2010 Pontiac Trans Am - Phoenix Rising... Again

Looking back just a year or two ago, few Pontiac loyalists could have imagined there wouldn't be a Pontiac Division in 2010 and the responsibility of creating a new Trans Am would fall to determined privateers.

Using a '10 Camaro as the basis for the project, Kevin Morgan of Kevin Morgan Designs (www.kevinmorgandesigns.com), Todd Otto of Otto Body (www.ottobody.com), Tod and Scott Warmack of Trans Am Depot (www.transamdepot.com) and a dedicated support staff of volunteers have done what Pontiac could not. They've built a running '10 Concept T/A and are forging ahead to produce the Kevin Morgan Phoenix T/A.

The seed for the project was planted in 2006 and sowed in 2009. It's growth was an exercise in personal initiative.

Kevin Morgan of Canton, Pennsylvania, was less than pleased back in 2006when he learned that a new Camaro was in the works but a Trans Am was not. Having been raised on a steady diet of Smokey and the Bandit movies, toys (he was only 4 years old when the first movie debuted), and legends, and owning an '81 T-top T/A, he felt that GM's snub of the T/A could not go unchallenged. Picking up the gauntlet thrown down by a wanting Pontiac hobby, Kevin decided to put his graphic-design talents to work to start a grassroots effort that would ultimately convince GM to bring back the Trans Am.

He created renderings of the new Camaro body with various vintage Trans Am noses and tails and posted some on www.transamcountry.com. The striking artwork and a "What if?" story written by the site's owner, Mike Barefoot, set Internet message boards on fire, and soon everyone was talking about Kevin's designs. Some were published in multiple issues of HPP over the next year, and Hot Rod, Smoke Signals, Popular Hot Rodding, and other car magazines took notice as well.

The next opportunity arose when Trans Am enthusiast Mike Montague arranged to have Kevin display his drawings at the T/A Nationals in 2006, where he received a very warm reception, signed his first autograph, and ended up designing the T/A Nats' event T-shirts for the next year's show. Kevin was then invited by The Bandit Run's owner, Dave Hall of Restore a Muscle Car (www.restoreamusclecar.com), to set up at the YearOne Experience in 2007 to sell his art.

Kevin was admittedly still ill-prepared for the excitement his renderings had caused. "My wife and I were selling the art off of the top of a cooler as the event staff could not locate a table for us," he recalls. I met Chip Foose and gave him my concept Trans Am poster, and had him sign one for me. I was also interviewed for 'Burt Builds A Bandit' on the DIY Network. It was certainly a trip to remember!"

Following more Trans Am Nationals, Bandit Runs, and meetings with Pontiac luminaries like Jim Wangers, and the concept of a 2010 Trans Am began to take on a life of its own.

Enter Tod Warmack. He, his brother Scott, and partner Jim Dowling own Trans Am Depot in Tallahassee, Florida. Primarily, the company performs restorations, and sells and reproduces parts for Second-Gen Trans Ams. Tod was impressed with Kevin's renderings back in 2006 when he first saw them, and assumed that Pontiac or an aftermarket company would pick up on them and build a Trans Am. When it still hadn't happened by April 2008, he decided to call Kevin and propose they do it together.

"I wanted to make a conversion kit with Kevin, and thought that he should be the one who gets honored from this project," Tod recalls. A partnership was born, and the search for suppliers was on.

Though the initial plan was to build a model of the Concept T/A to show to potential leads, that all changed when Todd Otto of Mead, Nebraska, came onboard. He has been doing bodywork for over 20 years. Starting right out of high school, he did collision work for about 15 years and has been doing restorations for the last 6.