What happened to that great 455 Trans Am

Those of us sufficiently lucky to be around in the 70s when this amazing car came out drool everytime we regard it. Imagine getting an automobile 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 ton more, it probably did even better. Let’s just say it was doing far 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. Naturally, by that time the ones they were selling were watered down versions with no where near the power of the first ones.

Since we’re not sure of the statute of restrictions, let’s just say that any stories are thought to start’Once upon A Time’.

One of our fave stories is when we were getting onto dawn highway 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 don’t believe in street racing, it absolutely 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 point 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 fellow in a Mustang 2 pulled up next to him and my hubby had fun ( hey, we are all titled often ). As Chuck tells it : You see at that point 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’s's worth. The light changes, he chirps his tires and flashes me a giant grin as he’s taking off. Well, I idle away from the light,give it just enough 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 line 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 claims Mustangs will beat the pants off the Trans Am.’ I very blithely answered,’Not this Trans Am!’

They don’t make them like this anymore. It’s downcast when you concentrate on it! Those among us who lived and got raised in the era of the muscle autos, street rods, Sat. night cruise nights were very,very lucky. 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 oppressive upstate NY winters aren’t kind to cars and rust took the Trans Am from us. However, we did replace it – with a customised 1973 Vette, which we drove cross country to California, but that is a whole nother story!

Do you like super fast sports cars? You will find thesupercars.org very useful for information about exotic sport cars. Make sure to also visit Pontiac Sunfire.