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The third-generation Camaro does not get much respect, dismissed as the awkward middle child of Chevrolet’s muscle car lineage. One owner spent years proving that reputation wrong, building an IROC-Z so subtly refined it looks nearly stock at a glance, no loud stripes, no attention-seeking mods, just years of careful work reserved for how the car actually drives. The Drive tracked it down for a proper test drive. Watch to see whether it lives up to the title.
Pontiac built exactly eight 1969 Firebird Trans Am convertibles, and V8TV has now featured every single one of them, including this fourth car, the one with the lowest VIN sequence number of the group. The eighth car in the set went missing for years before finally surfacing and getting restored in 2016. See what makes this particular Trans Am worth a second look inside an already impossibly rare set of eight.
Chevrolet’s small-block V8 family produced far more than showroom horsepower numbers. One race-built variant powered Trans-Am championships and outran a factory V8 on the other side of the world, while a separate production variant quietly set a naturally aspirated output record that stood for nearly forty years. From mechanical fuel injection to Checker Motors options, the small-block’s reach went places most engine families never get close to. Here’s how two very different small-block Chevrolets earned their reputations.
Dodge built the 1970 Challenger T/A for one purpose: SCCA Trans-Am homologation, and only 2,399 left the factory before the model vanished for good. This triple black example is one of roughly 50 wearing that scheme, powered by a 340 Six Pack Dodge officially rated at just 290 horsepower. Read on to find out why that number was suspiciously modest.
Chevrolet built three very different Camaros under one badge in the late 1960s, one dressed to be noticed, one built to go fast, and one so quietly race-bred that Chevy barely admitted it existed. The RS brought hideaway headlights and showroom flash, the SS brought big-block muscle, and the unadvertised Z28 brought a 302 small-block engineered specifically to win Trans-Am races. Read on to find out how rare that racing option really was, and why so few dealers even knew to offer it.
This 1978 Pontiac Trans Am checks nearly every box serious collectors look for: the handling-focused WS6 package, the rare four-speed manual, and the big-block-adjacent 400 four-barrel, all still together after more than four decades. Viewers are already piecing together its origin story from small details, including a telling clue about why its interior plastics never baked in the sun. Filmed on a real road test with Rob at Street Machines, not a static show floor. Watch to see how it actually drives.
1979 was the biggest sales year the Firebird ever had, and the Formula sat in an interesting spot between the budget-focused Esprit and the flashier Trans Am. This example carries the shaker hood and dual exhaust that made Formula buyers feel like they’d gotten the enthusiast’s Firebird without paying Trans Am prices. Read on to find out what made 1979 such a pivotal year for the second-generation Firebird lineup.
1976 was the last model year Pontiac put a 455-cubic-inch V8 in the Trans Am, and by then emissions equipment and a tightening regulatory net had cut its rated output to a fraction of what the same displacement produced five years earlier. That number is also the least interesting thing about the car. The 455 survived into 1976 largely because Pontiac refused to let it die, and it was gone the moment the model year closed. Read on for why this particular Trans Am matters more than its window sticker suggests.
By 1976 the muscle car era was supposedly finished, yet Pontiac was still selling a Trans Am with 455 cubic inches under a shaker scoop and a four-speed behind it. The catch is how briefly that combination existed and how few people could actually order it. This is the story of Detroit’s last big-inch holdout and why 200 horsepower meant more than the number suggests.
By 1976 the horsepower war was over and Detroit had lost. Pontiac marked its fiftieth anniversary with a black and gold Trans Am that looked far faster than it was, and then its engineers did something nobody else in the industry managed that decade: they made the numbers go back up. Read on to find out which two sets of cylinder heads they used to do it.
Ford’s official records say the Boss 302 ended after 1970, which makes this surviving 1971 example something that technically shouldn’t exist. Jerry Heasley tracks down the story behind a car discovered through an eBay listing rather than any collector network, likely a factory prototype or pre-production test car. The restoration that followed only adds to its rarity. Watch to see how a car outside Ford’s own history books turned up for sale online.
White paint, blue stripes, a scooped hood, and a name that would eventually define Pontiac performance for two decades. Almost nobody bought one in 1969. The Trans Am option cost $1,083 on an already expensive Firebird and found fewer than 700 takers, of which only eight were convertibles. Read on for what the first-year Trans Am actually included, why Pontiac paid a royalty on every one, and what makes the Ram Air IV cars nearly unobtainable.
A stretch of Houston road became the unlikely battleground for an 840-horsepower Hellcat, a 1300-horsepower GT-R, a 1200-horsepower Trans Am, and a handful of boosted Ford Coyote Mustangs nobody expected to keep winning. Lone Star Street Racing’s cameras caught the results, and they did not follow the horsepower numbers on the thumbnail. Watch to see which platform actually backed up its bragging rights on the street.
Pontiac built just 697 Firebird Trans Ams for 1969, including only eight convertibles, and the nameplate nearly disappeared before it had a chance to catch on. Two Ram Air engines were offered, but the Ram Air IV went into only 55 cars, all of them coupes. Here is what separated those cars from the rest, and why a legendary third engine never actually reached a customer.