When the NHRA revised its rulebook for 1962, stating that only factory-installed components were legal for stock class competition, Pontiac responded by making its SD-421 a factory-installed option on Catalina and Grand Prix models. The 405hp beasts were not intended for daily transportation and carried no warranty—their sole purpose was destroying enemies.

Jerry Eckerle is a Pontiac loyalist who was fortunate enough to be of driving age at the zenith of the musclecar era. And while many of his contemporaries back in the day pored over the relative attributes of PMD’s performance machines in the hopes of someday buying one, this veteran lived his automotive dream. “I bought a used ’67 Firebird 326 H.O. four-speed convertible in July 1967 upon returning from Vietnam,” he tells HPP. “I traded it in on a new ’69 Firebird convertible in December 1968. It was equipped with a 350 H.O., a four-speed, and a 3.90 Safe-T-Track rear.

I was 1984 and I was a senior in high school when I got my first Pontiac—a red Firebird Formula with leather seats, T-tops, and a 3.23:1 rearend.

For many hobbyists, how they ultimately select one car over another at a Pontiac dealership to become its owner is a story they’ll cherish for the rest of their lives. Some say they were magically drawn to a particular car; others say they established a bond with the car from the moment they saw it.

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.

Is it genetic? Are some of us born with a desire to own and build Pontiacs, or is it learned? Since his parents were never really big on Pontiacs, for Kentuckian Eric Emmerich it appears to be learned from his uncles, Bud and Jerry—two hot rodders who sold their Chevys once they discovered the GTO. “They found the Pontiac to be more powerful and better looking than the countless Chevys they had owned and raced,” Eric tells HPP.

My grandfather and grandmother always drove Pontiacs, and I can remember my parents inheriting some of their hand-me-downs when I was a small child. My father had a ’54 Star Chief when I was a very young boy. Once I got older, I wanted to get a Pontiac of my own, but my taste leaned more toward the musclecar era.

History can be elusive. There are those who spend their lives chasing it down; others, whether through circumstance or other means, become a part of it. Still others are determined to recreate it as a pleasant diversion from what is invariably an unsuitable present. Rarely does history approach you in a parking lot and ask you to take possession of it.

Today Super-Duty Firebirds are so coveted that hobbyists go to great lengths to salvage a relic. Just 252 Super-Duty Trans Ams were produced during the ’73 model year, and value and rarity make them worth restoring. So what about a ’73 Super-Duty Formula? Only 43 were produced--10 with a four-speed. While they weren’t nearly as popular as a Trans Am, most weren’t laden with weight-adding options and they maintain a strong following today.

Growing up in Detroit in the late ’50s, the coming of the new decade meant more than watching a new model year for Pontiac unfold upon its home playing field. It also meant the birth of a new era of looks and performance targeted to America’s youth and youthful-thinking, on-the-go population.

“I didn’t want a race car,” says 46-year-old Steve Prouty of his and his wife, Julie’s, ’69 Firebird. “I just wanted a stylish, mildly modernized, and competent performer that my family and I could comfortably enjoy on the road.”

I’ve been an avid reader of High Performance Pontiac for 17 years, and it’s been a source of pleasure and stress relief during that time. I instantly smile when pulling my new issue out of my mailbox every month.

When it comes to driving a late-model GTO, what true performance enthusiast doesn’t get excited about a rear-wheel-driven, two-door coupe with a 400hp V-8 nestled under the hood? Gary Powers of Allen, Texas, certainly did.

For many High Performance Pontiac readers, “455 H.O.” brings to mind Pontiac’s large-cube, high-output powerplants from ’70-’72. True as that may be, to Steve Segal, an attorney in Bridgewater, New Jersey, who recently completed a six-year restoration on a ’72 Trans Am 455 H.O., Pontiac’s famous two-letter acronym stands for historical objective.

If you told Ed Burns back in 1997 that his ’67 GTO was going to be so visually stunning that it would receive multiple show accolades, and so well built that it would provide nearly endless hours of driving pleasure for him, he probably would have been skeptical. He had just rescued it from a shop that he contracted to restore it.

While some people never incur challenges while building a car, others are faced with ones that end the project. That could have easily happened to 35-year-old Jason Greenberg, an account coordinator. However, nothing could stand in the way of his determination to get his ’99 T/A and build it right. He has racked up nearly 100,000 miles in doing so, and it still looks brand new. What it does at the track is even more impressive.

By Steven Herrera
Los Angeles, California

The ’69 GTO was one Detroit great that did indeed live up to its press release, and the Judge package was the exclamation point on a Division and a decade that exemplified power, instant gratification, and excess.

While at first glance this ’02 T/A is easily recognizable as having rolled off a GM assembly line, a peek beneath its vanilla wrapper reveals a level of modification with style that Pontiac would never have been allowed to achieve. Tim Conneway’s Bird hides a nasty, growling turbo LSX engine poised to pounce on anything on the road, the track, or at a show.

Personalizing your Pontiac is one of the core pastimes of this hobby. If it wasn’t for the tinkerer who wanted to try new things, there wouldn’t be a performance aftermarket. Ron Schaefer is a born tinkerer, be it in the kitchen or under the hood of a car. He’s a chef by trade and car nut when the white hat is off. Having always owned American muscle, when he had the opportunity to whip something up with his ’05 GTO, he leapt at the chance.

If it looks, sounds, and accelerates like a Tri-Power, then it must be a Tri-Power, right? Not necessarily, as aircraft technician Ben Stegman’s Mayfair Maize ’65 GTO convertible proves.

My mom has a ’77 Trans Am and my dad (a long-time HPP subscriber) has a ’67 LeMans. Growing up, my parents always took my brother and me to car shows, so I learned a lot about classic cars.

Do you want to see more of Pontiac’s 25th Anniversary Trans Am pace car? Of course you do. That’s why we asked General Motors to search its archives for photography of the rare car.

In the March 2011 issue of High Performance Pontiac (on sale December 13), you can read about a 25th Anniversary Trans Am pace car, which was specially-prepped to lead NASCAR racers around the track in 1994.

The title sounds like the beginning of the old “a guy walks into a bar…” joke, but the punch line is more intriguing than funny.