The Pontiac Firebird Trans Am

Don’t call it a Camaro. (But the story does begin there.) Join Scott and Ben as they unravel the history of this American-made automotive icon and scrutinize a few of the behind-the-scenes characters that made the Pontiac Trans Am a reality.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hi, and
welcome to Car Stuff. I'm Scott Ben. We are joined
as always by our super producers, so shout out to
knowld two cans brown, two cans, two cans like the bird,

(00:23):
No no like. So cans is a is a slang
term that we use around here for headphones. Oh I
thought it was like two cans. Sam on the with
the fruit loops. I think it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
oh yeah. I guess it work either way, though it
could work either way, but that guy hates berts. He
is an audio engineer. So I guess we'll go with
two cans like the two words two cans, and of
course we leave it up to you. Ultimately, your opinion

(00:46):
is the one that matters the most when it comes
to this show. We also, of course, will find a
nickname for our super producer, Dylan Fagan. I'd like you
to think about this one ahead of time, though, Okay,
screaming chicken. It fits with today's topic, it does, it does? Dylan.
I know you're listening, so I hang on. Just give

(01:06):
us a chance. You'll see how it all works out.
It's like a passive aggressive nickname that I gave Dylan
right there. You know, it's I mean, if it falls
right into place with this, with this topic, yes, but
to call some guy that I work with screaming chicken, Yeah,
that's a little bit of gress. That's that's a little pushy,
I think it is. Yeah, I mean, I hope he
doesn't take offense to that. Maybe we'll come up with

(01:26):
something better between you know, now and then. Yeah, well
we we should keep our options open because he is
our editor, you know what I mean. Can't come up
with anything worse, I guess at this point. So, but
we do have, uh, we do have another person that
we need to mention at the beginning of this podcast. Yes,
this was a listener suggestion and it comes from andrew S.

(01:46):
Andrew S also goes goes by the name Brisket Turner,
and I like that Brisket Turner. All right, so Andrew
writes in and he says, oh, you know, this is
pretty recent from February, but this and piqued our interest
right away. He says, Hey, Ben and Scott, I've been
listening to your podcast about two months now. You guys
do a great job explaining stuff on cars that I

(02:07):
didn't know. For example, your podcast how to make a
car last three hundred thousand dollars or three miles? Here
in a thousand dollars would be nice? How to make
your car last three d thousand miles and now drive
differently because of it. That's so cool. So he's adopting
some of our what would you call its, um ginger
ginger tactics maybe observations. Yeah, I guess the way to

(02:28):
look like to drive your car kind of softly. I
don't know how better say that. Yeah, because in that episode, UM,
we talk about how how much the way you handle
driving matters over time, you know, like sudden stops and
starts will eventually punish the machine. Sure, like cold start. Well,

(02:49):
of course cold starts you can't avoid that, but but
reven the engine excessively when it's still cold, et cetera.
All that stuff that all adds up. So he's driving
his vehicle differently. Now he's got a two thousand three
Chevy S ten with two nine thousand, eight D twenty
miles on it, and he got it from his best
friend's dad for free. That's the best kind of car, right,
he says, there are other problems with it. He mentions

(03:09):
all kinds of stuff like there's there's an a heater
and a c the ignition doesn't want to work at
the time, and and some other minor things too. But honestly,
hang in there, that's a great card owned don't don't
worry about it. It's a good looking vehicle to he
said in about six photos. But here's the here's the
thrust of today's program. I was wondering if you guys
could do an episode about pani Act trans am, the ones,

(03:30):
he says, specifically the one from the Smoky and the
Smoking the Bandit movie. I know you've kind of covered
it in the episode The Best car Che's is Part
one or two, But if you could do a review
on the trans am, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks
for all the podcast, andrew S, and uh, Andrew, that's
a fantastic idea. And I know you said specifically the
one from Smoking in the Bandit episode. We're gonna talk

(03:50):
about um all trans ams, including that one, and I
think we're all going to start with the the very
genesis of the trans am nameplate and that goes all
the way back to the late nineteen sixties. We'll get there.
We will eventually make it to the nineteen seventy seven.
And I think the tactic that Ben and I talked
about ahead of time, or one that I may be
forced on Ben, I don't know, we'll we'll find out,

(04:11):
is that there is so much um minutia in between, uh,
in between nineteen sixty nine, when this thing originated in
nineteen seventy seven, and then later that you know, this
car went until two thousand two, ran until two thouswo
so um a long long time, thirty four years of productions,
so so much detail. We're gonna kind of focus on
just a couple of little bits here and there, and

(04:33):
hopefully you know some of the details. If you're really
really intrigued by this one, you can focus in on
a specific model here if you know you you knew
somebody that owned one, or if you own one yourself. Um,
you know, the details are just really tough to get get.
For thirty four years of production, there's a lot. So
we're gonna hopefully make this a compelling story, I hope.
So we're off to slow start, but but well, we'll

(04:55):
try to make it interesting for you along the way
and uh, you know, I think maybe and know this
is jumping ahead and we'll go back. But um, the
one that he's talking about, the smoking the bandit trans Am,
that's really the one that that brought it to like
into pop culture, I guess, into the people's minds. That's
the one that a lot of people think of when
they think of trans Am. And that was a nineteen
seventy seven movie that was directed by a guy named

(05:18):
Hal need Him. He was a stunt man and it
was his directorial debut. As a matter of fact, here's
the thing. In ninety seven, this was the second largest
grossing film, right behind Guess what. Star Wars. Star Wars
came out the exact same year. It would have been
number one had it not been for the release of
Star Wars that exact same year, So bad timing on

(05:39):
that on that front. But it was a wildly popular movie,
big big success of course. Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reid,
Jackie Gleason, there's a bunch of big, big names in
Hollywood at the time in this film, and it launched
a franchise, it really did. This was a huge thing.
This is really big for well of course, there's a
lot of um, what do you call it, afterwards marketing,

(05:59):
I guess when they have a lot of products that
they sell afterwards, merchandizing, merchandizing T shirts, hats, you know, tattoos,
just a lot of stuff that they had. You know,
they had drink cozys and you know whatever, key chains,
all that kind of stuff. Um. But this was really
really big for Pontiac. It was as an excellent product
placement on their part. Yeah, can we uh, can we

(06:20):
give just a brief overview of the plot. I'd love
to set it up. Oh yeah, sure, of course. It
starts with bootlegging, and we did an episode and bootlegging also,
or we did an episode on how prohibition led to racing,
uh and in Smoking the Bandit, there's this wealthy guy
from Texas and his kid and they're looking for a

(06:43):
bootlegger who is going to smuggle Cores beer to Georgia.
Essentially that's how that's how it starts. And that sounds
kind of crazy maybe nowadays because Cores is not you know,
in the world of raft beer or whatever, Corps is
not uh as highly regarded as you know, no one's

(07:07):
saying it's terrible or anything. But it's a common off
the shelf product. There we go, yeah, perfect, So like
why would you why would you smuggle it from tex Arcana,
Texas to Atlanta, Georgia and have only twenty eight hours
to make it there. That's the whole thing. That was
the premise of the story, right, I mean, it was
like hundreds of cases of this stuff, right, and a
full it was a full semi truck. And of course

(07:28):
the semi truck was driven by Jerry Reid, who went
by the name Cleetus in the movie. And uh, Burt
Reynolds played the bandit is, Uh, well, his traveling partner,
I guess would be carry Sally Field and along the
way of course. Uh. One of my favorite characters the
Jackie Gleeson character Buford T. Justice, Sheriff Buford T. Justice,

(07:48):
who was in hot pursuit the whole time. And oh,
it's just some fantastic scenes. So it's a it's a
funny movie. It's it's definitely a gearhead movie. It's fun
to watch looking back because you can appreciate this nineteen
seventy seven trans am, you know, and other um ancillary characters.
I guess we want to call them at you know,
the the extras. I supprised the extra cars along the way.

(08:09):
There were a lot of them, and again Pontiac placed
these these uh are actually um, I don't know if
you can call it place, but I guess Pontiac offered
these vehicles for the use of the film. There were
two Transams nineteen seventy seven, and then there were also
a couple of I believe there were two four door
Pontiac Lama Sedans that they also offered up for this
production as well. Now that the trans as of course,

(08:31):
were destroyed during and there in the filming. One was
completely destroyed during that infamous bridge jump that they did.
That was the end of one of them, and the
other one was just kind of along the way, beaten
up really badly. Um. Some some other interesting stuff about
that when we get to the uh the ninety seven model,
I guess. But um, you want to take a step
back then and maybe talk about the birth of the

(08:54):
transamin Yeah, where it came from. It's an interesting story too.
I hadn't really okay, full disclosure here. I had and
I think everybody knew this. I had a trans and
it was my first car at night and I at
the time, I'll tell you, I was ignorant about the
car mostly at the time, other than I really appreciated

(09:14):
it in the movie, just like a lot of people did,
you know, smoking the Bandit films. But at the time,
I was a kid in high school. I didn't care
to look up the history. I didn't have the internet
really to uh, you know, to just at thet any
whim look up any kind of information I wanted about it,
and you know, those production numbers, etcetera. All that stuff
had to be found in books and library and I was,
you know, I was staying away from that that place

(09:35):
at the time, a hothead, driving right down to my
my hot rotted trans Am. So um. Anyways, I wasn't
like really focused on you know, the original engines and
all that, you know, like all the codes that went
along with everything and keeping everything original, and I just
wasn't focused on it. I knew it was a cool
car and it was fun. Um. Maybe more on that later,

(09:56):
but anyways, this thing goes all the way back to
nineteen exty nine, and I guess we can start there. Um.
This this begins with a racing series, a racing series
called the trans Am Series, and it wasn't originally called
the Transam Series. Is originally called the trans American Sedan Championship,
which started in the nineteen six And there's something interesting

(10:22):
here because even before this series UM, during the sixties,
g M General Motors was using the term Firebird for
some of their concept cars, so it was already in
the zeitgeys the concept. But as you said, and as

(10:42):
a lot of people might not know, the Pontiac Firebird
comes from racing. Yeah, that's right, it was. Okay, here's
the twisted tail of this whole thing, and it's not
really all that twisted is that Camaro was first. Firebird
was kind of birth from that, and then from the
fire came the Pontiac Firebird trans Am And well we'll

(11:03):
talk about that progression in just a moment. But in
nineteen six when UM the SEC a president that who
at the time was named John it was always named John,
but his name is John Bishop. He was the president
of the SEC at the time, and he created this
new racing series and it was again as I said,
it was normally originally called the trans American Sedan Championship,
but they changed it to just the trans Am series

(11:25):
soon after, and there were two categories of racing. And
this is important because there was a there were there
were two I actually should say classes. Maybe that's a
better way to say. There are many many classes now.
But um, there was the under two leader group and
then there was the over two leader group. But but
the over two leader group was limited to five leaders.
Now what that did that specific time in history is

(11:47):
that it allowed pony cars to compete. And so who
who was building pony cars at the time. That was
Ford of course, GM answered with the Camaro, and um,
of course the Firebird. The Firebird was one for petition
really um. And then even later that you know, well
we'll talk about you know where the trans am came from.
But um ham alligation rules that were tied to this

(12:08):
series resulted in a lot of these offerings being provided
for people out on the street. You know, they could
you could buy these on the showroom and and drive
them on the streets. These are cars that were race
cars for the sec A trans Am series back at
the time, and these included like Camaro. Well, Chevy had
the Camaros twenty eight at the time, which is brand

(12:28):
new again I think in nineteen sixty seven. That was
the first year for that one um UH Mustang at
Ford had the Boss three or two Mustang UH. For
nineteen seventy, I think there was the BARACOUTA A A
R which stands for UM. I think it's all American
racing and there was only one year of that. Again
in nineteen seventy there was a Challenger t a um
AMC had you know, javelins, there was They're all kinds

(12:50):
of cars competing in the series at the time, and
of course Pontiac wanted to kind of up the game,
I guess so, so starting in nineteen sixty six. You know,
they were already in there. It's some in some way
with well Chevy was not Pontiac, but Pontiac also wanted
to jump in there, and that was the focus the
directive I guess from John DeLorean. Yes, that is true.

(13:12):
Once again, John Delorian graces the car stuff world because
this this is I know what anythinking lays and gentlemen,
and you're correct. This is the same DeLorean who started
the ill fated DeLorean Motor Company later racked with scandal.
But but not right now. Right now he's still the

(13:33):
good guy. He's still the the he's still the guy
in the white horse at this at this point, right,
so he was he was Um. He was a general
manager of Pontiac Division from nineteen sixty five until nineteen
sixty nine. But he didn't start there. He started it
Packard Motor Company. He then eventually went to Pontiac to
become the division head in nineteen sixty five, and then

(13:53):
in nineteen sixty nine he moved on to Chevrolet, and
then by nineteen seventy three he went to uh well,
Delri Motorcar. He went to start Dolri Motorcar Company, which
again only lasted until about ninety two before they went bankrupt.
But Um he is the genesis of the trans am project.
Really when he was UM division head of Pontiac between

(14:13):
nineteen sixty five and nineteen sixty nine, right around you
said it earlier nineteen sixty seven, Ben Um, that is
when he decided that he was going to create this group,
this this new UM effort I guess to race in
the series um well competitively, and they created something called
the Pontiac Firebirds Sprint Tarismo Project and it started to

(14:35):
you know, it's called pfs T, and that started to
kind of um get mentioned. I guess more often if
people knew about it as early as nineteen sixty seven,
mid nineteen sixty seven, So within the next year or so, Uh,
they decided that, you know, the V six power was
something that was gonna have to go. There's there's no
way that you know, this car is gonna be competitive
in the series with the X power. So they didn't

(14:57):
quite know exactly what they were going to do with
it yet, but they said, you know, it's gon have
to have the V eight engine. UM. They also wanted
to have some external body modifications, something that you know,
would make it better on the track, something that was
actually functional on the track. Right. These these are not
ornamental enhancements, you know what I mean. They they partnered
with the car designer and builder, a guy named Gene Winfield,

(15:20):
and ultimately the improvements that he made found their way
into one of the two Palladium Silver nineteen six nine prototypes.
Now I have something to say about these prototypes. There
were two built. Yeah, one was as we say, lost
to time. We don't know where one of them went.
It's in a bar and it's gone. Well, I don't know.

(15:40):
It seems like it seems like could be found, but
you never know. These things turn up, right. There is
a story about the second one, because the second one
for a while was i'll call semi lost. People some
people knew where it was, but not everybody knew where
it was. And there's a there's a really good, um,
I guess you call a resurrection story. Uh, the second
Pontiac trans prototype, and this was the the one that

(16:03):
was owned by what it was actually the private vehicle
of a guy named Jerry Titus who was a race
car driver for Pontiac back in the day. And he
kept it as his own personal vehicle until about nineteen seventy,
and then he sold it off to a guy, uh,
private collectors. I think somewhere in Kentucky. I can't remember
exactly where in Kentucky, but um, it was owned by

(16:23):
this guy in Kentucky and then later it was bought
by a car collector when it came up for sale.
His name is Kurt Richards, and Kurt Richards completely restored
this thing. And you can watch the story of this
on a It's not a very long video. It's maybe
it's twenty two minutes long. If you find this one,
it's twenty two minutes in five seconds. It's called the
trans Am Story. Just search on YouTube you'll find it.

(16:43):
It is very very interesting. There's a there's a few
sound bites from the son of Jerry Titus, you know
he's he's the one who verified that this was the
original that you know, these these parts that they were
finding on the vehicle were definitely the parts that that
Gen Winfield, the guy that you had mentioned ben Early,
or that created these aftermarket parts or these uh these
uh go fast parts. I don't know what you've got

(17:04):
on a call them maybe like exterior body panels and
things out of fiberglass and all that for the prototype. Uh.
They all verified that, you know, this is this is
the car. It wasn't It was the trans Am prototype,
that the lost trans Am prototype. So it's an interesting tale.
If you have twenty two minutes and five seconds to
watch it, if you can dedicate the time, Yeah, well,

(17:25):
if you can dedicate the four hours that it's gonna
take for us to get through this this episode. Apparently, Uh,
I was choking. It's not gonna take four hours. We'll
try to condense it. I think we're I think we're
doing we're doing all right here, because we're we're looking
at um, we're looking at the early days right of
the trans am and the first days, yeah, the first days.

(17:46):
And one thing we know for sure is that in
that first decade, the trans am was already taken off,
you know, by I'll jump ahead a little bit. By
nineteen seventy nine, they were they were making over a
hundred thousand cars a year, almost a thousand. Yeah, And

(18:06):
that number is gonna come into play in just a minute,
because I'm gonna have a little uhum a dollar amount
that is attached to that hundred and seventeen thousand number
in just a moment. But but first I think we
should take a word from our sponsor, and we are

(18:26):
back before the break. We teased some numbers that will
come come into play in nineteen seventy nine. But I
think we need to journey back in time for a second,
just a little bit, and only for a moment, because
I just wanted to mention that the actual reveal of
this vehicle was it was December eighth of nineteen, and
they call that a mid year trans am release. So

(18:48):
mid year is when this thing was was debuted or unveiled,
and it was debuted alongside the brand new g t
O Judge package that they had introduced just to kind
of draw attention or two to uh, I don't know.
I guess maybe UM revitalize you know, the g t
O and in some way, and I think the Judge
package did just that. But that was at Riverside International
Raceway and there were a lot of media on site,

(19:10):
and you know, there was there was one prototype and
there was also a white and blue pre production version
that was on site as well. I think that's the
one that was lost. That must be right now. The
other one was silver the prototype we're talking about UM,
But there were for that first year, again it was
a mid year release. There were only six hundred ninety
seven regular production units that came off the line in

(19:30):
that first year. So it's a very low production first
year for a trans am. So if you see one
of these available, those are the ones to grab if
they truly are. In nineteen sixty nine trans Am, it's
one of only six D ninety seven built, but as
you mentioned then, in by nineteen seventy nine that number
had swelled to one hundred and seventeen thousand, one hundred
and eight Now this is this is important. Here's the

(19:52):
dollar amount that I had kind of teased a little
bit before. Here's something I again, when I was a
kid and I had a trans Am, I had no
idea that this is going on. So you would think that,
you know, there's a car named the trans Am, there's
the series named the trans Am. What's the tie in. Well,
you know, we know that it raised in the series.
But Pontiac was the one that went the farthest with us,
and they said, we're actually gonna name our product the
trans Am. However, the sec A thought, well, that's nice,

(20:16):
but you know, we're gonna have to have some kind
of licensing agreement with you. And it was a pretty
big one, a pretty hefty uh fee, I guess because
each car, each Pontiac Transam that came off the line. Um.
But you know, via this uh this this offer, this
uh this deal I guess that was penned between sec
and Pontiac between somewhere between nineteen seventy and nineteen seventy

(20:37):
one amounted to five dollars per car that came off
the line with the trans Am nameplate. So by the
time they get to nineteen seventy nine, and they have
those one hundred seventeen thousand, one hundred eight cards. This
means that s c C eight gets a gets a
check for over half a million dollars. Yeah, we're almost

(20:58):
six hundred thousand dollars for that one year, just for
nineteen seventy nine. So they've been producing these ever since. Now,
I did the inflation calculator thing if you if you're
interested in this, so I went with the nineteen seventy
nine number because that was probably uh um, now the
way to go. I guess in nineteen seventy nine, five
dollars was the equivalent of sixteen dollars and seventy eight
cents today. So five again, So if we extrapolate that

(21:21):
five dollars in nineteen seventy nine, that amounted to almost
six hundred thousand dollars in today's money, that would be
a nearly two million dollar check. I mean, it's just
under two million dollars. So that's what that's what type
of money we're talking about, just from the production of
one product or one vehicle meant for the sec A.
That was huge money for them and it really helped them.

(21:43):
It went a long way in um as it says,
easing some financial issues that that organization had at the time.
I can imagine, right, because at this time in history,
the glory days of the series are you know, in
the past. So the there at a point where every
little bit helps allow Okay, Um, yeah, I guess you

(22:05):
could say that. I suppose. So the sec A is
still wildly popular. Um, the trans Am series is still
in existence. You know, they've been around since nineteen sixty six.
You can still go to the trans Am Series and
and uh, you know, check out you know what they're
doing today. So it's still around. But you're right, I
think there was kind of a glory day era that
that it had long gone at that point by nineteen

(22:26):
seventy nine. And you know, maybe, I'm sure along the
way there were there were points that recaptured some of
that magic, but maybe not as much as the late
nineteen sixties early nineteen seventies. I guess it's fair to
say that at the very least they were at kind
of a lull. Yeah that time. Oh that's a good
that's a perfect way to say it been. So maybe
how about this, Um, maybe we should talk a little

(22:46):
bit about the the engine of this vehicle, just a
little bit of the sixty nine and then we'll we'll
move on, we'll get to the seventy seven, maybe some
other some other related stuff. Um, but let's talk about
the the engine that was off in nine. Okay, the
engine that was offered in nineteen. So again this was

(23:07):
a limited production special right as as is often the case, Well,
every single one of those transams was considered a special
special unit, which means that it gets some extra TLC
in the performance department, so they'll have a couple of
extra like top shelf equipment components. The standard engine was
the ram Air three version of the four hundred cubic

(23:29):
inch V eight and this was the four h O
with functional ram Air high output awesome high output. Yeah,
and though this was new to Pontiac in sixty nine, um,
the core of the engine dated back to sixty seven.
So it's still had some stuff. If we I don't

(23:50):
know how deep you want to get into this, guy,
maybe not too d We don't need to go into
the full specs in this whole thing. It's just that
it had some extras. It had some I guess a
little bit more performance to ing that went along with it.
And I mean that we're talking about things like you
know it well still had the same compression ratio. It
had you know, a quadrit jet style four bill carburetor. Uh,
same you know, the same carburetor as the Base four nine.

(24:13):
But there were you know, other stuff that there was
other stuff that was a little bit different, Like the
block was drilled for four bolt main caps even though
it had two bolt caps installed. Um, there's a hotter
cam shafts. You can imagine a little lumpier cam, you know,
a little more performance or cam. And that that the
air induction system and uh, the exhaustban folds were redesigned,

(24:34):
which all all of which cast cast iron, by the way,
cast iron by the way. Yes, that was the time.
It was the time when people were as worried about weight.
But U but the this, this whole, all this leads
us to one significant thing which I think a lot
of people who were fans of trans ams have noticed.
And you probably noticed when you're driving yours. Although although

(24:59):
the paper work will say this is around three five horsepower,
that's probably well, it's a conservative estimate. Conservative is a
nice way to say. Yeah, well, I mean, because that
was supposed to be only five more horsepower than the
than the base model four hundred engines. So you know

(25:19):
that with all the extra add on stuff that they
had had had had done to this UM that you know,
that's that's definitely conservative estimate. They were trying to kind
of underrate the thing on paper, so that maybe it
was I don't want to say a sleeper, but but
it had a lot more power than you might think. UM.
So if you wanted to up that even even more,
you could select there was there was an optional four
ram Air four selection that you could make. However, UM,

(25:43):
only fifty five of those six nine seven Transman's built
were ever equipped with the ram are four UM and
they were all installed in the coop bodies. And that's
because I think it was kind of an expensive option.
Um it was almost six bucks. Yeah, it was well
six hundred bucks at that time. There's a lot of money.
So yeah, it costs a lot to add that. But
but here's the thing, UM, you know, there were this

(26:05):
is the one that's most desirable to collectors as well.
There are a lot of differences between this one, UM,
and you know, the internal components, I guess I should say,
I mean cylinder head design being one of those. But
the factory rating on this thing was three horsepower at
fifty rpm. Now you have to take into account, however,
that this engine was also the same engine that they
used in the in the g T O in the

(26:26):
same year and it was rated around three hundred and
seventy horse power. So and that one they said was
underrated as well. They had kind of backed that one
down on paper, so you can you can kind of
see what's going on here. They're they're they're, um, oh,
I don't know, what would you say, they underrate them
purposely again, so that and I don't know if this
is like this is probably this is what pre e

(26:47):
p A days. So it wasn't that that wasn't a concern.
This might have just been trying to kind of what
snowball the competition, you know, maybe again a little bit
that's that's it's sand bagging, That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah,
so probably a little bit of that too. So um,
interesting tactics that they had. Now you might be also
surprised to learn that these trans ams, I guess the

(27:08):
base form of the trans am came to the three
speed manual transmission. Now it sounds a little funny these
days to have a three speed manual, but that was
not all that uncommon as a floor shifter. Of course,
it was a heavy duty unit, um, but very few
actually were delivered with that gearbox intact. So yeah, the
majority actually came with the optional uh munthsi wide ratio
four speed. Yeah, that's right. And that same month, see

(27:30):
that four speed was also offered on the Ramar four.
In fact, on the Ramar four that was the only
option you could get. And Pintak was also wanting to
fit a three speed turbo hydramatic automatic against either the rant,
either of the Ramar engines. Uh, you know, on the
option chart if you if you wanted the automatic, you
could get it three speed automatic, which wasn't it wasn't terrible,

(27:51):
It wasn't great, wasn't terrible? Was it the best? That
wasn't the best. So it's weird because you can tell
now already in the beginning there were clear differentiations between firebirds, right,
and not all firebirds were created equally. Sometimes you will

(28:11):
hear automotive historians refer to things as you know, lesser firebirds,
which is which is weird. It's weird to hear, Yeah, well,
I mean, I guess you if you wanted to look
at the pecking order, if you want to call it that,
it would be you know, Camaro Firebird, Firebird trans Am,
if you want to call it firebirdger. You could just
call it trans am if you wanted to um if

(28:32):
if you wanted to like place it in order. That way,
That's typically the way it went. And again that kind
of depended on how you had your Firebird option and
how you had your trans Am option. You could you
could kind of pick and choose and to kind of
make these a little better, a little bit, a little
bit stronger in some areas that I think everybody gets
the idea that, you know, if you're ordering your own vehicle, uh,
you can really kind of go out on a limb.
As long as you have the money to back that up, right,

(28:54):
you can. You can order it just about any option.
You can order the police package for a lot of
cars too, And then made him you know what, let's
let's move on because I'm I'm going to get into
a rabbit hole here that I don't want to get into.
Do you want to talk about the chat? And maybe
maybe a little bit all right, So this is the
thing that that that the trans Am didn't necessarily deviate
from the general Firebird underpinnions. However, they had a few

(29:16):
really discreet but significant upgrades that that made this UM
a special product, you know, something that's something unique. Yeah. Yeah,
So Herb Adams Racer and a guy well known as
a suspension expert, had earlier said that the soft rubber
bushings were allowing unwanted deflection, especially in steering control and

(29:42):
feedback when you had larger wheels and tires. So and
of course the trans Am did. Yeah, And of course
the trans Am did so they used some high density
control arm bushings to combat this UM from the mandated
edition of fourteen by seven inch wheels. So that that

(30:04):
sounds like a small thing, but it makes a difference
in handling. Oh sure, yeah, that's exactly right. Everything was
about track performance, right, so um things like that. The
this is a terrible name for the for the brakes
high effort power front disc brakes. Now high. When you
say high effort power front disc brakes, it makes it
sounds like you have to put in the high effort
to make them work. That's I think that was not

(30:25):
what they meant. These are high effort. They're putting out
high effort. Uh. So the power front disc brakes with
single piston calipers, heavy duty heavy duty coil springs, hydraulic shocks,
and again the high effort variable ratio power steering box
were included. Now again I would drop the high effort
part of that if it was if it was me UM.
Also this is pretty significant too. There was a one

(30:45):
inch diameter anti roll bar with improved end links that
contributed to greater corn and stability in the front end,
and of course the front end being completely revamped, they
had to do something at the back ends. They included
heavy duty versions of the rear semi elliptic multi leaf springs,
and they also had stag heard hydraulic shocks. And you
could also get a safety trail what something called this
and I think this is a brand name, but safety

(31:05):
track UM limited slip differential. Uh you get well. I
think the standard was also thinned cast iron drum brakes
at the back. So again still still drum brakes at
the back, but discs at the front. And if you
wanted to, Pontiac offered Coney adjustable shocks as optional equipment.
UM you can get other optional equipment too, And I
find this one pretty interesting. Uh you could get what

(31:28):
was really popular, these these rally two wheels, and then
there was also an option for wire wheel covers and
get this, a single buyer opted for that, so there
was one of them made with wire wheels in. But
you know what, it's funny, but that makes it valuable, Yeah,
because it's the only one I know. Isn't that strange?
It's like those little things, like just something small like that,
if you were to find that original one, that would

(31:49):
be worth something because of that scarcity is weird. It's
a strange thing. It might not be the most desirable feature,
you know. I mean maybe it is. I don't know,
but um, it just seems like, you know, little things
like that really add up in uh in in auction value.
So can we hop inside the vehicle real quick? I
just want to look at some of this stuff. As

(32:09):
you know, this is a pony car, which means that
there's an emphasis on performance Rolls Royce. This is not
and it's not intended to be. So the interior of
the Firebird, um really depended on the I guess the
the package went with. But what was standard was upholstery

(32:32):
called marrow Kide, and a formula style steering wheel was
added later on marrow kide. Marrow kaide that like Corinthian leather. Yeah,
I wonder, I mean, I wonder what that is really
But I have to check out a sixty nine trans am.
Now you could go up, you could go up a
step and get you know, wood grain inlay around the instruments. Um,

(32:54):
a passenger side. Uh, the real word is assist grip.
But I think we all know what they're actually called. Yeah,
we know it. They's are the handles, Yeah, the handles exactly.
So the uh. Then then they have vinyl seating surfaces,
door or door panels and rear side panels with arm

(33:15):
rest you could get and uh they would have you know,
some more I guess aesthetic things, you know, like a
molded trunk mat or rail garnish or side rail garnish moldings. Right. Uh,
only six people got the folding rear seat. Well there
you go, another another valuable option. Right. I wonder if

(33:35):
wire wheels. Guy, that's who he is in my head,
So if he has wire wheels and a folding rear seat,
I wonder if that would be be anything. But you
know what find what I find most interesting maybe is
the outside, of course, because they had you know, there
there were um well we'll talk about the decals and
stuff like that too, but um there was a sixty
in wide rear deck spoiler which actually perforded provided down
force at higher speeds. And the paint, I mean, that's

(33:58):
that's something that a lot of people focus on too.
There were there was a paint called Cameo ivory paint
that was trimmed with something called Tyroll Blue, which were
dual racing stripes. Um. And they also had this really
cool I mean, if you look at the hood, these
are really easy to distinguish because um, they had this.
Um it was a real of course, it was a
low wide hood and it had these dual ramar induction

(34:20):
scoops that were set right up near the front of
the hood and if you look at them. You can
look at a model or anything of the you know,
the trans am and check this out. But the that
hood design, that hood scoop design was just so cool
and it's so distinctive for that first year. And along
with the white, white and blue paint scheme, which by
the way, was a nod um to the America what
was called America's International sports car racing color schemes. So

(34:41):
you know, when we went racing overseas, we used this
white with blue stripes paint paint scheme and it was
it was undeniably you know, the the American paint scheme
and a lot of actually all countries that they compete
have a paint scheme that they adhere to when they
race internationally. And you know, we we can't be mistaken

(35:03):
about this. This this became iconic. Even people who don't
consider themselves car people will recognize the trans am. Yeah. Well,
it's a lot of a lot of exterior cues that
lead them to to differentiate these between standard fire and
I'll say standard, it's not standard, but a standard Firebird.
And you know, at this point, Scott, let me ask you.

(35:25):
You want to talk a little bit more about the uh,
the famous Bandit Firebird. Yeah, let's move on at this point.
I mean, I think we've we've probably exhausted a lot
of our information about the sixty nine clearly, right, too much, maybe,
but it but it is important to know where they
come from. But yeah, I would like to talk about
the nineteen seven Bandit trans Am or you know, a
lot of people call it the Bandit trans Am, but

(35:46):
let's do that after word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Don't call it a come back. Well you could quality
come back, because we just came back. We have looked
at the origin of the fire Bird, and there the

(36:08):
trans am, and we are now exploring a little more
detail the nineteen seventies seven Pontiac Firebrew trans Am a
k a. The Bandit trans Am a k a. The
reason that so many people immediately went out to buy one,
that's right. And recently I think it was, boy, I
think it was somewhere around sixteen, wasn't it that there

(36:32):
was a a Barrett Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona. Yeah,
this is crazy. At nineteen seventy seven trans am that
was used to promote the Smoking the Bandit movie sold
for five hundred and fifty thousand dollars at this Barrett auction, Uh,
Barret Jackson auction rather, and I think it was in
January of I think it was when it was. Now,

(36:54):
this is incredible. I mean a lot of people really
raised their eyebrows when this happened. Now it was a
um again, it wasn't one that was actually used in
the movie. Is one that was used to promote the movie, right,
that's the difference. So this would be on a circuit
making appearance, and it's pristine, it's beautiful, it's really it's
a really really good condition. A picture of Burt himself

(37:15):
leaning on it. And I'm sure he signed it somewhere.
I'm not, you know, a hunter present confident that, but
I'm sure he did. A lot of people like to
take these older trans ams that have been restored, take
them to Burt Reynolds and have him sign them, you know,
as if they're part of the movie history or something. Um,
you know, this one, I think I believe this one
is signed by him, is right? And again I want

(37:36):
to point out, I don't know if I said this earlier,
but this is not the very first black and gold,
uh you know combination trans am that they created. Um
it is. However, in nineteen seventy seven special edition trans
am UM had you know, the big gold bird on
its hood and it's the car that kind of made
you know that this logo, this big you know, the
firebird that the screaming chicken legendary. Um. But again it's

(37:59):
not the very first one that had the black and
gold combination. Was just that, like maybe the most famous.
That's why we'll put it. Was an interesting trivia about
this guy, this specific promo car. It's not automatic, is
it really? Yeah? I wonder if I wonder I had
never paid attention to this. I wonder if the ones
used in the film were automatic. I doubt it. They're
probably manual transmission. And I haven't watched the film recently

(38:22):
enough to you know, like to focus in on something
like that, but I bet it was a manual transmission. Now,
the cars in the movie, of course we said they
were destroyed, right, they were not. They were not nineteen
seventy seven model cars, by the way, which I find
really interesting. The cars that were provided for them. Of course,
you know, they shoot these movies early, so they wanted
to get out the latest product and the way to
make them, I kind of dressed them up. They knew

(38:43):
what was coming for for Pontac trans Am early, of course,
in the Pantact division, so they offered up these vehicles
that had kind of these and I won't say prototype,
I'll say early production. Maybe they took the front ends
off of the nineteen seventy seven, And by the front end,
I just mean that front plastic clip they had the headlights,
you know, find it. UM. They they added nineteen seventy
seven front ends to nineteen seventy six models. So the

(39:05):
cars in the movie where nineteen seventy six, Uh, the
differentiation would be there. The main difference would be that
the seventy six model had roundheadlights, where the nineteen seventy
seven model they were going to switch over to square
head lamps. And so when you see them, you spot them,
you can know instantly that this is the nineteen seventy
seven versus a seventy six. That's how they can tell UM.

(39:25):
But I find it interesting that they do stuff like that,
They allow these UM, these early release UM products, you know,
Like I I don't know if they at the time
they were so worried about spy photographers like they are now.
Probably not. I don't think it was as as big
a thing as it is now. UM, But apparently they
didn't have any problem, you know, letting the people on
the studio lot know what the seventy sevens we're gonna
look like, Yeah, I have a thing that I think

(39:49):
is really cool. For the listeners, Scott, and I'm trying
to figure out if I should let the bad er
out of the bag now or wait till the end.
If it's really cool, why don't you hang onto it?
All right? Just a minute or two, because I've only
got a couple more things I want to share. Okay,
but I've officially foreshadowed this. I promised at school. I promised.
It's all right, We've got it. We've gotta get to
we can't forget it, all right. So here's here's the thing.

(40:12):
I mentioned that it wasn't the very first one. Now,
the black and gold paint graphics in the gothic type
typeface and all that had appeared on earlier Pontiac prototypes
and including a fiftieth anniversary edition trans am that came
out in nineteen seventy six, so again the year that
they were trying to make look except like a seventy seven.
Um what how? What was missing, however, from the nineteen
seventy seven special edition car was the four hundred and

(40:33):
fifty five CUBICNCH engine that had earlier that had given
the earlier cars the street cred, and then in its
place as kind of the top performance engine that was,
you know, available. There was this optional two hundred horse
power four cubic V eight, which is the famous, I'll
say famous, the t A six point six Leader, which
you know, of course was designated by a badge that

(40:54):
was on the Shaker hood scoop. We didn't even talk
about the Shaker hood scoop. But the shakerhood scoop is
a cool feature too. Um, I love to watch that thing.
Then my old, my old trans am, my own seventy eight.
It's just kind of love to watch that thing rumble
as I was driving. It was such a cool feature.
I thought it was non functional on the one that
I had, which was pretty lame. I guess when you
think about it, the earlier ones were functional. By seventy eight.

(41:16):
It was non functional but just kind of sat on
top of the engine. It got the airflow from somewhere else.
I probably could have swapped it out with a functional one,
but never did. It's just a neat feature, but it
looked really cool with the cutout hood thing. Um alright,
see how I'm digressing here. So the six point six
was available with either a board Warner Super T ten
four speed manual transmission or a turbo hydramatic three fifty automatic,

(41:39):
except in California, where all the transams were fitted with
a one hundred and eighty five horsepower four hundred and
three cube against Oldsmobile V eight and an automatic transmission.
So if you're in California, we're just kind of out
of luck. You were all the way down to a
hundred and eighty five horse power in this car that
you know, by the way, weighs three thousand, eight hundred pounds,
So it's a heavy car. It's deceptively heavy. It's not

(42:02):
it doesn't look all that big if you stand next
to one, it's it's big now compared to what's on
the streets now. But um it was deceptively small at
the time. But again, thirty eight hundred pounds, that's a
heavy car. Lots of metal in that thing, lots of
rusty metal in that thing. Eventually, you know, maybe two
years after production cast iron. Oh well, they those things

(42:22):
they were notoriously um I don't know if you want
to say, not treated or just poorly treated at the factory.
So that you know, and if you're in the rust belt,
those things that the panels just disintegrated after about two
or three years of salt, you know, on the roads,
and you know just maybe you know, lack of you know,
rinsing that stuff off, or if you live near the coast,

(42:43):
maybe the panels just disappeared on the thing. They were awful,
really bad. I'm glad we're passed that time. Now. Cars,
cars are made so much better now for you know,
RUSS prevention, rust protection, material science is just it's pretty
rare now, pretty rare, not not entirely h percent gone,
but it's pretty rare to see a car rusting out

(43:03):
like that. A modern car, Yeah, yeah, they're mostly going
to be older now, just because the coatings are different. Yeah,
and the underlying material is often not metal. But then
but then when it is metal, you would almost have
to have an accident or have a scrape that goes
so deep that it did it mars the metal surface.
But again, back then, it wasn't unusual to see a
car that looked like Swiss cheese and the panels and

(43:24):
and mind, did you know the back panels look like
they were terrible, just awful. They had the flap in
the wind there so bad and almost flap in the wind.
But but yeah, they're pretty bad and uh again just
different time, different materials, all that. But um, okay, so
here's the thing. If you're strapping for a trans am
today and we're not, We're almost done here, so we'll

(43:45):
get to your your your moment here Ben at the
end with the special treat, special treat, what do you say?
It was maybe a secret? Not not a secret? Big news.
It's the big, big news, big reveal. I like special treat,
special treat. Sounds like we're gonna feed people. Okay, I
don't want to get anybody angry. Alright, alr, it's big news. Alright.
So um, I guess maybe we could talk just a

(44:07):
little bit about current value because that's not a lot
of people's minds. If you want to get one of
these now, and a lot of people do you know,
for some nostalgia purposes or you know, this is a
car they had in high school or they wanted in
high school or whatever. But if they you know this, uh,
this article and I think it's from I want to
say it's from He means yes, Heman's Motor News. They say,
if you're shopping for a nineteen seventy seven trans am today,
the good news is that the cars are plentiful enough.

(44:29):
You can find a nice example in the twenty thousand
dollar range and projects car project cars for eight thousand
dollars and under way under in some cases, now I
would say way under. In some cases, those are the
ones that are in the condition like what I had
way under eight dollars. I mean, there are the ones
that are rusted out and rotted. You don't want those.
But um, if you're looking for a well equipped one,

(44:51):
you know that's that's in great condition. You know, like
what they call a show stopping sc with black interior,
four speed, you know, the two horse powerful were under
a CB radio CB radio. Um, you better be prepared
to spend upwards of forty dollars according to popular pricing
guides now, um, Hemmings and Edmonds and all those, you know,

(45:12):
they kind of weigh in on this about what the
price is in just a moment. But there was one
that was recently listed in Hemmings. I think it was
a seventy seven trans Am special edition with an automatic transmission,
private seller and they were asking just under seventy thousand
dollars for this one. And that's not a that's not
one that was you know, used to promote the movie
or anything. Of course, that one goes for half a million.

(45:33):
So the trend, I guess if you want to look
at the trend since about two thousand twelve, the trend
is up in The value trend was somewhere around forty
one thousand, three hundred dollars. So, uh, they are expensive.
If you want to pick up one today that's in
really good condition. Of course you can have one restored.
You can restore it yourself, but you know the pitfalls there.
You know that you might end up spending more money

(45:55):
to restore it than it would be valued at when
you're done. That happens a lot with people. I mean,
we we don't give advice. We've had somebody right in
recently and if you're listening right now, and I hope
you are, Um, just because you know like trans ams,
like I like trans ams, We just don't give that
kind of advice. So we just we just can't do it.
It's ultimately it's ultimately up to you. We can. We can, however,

(46:18):
as Scott said, give a word of caution going into
a restoration project. Um, even if you're all your your
eyes are dotted and your teas are crossed, you know
what I mean, Even if you do everything right by
the book, extensive research before you get in there, the

(46:40):
truth of the matter is that you have no way
of predicting what else you might end up, you know,
quagmireed in well exactly, And that's why we can't offer
the advice. So the question, you know, would be should
I restore it or should it should I know, buy
one that's in poor condition restore it? Or should I
buy one that's already complete and you know, ready to go.

(47:00):
And we just can't answer that question. There's there's too
many variables. So yeah, I don't even know if I
used the word quagmire correctly. I don't know if you
can use it that way. Yeah maybe, I know. I
think that's right embroidered. Yeah that's about even better. Yeah, yeah, alright.
So I think I've pretty much exhausted my my trans
am material, at least what I have in front of me,

(47:22):
and I could probably talk for I don't know, twenty
more hours been about my own experience with my my
first car and my trans am. And I did a
little bit on our first Car episodes and did so
a little bit more if you want to you know,
listen to that. That's fine, and there's a lot more
to it than that. Um, but I can't what did
you give it a nickname? No? I did not. I didn't.
I've never been one to name my cars. No, no, never.

(47:44):
I've had friends that have named every car they've ever owned,
but I've never never done it myself. You you ever
name a car? I have in the past, but they
haven't been like, um, anthropomorphized kind of names. You know
what I mean. It's not like, here's my car. Yeah,
it's not like yeah, it's it's not like, um, you know, uh,

(48:09):
Chelsea and I are headed out to Savannah. Yeah, so
you caught like the silver Bullet or something like that.
Something something cool, something cool, yeah, or something lame. But
all right, so what's this? This big news? What? He
Holy smokes man, I'm glad you asked. I've been on
the edge of my seat trying to try and not
to spill the beans early. But I was looking into

(48:33):
the pricing on these cars too. Write and your spot
on a project car, you can get in for eight
thousand dollars, but you really don't know how much it's
actually going to cost you to make it drivable um
and if you want to get one of the nice ones,
one of the you know, like the premier, Burt Reynolds

(48:54):
touched it whatever, farted around it. Kind of kind of
trans am that's gonna be like, you know, that could
easily be a half million dollars. But today until August you,
Scott Me, Noel Dylan, everybody listening, everybody can enter into

(49:17):
the fort anniversary two thousand seventeen Bandit giveaway. What's that?
So to promote this, uh, Burt Reynolds is sponsoring a
Bandit trans am giveaway that celebrates the fort anniversary of
smoking in the Bandit. So he personalized it more so
than just like signing it. He did. He did a

(49:40):
bunch of stuff with this um as a certificate of authenticity.
He signed it. Uh, you've got the all the custom stuff.
It's basically they it's the movie car. He didn't build
the engine or anything, diddy because he's kind of old.
I mean, I wonder if he smelted the iron himself.

(50:00):
I mean, like Burt Reynolds, don't get me wrong, but
but I just don't know if he's you know, a
skilled engine builder at this point in his life. So
you're ignoring the old thing. No, no, I've totally I
backed you up. A metal jokes fine, I thought it
was a good joke, Scott, thank you. I needed that validation.
I needed validation. So the grand prize is one nineteen

(50:24):
seventy seven Ponty trans Am customized to the hilt, one
steps and hat uh the some more memorabilia for the
trans am that I think they just put in the car,
and fifteen thousand dollars to go toward uh paying Uncle Sam.
Theres all right, makes sense? Right? I mean it's weird
because remember when Oprah gave away all those cars and

(50:47):
it was this huge controversy because all of a sudden,
these people had this tax bill as a disaster. This
is a disaster. But we all we all learned something, Yeah,
we did, especially the people in the audience. So if
you want to trans am you haven't August twenty nine,
two hundred and two seventeen, look at me to go
to ww dot dream giveaway dot com and search for

(51:11):
the bandit car. And we're not associated with us in anyway,
so whatever happens happens. But I might enter that myself.
I'd love to win that car. Um you know there.
I think there's other stuff going on too. There's there's
a company that is taking Camaros and changing them into
trans ams. You know, there's a body there's a body
switch over, there's engine changes going on. I only want

(51:34):
looked at this for two or three minutes. It looked
like it was really impressive. I want to say that
the numbers were like, um over a hundred thousand dollars
for the car, you know, plus you have to give
them the donor car, you know, the new model Camaro.
But you know there's their body switches that go on,
there's engine changes, and I think that the price was
or the horsepower was somewhere around like eight hundred and

(51:55):
forty if he went for the top end, uh, you
know optional package that they they offered. It was a
supercharged version eight hundred and forty horse power and I
think it was like seven hundred and thirty pound feet
of torque at the wheels. Uh. So these are really strong,
strong vehicles. Um. The factory that's doing this, I think
it's in Florida, if I remember, Uh, they wouldn't allow
the person that was doing the show, the review of

(52:16):
these vehicles to drive any of them, because every single
one of them is a is a custom order. You know,
someone has delivered that to be built and they just
couldn't allow it to go out on the road that way,
so they had kind of a factory test vehicle. There
was a little bit underpower compared to the big version
that they make in the most expensive Monster version. Um,
so you couldn't really drive that one. But it looked
very impressive. And I think they look really cool. I

(52:39):
I know, I've seen the trans am on the the
Auto Show circuit. I think it was just even last year.
It look looked really good, the modern trans am. I'm
you know, maybe it's nostalgia, Ben, but I would buy one.
I would. I would. It's it's so unique, it's so
interesting looking. I would get one. I know it's flashy.
I might get tired of it. Yeah, I might get
tired of it, but but I think it's a cool
thing to have. Great to take it on our road rally.

(53:02):
Sure would. Which brings us to some our big reveal.
We We mentioned that we went out with a rally
North America to the Ohio Valley seven hundred with a
lot of crucial help from our friends and longtime listener
Glenn Beck. Yeah, this was late in and we ended

(53:24):
up making a documentary about it with our fantastic crew,
and it is now online. It's live. You can check
it out on Amazon. But wait, Scott, but wait, Ben,
you might be saying I don't have Amazon Prime. Well,
have no worries. You can watch it for free. Yeah.

(53:47):
Everybody gets to watch it for free, regardless if you
have a Prime account or not. Yeah, we just want
want you to check it out. Is a look at,
in some ways, a very humbling look at a at
at our very first road rally and our experience, uh
learning the ropes. Yeah, and this is a this is

(54:08):
a long it's a long form program, a documentary. This
is I'll tell you and I'm gonna toot our own
horn here just a little bit. But this is no
YouTube video, Ben, this is something. This looks This looks
really nice. I'm super pleased with the way this turned out.
I think, I think, I'm just I'm really happy. I was,
I don't want to say surprised by it, because I
knew what we were creating was was quality. You know,
we have good equipment here at the studio to use,

(54:31):
but to see that on a big screen. It's really impressive.
I mean it looks nice. I think I think fans
of car stuff are really gonna dig this this video.
Check it out. It's called the Great American and grow
at the Great North American Road Rally and you can
find it on the house. It all you have to
do the search house stuff works and it will come up. Yeah. Yeah,
And so we wanted to to thank our fantastic crew

(54:52):
that put it together. We had Casey and our producer
Nolan went with us, and then we also, uh, we
had our or friend and coworker Chandler edit this and
Tyler everybody, everybody put a little bit of there there blood,
sweat and tears in this thing. Definitely, Yeah and uh,
and we're super happy with the end product. It's really

(55:14):
really I feel it's really really nice. Take a look
at it and see what you think too. And I'd
love to get some reviews. Yeah. I want to get
back out on the road. And if I win a Firebird,
I hope you don't resent me, Scott, because I'm gonna
go out of road rally. I'm gonna put I'm gonna
put a link up on our Facebook page at some
point and I hope it comes, you know, hope that
link appears before this episode here is. But if it doesn't,
just go to Amazon and search for Amazon Amazon Video

(55:36):
and search how stuff works for the road rally and
you'll find it and again tell us what you think
would love to hear. And while you're online, if you
want to check out any of the other audio episodes
we've ever done, then you are in luck. You can
go to car Stuff Show dot com and check out
every single one. I don't know, we don't even really
keep track of how many there are up on us. Yeah, yeah,

(56:01):
well we'll figure well, we'll figure it out before we
get to one thousand. How about that. I I don't know.
That's a big promise that we'll figure it out. Yeah,
uh yeah. And somebody just right in and tell us
when we accidentally hit that number. And you can also,
as Scott said, check out our Facebook and Twitter where
we are car Stuff h s W. And our last
biggest thank you goes to Brisket Tea for the excellent suggestion.

(56:24):
Now we call on Brisket Turner. We call Brisket Turner
Brisket Turner, but we'll call m andrew S about Okay,
Brisket Turner a k. A. Andrew S, thank you, Thank
you immensely. We thought this was a fascinating topic and
there's a lot of stuff here and uh, you might
have just got me a free car man or your
or yourself maybe us. So thank you so much. And

(56:47):
if you would like to take a page from Brisket's
book and write to us directly with an idea for
something we should cover in the future, your own stories
about the fire Bird or you know, Burt Reynolds were open. Uh,
we'd love to hear from you. Our best ideas come
from you, so write to us directly. We are car
stuff at how stuff work dot com. For more on

(57:13):
this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
M