The rear view of this same...
The rear view of this same revised First-Gen proposal reveals wraparound taillamps, which would have made rear side-marker lights unnecessary. Also note the GP-style door handles.
Competitive performance models such as Dodge's Challenger, Plymouth's 'Cuda, and Ford's Mustang contained a functional Shaker scoop. According to Porter, Bill Collins and Herb Adams wanted that feature for the Trans Am too. "I was very against it since it cut into the hood's slender spine, and to make ours unique they faced the opening rearward. I argued that the scoop was too far forward of the high-pressure area at the base of the windshield to be effective, but I eventually saw the logic. It was entertaining to watch it shake and to control it with the throttle. The air valve opened under heavy acceleration too."
Upon accepting the fact that the Shaker was a Trans Am mainstay, Porter shaped it to follow the overall theme, and began searching for ways to integrate it into the rest of the car. "The bird that had appeared on first-generation cars had downward-facing wings, and it just looked dead. I felt we needed one that looked alive with upward-facing wings giving the appearance that it's flying, and I began working on it," Porter says.
Porter says that this photo,...
Porter says that this photo, taken at an Advance studio, depicts a variation of the revised First-Gen proposal. The oval split grille is dramatic and is used in conjunction with single headlamps. He added that the pronounced ironing board and chrome bumperettes were features that Bill Mitchell strongly favored.
"I thought a large version of this bird on the hood with its wings wrapped around the scoop would make it become a more integral part of the car. Ted Schroeder drew a sketch we hung up in the studio that everyone seemed to really like, but apparently Bill Mitchell never saw it," he recalls. "Herb Kadau, Pontiac's liaison to the studio, sent us a show car and I sent it down to the paint shop and started laying the bird out onto the hood. Apparently Mitchell walked through while I was at lunch that day and flipped out when he saw it. When I got back to my office he was on the phone telling me how much he really disliked the idea. I had to hold the phone away from my ear, but I heard every word! Needless to say, the hood bird went no further."
Still considering ways to better incorporate the scoop, Collins and Adams proposed the idea of a single racing stripe to Porter. "They brought a car to the studio with the skunk stripe taped on, and it really helped visually integrate the scoop," he says. "I refined their design a little, and we planned on using 3M's new dot-pattern process to give the decals' black border an airbrushed appearance into the color, but it became a problem as the dots tried to make the transition around the rounded corners. The pattern went haywire and just didn't look right, especially on the white stripe where the dots showed up so vividly, so we went with a solid black border. We kept it on the blue stripe because the problem was less noticeable, but there was a delay getting them into production."
Porter admits to having reservations about white as an exterior color on the Firebird since it can hide a vehicle's body shape. "There aren't any shadows and there's nothing to reflect the curves; it works better with sharper body angles. In spite of my doubts, however, it worked well with the Trans Am because of all its angular spoilers, but a white base-model Firebird looked too plain in my opinion. Metallic colors or medium and dark solids like British Racing Green or Ferrari Red can really accentuate the curvaceous body. Those are the colors I wanted to see the Trans Am in."
Production Begins
Though the production Trans Am was limited to Polar or Cameo White, and Lucerne Blue through 1972, Porter says he was pleased to see Brewster Green and Buccaneer Red offered in 1973. "I don't think the green was overly popular, and the red was more tomato-colored than I liked. Red pigments are not only very expensive, but I was told that a rich red wouldn't flow well in the reflow oven. They said it needed a substantial amount of white or black pigment to get red to flow properly when heated."