Awesome 1975 Pontiac Trans Am in Blue & White Paint & 400 Engine

Mike Lorusso has owned this blue-and-white 1975 Trans Am since 1989, and over three decades he’s pushed the 400 cubic inch V8 to roughly 500 horsepower. This walk-around covers the custom work, the often-overlooked 1975 model year, and one detail about the hood bird most owners still get wrong. Watch to find out what it actually is.

Ask most people what’s on the hood of a Pontiac Trans Am and they’ll say screaming chicken without thinking twice. Ask Mike Lorusso’s 1975 Trans Am, or better yet ask the enthusiasts arguing about it in this video’s comments, and you’ll get a correction delivered with real passion: that’s not a chicken, and it’s not an eagle either. Most diehards will tell you it’s a Phoenix, rising from ashes — though even Pontiac itself never officially confirmed exactly what species graces that hood, a detail most owners of nearly fifty years’ worth of Trans Ams somehow still don’t know.

It’s Not a Chicken — Probably a Phoenix

The hood bird on a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am is one of the most recognized graphics in American car culture, and one of the most commonly misidentified. Commenters on this video are quick to correct the record: the bird isn’t a screaming chicken and it isn’t an eagle — most enthusiasts call it a Phoenix, the mythological bird that rises reborn from its own ashes, a fitting symbol for a car built to represent performance rising up out of the early-1970s malaise era. Pontiac itself, notably, never officially confirmed the bird’s species, referring to the option only as the giant Firebird decal — which somehow makes the enthusiast lore around it even better. It’s a small piece of trivia, but it’s exactly the kind of detail that separates Trans Am owners from Trans Am fans.

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Nearly Three Decades With One Owner

Mike Lorusso has owned this particular 1975 Trans Am since 1989, which means by the time host Lou Costabile filmed this walk-around at the Monday Night Car Shows in Skokie, Illinois, Mike had already logged nearly three decades with the car. That kind of tenure shows in the small stuff — panels that fit, an engine bay that’s clearly been worked on rather than just detailed for a single afternoon, and an owner who can rattle off exactly what’s been changed and why without pausing to think about it.

400 Cubic Inches, Custom Work, and About 500 Horsepower

Under the hood sits a 400 cubic inch V8 that Mike says has been customized over the years to put out somewhere around 500 horsepower — a substantial jump over what the factory-rated 400 offered when new, especially by mid-1970s standards, when tightening emissions regulations had already dragged Trans Am output numbers down significantly from the model’s early-decade peak. That gap between factory rating and what a dedicated owner can extract with decades of tinkering is a recurring theme across almost every long-owned muscle car from this era, and Mike’s Trans Am is a clean example of exactly how far that gap can stretch.

Blue and White: A Paint Scheme That Still Turns Heads

The paint scheme — blue with a white stripe treatment — is part of what makes this car stop traffic at a crowded car show. Second-generation Firebird Trans Ams are known for bold, high-contrast color and stripe combinations, and this particular pairing sits at the more restrained end of the spectrum compared to the black-and-gold combination most casually associate with the model, giving it a slightly different character that longtime Pontiac fans in the comments specifically call out as a favorite.

1975 in Trans Am History — The Quiet Middle Year

1975 sits in an interesting, often-overlooked spot in Trans Am history — past the model’s early-1970s peak output numbers, but well before the black-and-gold Special Edition and Bandit-era cultural explosion that would define the nameplate later in the decade. Cars from this specific year get less attention in popular culture than their late-70s siblings, which makes long-term survivors like Mike’s example a genuinely valuable window into what the Trans Am looked like during its quieter middle years.

The Generation of Firebird Owners Who Never Left

The comments underneath this video read like a reunion of second-generation Firebird owners. One commenter describes receiving a black 1975 Trans Am with a 400-cubic-inch engine and a posi-traction rear end as a gift from his father in 1982, calling out how well it stuck to the pavement through turns. Another describes buying his own 1975 Trans Am in 1978 and still owning a 1981 Turbo Trans Am today, naming the entire 1970-to-1981 second-generation Firebird lineup as among his all-time favorite cars. It’s a generation of owners who bought these cars new or nearly new, and simply never let go.

Where the 400 Fit Into a Shrinking Options List

By 1975, the 400 was effectively the top realistic performance option left in Pontiac’s Firebird lineup, as the larger 455 was on its way toward discontinuation and increasingly strict emissions testing had already pulled meaningful power away from every big-inch engine on the market. That context makes Mike’s decision to build the 400 up to roughly 500 horsepower over the years feel less like an eccentric hobby project and more like finishing a job the factory itself was never allowed to complete under the regulatory pressure of the mid-1970s.

What a Monday Night Regular Looks Like

Costabile’s Monday Night Car Shows format thrives on exactly the kind of regular, recognizable presence Mike and his Trans Am represent — an owner who shows up often enough that the car becomes a fixture rather than a novelty, and who can speak to decades of small modifications and decisions from memory rather than a prepared script. That familiarity, built one Monday night at a time, gives this walk-around a conversational quality that a one-off feature on an unfamiliar car simply can’t replicate.

A Car That Started as a Gift, Ended as a Lifestyle

What started for Mike as ownership has clearly become something closer to a lifestyle — the kind of long-term relationship with one specific car that shows up in every detail, from the custom work under the hood to the confidence with which he talks through the build for Costabile’s camera. Nearly fifty years after it left the factory, this Trans Am isn’t a garage queen wheeled out for the occasional show. It’s a car that’s been driven, modified, maintained, and genuinely loved by one owner for the better part of four decades — exactly the kind of story that keeps bringing viewers back to this corner of a Monday night parking lot.

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