One has to marvel at the canny foresight of the rare individuals who-back in the late-'70s and early-'80s-decided to purchase and squirrel away new performance cars, gambling on their eventual rise to collector status. After all, '78 and '79 were banner years for both the Firebird and the Trans Am. Pontiac's top-level performer accounted for basically half the total F-body sales in both years. To term them "commonplace" due to high production numbers and visibility wouldn't be too far of a stretch. Sure, rarer 10th Anniversary Pace Cars and Special Editions would be a more obvious choice for collecting, but to put down nearly 10,000 hard-earned dollars on a new Trans Am and lock it away took some imagination and guts.
On the styling department's...
On the styling department's drawing boards since 1976, the quad-headlight, "grille-less" redesign of '79 was granted a last-minute reprieve and Firebirds became, "A New Breed of Wow."
While he may not have been among the collectors responsible for preserving Pontiacs in a pristine state like those two-plus decades ago, 59-year-old Denny Sullivan, a business owner from Lebanon, Ohio, is certainly seeking them out today with the same eye on their future value.
Denny is no stranger to Pontiac performance. His first car-purchased new-was a '67 LeMans with a 326 H.O. "A friend and I did a little work on it; put in a solid lifter cam, the usual stuff you did back in your teenage years," he says. "Most guys out there were running GTOs and whatnot. It was fun blowing away big-block Chevelles with a LeMans."
Of course, adulthood and all its responsibilities sidetracked Denny from his young-blooded Pontiac passion for a few years. And while you would figure him for a musclecar-era collector, given his past, Denny took a different route. "Two or three years ago, I tapped the retirement fund and thought to myself, 'Why not have a little fun?'" he says. "So I started collecting cars of interest to me." He searched out and plucked the most solid gems of a more modern era than he'd grown up in, and played his hunches to see if what he'd chosen would prove to have a future payback.
The '79s received a few styling...
The '79s received a few styling alterations to the rear spoiler and the full-width appearance taillight/tail panel treatment.
To date, his collection contains Pontiacs that represent a series of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. There's his blue '78 Trans Am that sat in a dealership showroom until the mid-'90s before moving on to a first owner, who then sold it to Denny. It has only 75 miles on the clock and still boasts its protective plastic on the seats. A '79 Trans Am took a little more work to whip into shape given that a whopping 12,000 miles rolled under its wheels before Denny came across it. "That was the first one I found that kind of got me into it. The lacquer was worn, so it was sanded down to bare metal and repainted in basecoat/clearcoat. I took it to the T/A Nats. We didn't even have time to get the decals on it, so they put it in the Modified Class and it won. That really got me hooked," he explains.
There may well be "factory...
There may well be "factory original" air in those original Goodyear tires! Owner Denny Sullivan quips one of them, "has some reproduction air in it," due to a slow leak.
Moving closer to the present, one finds an '89 20th Anniversary T/A with 879 miles and a '99 30th Anniversary T/A with 4,000 miles also in his stable. Rounding out his collection is an '02 Carl Black Pontiac/GMMG Blackbird Collector Edition with a Phase II upgrade, making it a 1-of-1.
The '79 Trans Am before your eyes is his latest acquisition. He spotted it while surfing eBay, where it was up for auction by one of the many specialist dealers targeting hobbyist collectors nowadays. Well-optioned-and advertised as low-mileage-it was right up this low-key Trans Am aficionado's alley. Inside, it boasted a lavish Custom Trim Group Velour package in Mayan Red/Carmine Red, air conditioning, lamp group, color-keyed seatbelts and steering wheel, electric rear window defroster, dealer-installed AM/FM cassette, also known as the Radio Accommodation Package, front and rear floor mats and controlled-cycle windshield wipers. Other options include all Soft-Ray glass, door edge guards, roof driprails and sill moldings.