Super Duty name comes from its 455 cubic-inch, 7.4-liter V8, engineered with help from legendary NASCAR engine builder Joey Arrington and Race Engines Plus. Fed by a 2.3-liter Magnuson supercharger pushing 14 psi of boost, the engine produces roughly 1,000 horsepower and 1,046 lb-ft of torque, numbers that dwarf anything Pontiac’s original Super Duty engines ever put out.
Why the Alpha Chassis Mattered
Building on the sixth-generation Camaro’s Alpha platform rather than an original Trans Am chassis gave the modern car access to a far stiffer structure, modern suspension geometry, and braking hardware that any 1970s Pontiac engineer would have considered science fiction, letting the 455 Super Duty put its enormous power down with far more control than the original nameplate ever could.
Stealing the Show From the Big Three
The New York Auto Show played host to plenty of muscle cars, and the Big Three showed up in a big way with their flagship models on immediate display, especially with the unveiling of the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon at center stage. Although the major manufacturers put on a crowd-stealing show, this smaller boutique automaker tucked its car away in a corner of the floor and still managed to leave visitors in awe.
The Price of a Modern Classic
Prices for a 455 Super Duty start around $110,000, with a long options list capable of pushing the total close to $200,000. That positions the car less as a restomod and more as a modern continuation of Pontiac’s most legendary muscle car nameplate, aimed squarely at collectors who missed the original Super Duty era entirely.
A Small Shop Competing With Giants
Building a car this ambitious as a small, independent operation rather than a major manufacturer means every component decision carries far more financial risk than it would for a company with Detroit’s resources behind it, which makes TransAm Depot’s willingness to chase a genuine 1,000-horsepower target with a boutique-scale operation all the more notable within the restomod industry.
Reviving a Legacy Worth Reviving
For buyers who grew up idolizing the original Trans Am but never had the chance to own one new, a modern continuation like the 455 Super Duty offers something an original restoration cannot: contemporary reliability, modern safety equipment, and drivetrain performance that would have seemed impossible to Pontiac’s own engineers back when the nameplate was still in production.
Why Restomods Like This Keep Growing in Popularity
The broader restomod industry has grown substantially over the past two decades as collectors increasingly want classic styling paired with modern reliability, safety equipment, and drivability rather than dealing with the quirks of a genuinely original vintage powertrain, and a car like the 455 Super Duty sits at the extreme performance end of that broader trend.
A Design Studio an Ocean Away
Handing exterior design work to Zolland Design, a Swedish firm, rather than keeping the project entirely in-house or contracting a domestic American design house, reflects how globalized the specialty automotive design industry has become, with small manufacturers now routinely sourcing talent internationally rather than being limited to whatever expertise exists within driving distance of their shop.
Comparing It to Original Super Duty Engines
Pontiac’s original Super Duty engines earned their reputation in the early 1960s as some of the most serious factory racing engines the company ever built, aimed squarely at drag strip and NASCAR competition rather than street comfort. Reviving that name for a modern, 1,000-horsepower continuation car is a deliberate nod to that racing-focused heritage, tying a boutique modern build to some of the most respected engineering Pontiac’s performance division ever produced.
What Buyers Are Really Paying For
A price tag well into six figures buys far more than raw horsepower — it buys a hand-built, low-volume continuation car backed by genuine NASCAR engine-building expertise, a completely modern chassis, and styling developed specifically to evoke the original Trans Am without simply being a restoration of one. For collectors who missed the original car’s era entirely, that combination is precisely the appeal.
A Show Car With Real-World Ambitions
Unlike a pure concept vehicle built purely to generate buzz on an auto show floor, the 455 Super Duty was developed as a genuinely deliverable production car that customers could actually order and drive away in, a distinction that separated TransAm Depot’s display from many of the flashier but ultimately unbuildable concepts parked elsewhere on the same show floor. That real-world deliverability is part of what turned heads among attendees who understood the difference between a design exercise and a car they could genuinely purchase. Small-volume manufacturers rarely get the chance to share floor space with major automakers at a show of this size, which made the 455 Super Duty’s presence there as much a statement about the builder’s ambitions as it was about the car itself. Standing next to the era’s biggest factory reveals and still drawing a crowd is exactly the kind of validation a boutique restomod shop rarely earns this early in its history.
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υѕ вєqαя иυ мєяι qα∂αя иα αуι ☹
Lisa Reynolds-Robinson
Matthew Woodward
Still a camaro in disguise….But nice looking….
Like it has since 1967
Who’s the manufacturer? Why is the Pontiac red spear on the nose of it? It looks fantastic!
I want that car sooooo bad!!
Looks too much like Camaro. Should’ve gone more retro.
It always has been
That is a cgi picture of a new trans am. It hasn’t even been released yet so u can’t say what it really made Power wise. A trans am is made buy pontiac.. pontiac doesn’t exist so I can’t be developed… and it’s just a camaro with a different front end… u said it was a mustang
Charles Cornish
This is a different car that just pooped up.on faceboom. But you still haven’t looked up the Shelby1000
Well it’s not a production car u can buy directly from Ford.. u have to buy a gt500 then for 150,000$ send it to shelby to get the conversion… it’s considered a tuned car. That’s why it’s not a production car.. The few gt1000s that r made were first a gt500
SRT is dodges tuner division……
No not CGI these are real ! Very expensive but real nonetheless! Go to Transamdepot.com and order you one ! That is if you have oh about $90,000 you can spend !
It’s real they’ve been making them for years, I’ve seen them on road
It’s real , Burt Reynolds autographed the first five on the line. Saw it on a special on tv.
Josh Beaty
I want it in white
It is not a Pontiac. Its is very good looking though.
Who cares who makes it. When will it go to production?
All Trans Ams, Firebirds, Z28’s and Camaros were products of GM!
Reading an article in the Detroit News they are naming it the Demon Killer or Exorcist!
This is made by a company called Trans Am Depot ! It is in production! They begin as comaros and are transformed into these beautiful cars ! See their lineup at transamdepot.com
its a kit for a Camaro…..seeing how Pontiac is no longer in business. smh
No that’s s company bought the rights to use Pontiac and they are converting camaros into these TA’s !
Very cool car obviously everybody knows it’s a Camaro made into a Trans Am
Like they did since 1967, they were made on Same assembly line
Not a super duty, a Camaro
JT….time for a new car???????
Me want lol
Que bela máquina
Another rich mans car. So I don’t care!
Since when did Pontiac go back in production
Actually looks better than the Camaro.
Anthony Forte
Ford had this HP on a Shelby yrs ago.
paint a chicken on a camaro hood, instant trans-am,, same as a sierra an silverado, same truck,,
Javier Espínola
Que copado, justo lo ví pasar por acá jaja
Trans am has always been a Camero wanna be! Hhaaaa!
Marc Kerkhofs
Might be able to keep up with my slant 6 duster
F body is a Camaro or a TransAm ….
Power Plants and Dashboard… Rest is basically the same
The Camaro is ugly enough. We don’t need another ugly car.
Ahn, Pablo Nascimento, ahn?!?
For many years I owned a ’68 Firebird that I put $$$ into!!! Poncho division was way better than Chevy,and when they dropped the different division engines for just Chevy(GM) a powerhouse was lost,,,,,the 455SD was incredibly powerful,with the K3 closed chambered heads it was a dragstrip contender!I hope we see more Pontiac engine options,,,,GTO with a 400 ram air cam and fuel injection in the Malibu body….it would spank vets!!!
Ben Boyer