This month’s car is a legendary car which is no longer in production, but became popular shortly after its introduction in 1967. It’s the Pontiac Firebird!

Introduction

The Pontiac Firebird is a car model which has four generations. It started being produced in 1967 and stopped in 2002. This car was designed and produced by the American car brand Pontiac.

For many people, the Firebird is a legendary American car. The main purpose of the creation of this car model was to compete against the Ford Mustang, a very popular car which was a high-performance legendary car first presented in 1964.

First Generation (1967-1969)

The first generation of Firebird offered a wide range of engines to choose from. The base engine that came with the Firebird was a 3.8L inline-6 that could reach a maximum output power of 165hp. Other available engines were for example a 5.3L V8, or the high-performance 6.6L V8 that could produce more than 300hp.

2, 3 or 4-speed manual and a 3-speed automatic transmission were the available transmission options. With the standard V8 engines, the car could reach more than 200 km/h.

Pontiac offered three trim levels for this generation:

Firebird (base)
Firebird Sprint
Firebird 400 (high-performance)

The Firebird 400 trim level included many upgrades in the suspension, engine, aerodynamics and in other aspects to make it more high-performance.

Second Generation (1970-1981)

This generation is the most popular among the other 3, mainly because of its agressive and fierce look. It stayed in production for 11 years. This generation has a lot of special and limited editions, including the Trans Am, 50th Anniversary edition, Sky Bird, Red Bird…etc, but the main 4 models were:

Firebird (standard)
Firebird Esprit
Firebird Formula
Firebird Trans Am

The number of available engines to choose from was a whooping 12 engines, which included several engine manufacturers, such as Buick, Chevrolet, Pontiac and Oldsmobile. On the other hand, the available transmissions were: 2-speed automatic, 3-speed automatic or manual and 4-speed manual.

Fun fact: The second generation Firebird was used as the iconic car known as “KITT”, which means “Knight Industries Two Thousand” in the popular 80s series “Knight Rider”

Third Generation (1981-1992)

The third generation Firebird was introduced in 1981 alongside the 1982 model Chevrolet Camaro, both being part of the same corporation, and it stopped being produced in 1992. This generation was the first to include factory fuel injection, 4-speed automatic and 5-speed manual transmission, 4-cylinder engines and hatchback bodies. The car was also restyled, to be more aerodynamic, achieving a .33 drag coefficient in the standard model, and .32 in the Trans Am edition.

These were the 3 main models:

Firebird
Firebird S/E
Firebird Trans Am

This generation only offered half the number of engines compared to the previous generation.

Even though this generation was not the most popular one, Pontiac still sold a great amount of Firebirds.

Fourth Generation (1993-2002)

This was the last generation, which lasted in production 9 years. The new Firebird was completely restyled, having approximately 90% different parts compared to the previous version. Other major changes were made to the car, as for example 4-wheel ABS, rack-and-pinion power steering, short/long-arm front suspension…etc.

The number of trim levels remained the same, them being:

Firebird (This time with a V6!)
Firebird Formula (V8)
Firebird Trans Am

The available transmissions included a brand-new 6-speed manual, only available for Firebirds with V8 engines.

This last generation also offered some special editions, such as the 1992 Firehawk, which were modified Formula editions, which made the car produce over 350hp and 560 Nm of torque, or the 1994 Trans Am GT.

Trans Am editions

As we’ve seen before, Trans Am was an edition available in the 4 generation of Firebird. I just wanted to clarify that this concept is just like the “M” line of BMW, or “AMG” in Mercedes. Esentially, all them are upgraded versions of the standard models.