This is the first car I’ve ever restored and I did all the work myself,” says David Rosenbauer of his ’81 NASCAR Pace Car Trans Am.
Taking on such a project can be daunting, but David had some prior experience working on cars. “My grandfather purchased an auto repair shop in 1927, near Manitowoc, Wisconsin, that eventually became a Mobil service station, a Chevrolet dealer, and a body shop,” he tells HPP. “It was a family-run business from 1927 to 1997. My father taught me how to do bodywork and my uncle taught me mechanical work. Then, five years out of high school, I quit to pursue an insurance career.
“I always wanted to restore a car, and when I saw this rare T/A, I knew it was the one. Even though I did production bodywork in the past, I still learned a tremendous amount on this Pontiac—restoration takes time and patience.”
The code WBO LU8 turbocharged...
The code WBO LU8 turbocharged 301, like its normally aspirated siblings, was treated to the Computer Command Control system in ’81, which used an ECM and various sensors to tailor the engine tuning to the driving conditions. While it may seem archaic compared to what is done with EFI and engine management systems today, this is where it all started for Pontiac.
David describes his T/A as “the car my parents never let me have when I was in high school.” Here’s why. At the dawning of the Reagan era, the T/A was king of the street in handling and, in many instances, acceleration to everything but a Corvette, and the NASCAR Pace Car T/A (Y85 Recaro Trans Am) was the top rung of the T/A ladder for ’81. Though it was no quicker than any other Turbo T/A or Formula—like the Indy Pace Car of ’80 and the 10th Anniversary T/A of ’79—it had just about every T/A option as standard equipment. This meant a 301 turbo engine, Turbo 350 trans, 3.08:1 Posi rear, WS6 Performance package with an upsized 0.750-inch rear sway bar, stiffer springs, recalibrated shocks, stiffer bushings, 14:1 constant-ratio steering, and rear disc brakes on the mechanical side.
Though the exterior actually took a step toward subtlety by employing fewer colors than its predecessors, the interior was the most striking yet. A set of Recaro seats decked out in black cloth with bright red centers kept the driver and passenger in place when corner-carving and added a distinct style. The rest of the interior carried the same theme: An embroidered Firebird adorned each door panel and the center of the rear seatback, and the Formula wheel was leather-wrapped.
David says, “Many details...
David says, “Many details were painstakingly done with NOS parts or otherwise to achieve an OE appearance.” An example is this code-UA1 heavy-duty Delco Freedom battery. It appears to have been a display model, as he found it in this condition and it never had anything inside of it. A smaller modern battery is hidden in the case.
Comfort and convenience items included T-tops, A/C, tinted glass, custom interior, cruise control with a resume feature, AM/FM ETR cassette stereo, power antenna, HP speakers, dual rear speakers, black reveal moldings, power windows and door locks, pulse wipers, electric rear defogger, visor mirror, tilt wheel, and light group. All this opulence resulted in a $12,244 T/A Pace Car when a no-option Turbo T/A could be had for about $9,930.
How much would a Y85 cost in 2008 in need of TLC? David spotted this one in a barn in northern Arkansas. Though the Pontiac was “all there” and the original 301 Turbo engine had been recently rebuilt, it still needed a complete body, underhood, undercarriage, and trunk restoration. For $4,000 he had his project car and plenty of work ahead of him, as he planned to restore it predominately using GM NOS parts.
The exhaust represents one...
The exhaust represents one of the few deviations from stock. A 2.5-inch Y-pipe feeds into a same-sized headpipe, a Flowmaster cross-flow muffler, and twin tails.
Happily, no body panels had to be replaced during the restoration. That’s not to say the bodywork was a walk in the park, however. What the T/A lacked in rust-outs, it made up for in dents and surface rust. David took the outer shell to bare metal with paint stripper and 80-grit paper on a DA sander, and sandblasted the underside of the floors and trunk. The doors and rear quarters were particularly dented and required the most work—the latter had previous body work performed that needed to be redone.
He applied RestoGRIP filler over the pinholes in the trunk floor, and then POR-15’d the undersides of the floorpans and trunk. David shot the body with multiple coats of PPG Deltron Epoxy Primer and PPG Deltron Primer Surfacer, and blocksanded it four to six times, depending on the area, using 400-grit paper.
Once he deemed the body straight, he applied a coat of PPG sealer, followed by five coats of PPG Deltron 2000 Base in white and three in black, and then five coats of PPG Deltron Performance Glamour Clear. David employed a progression of grits—800; 1,000; 1,200; 1,500—for wet-sanding, and followed up with Norton’s Liquid Ice Buff/Polish/Detailer to reveal the shine. He also removed engine compartment parts and sandblasted and powdercoated them.