My wife, Jodi, and I have wanted our own collector
car for years. Financially, it just never seemed to be the right time so we
lived vicariously through my father, going to shows and car cruises in one of
his classic or antique cars that he had restored.
Then one day, in the middle of a substantial home
remodeling project, our contractor told us about this 1988 Pontiac Firebird
Trans Am GTA.
He said it’s been in his buddy’s garage for years
and he believed he would sell the car. We thought..."Wow! A true barn find!" Not
really being in the position to purchase, we made arrangements to go see the car
anyways.
It was gorgeous and with only 12k miles on the
odometer, it was something we knew we just couldn’t pass up! The car was stored
for 17 years, in a clean climate controlled garage (not really a barn find). It
was sitting sideways in the back of the garage on wheel dollies. The owner just
simply stopped driving it one day and began driving a different vehicle in their
collection and so there it sat.
The stickers on the windshield indicated that the
last time the car went through a Pennsylvania state inspection was 2003! A price
was negotiated and arrangements were made to have a flat bed pick it up. We
bought it without even knowing if it would run!
Thanks to our good friend, who is also a mechanic,
all the proper maintenance and repairs were preformed to get her running again!
We flushed the fuel and brake systems, replaced the fuel pump and injectors and
all four tires were replaced. The air conditioning compressor was bad so we
replaced it and upgraded the refrigerant. Finally we rebuilt the power antenna
motor and then we fired her up. After 17 years she roared back to life!
The history of the car is kind of interesting. As I
understand it, the car was purchased new in the Philadelphia area. At some point
the car was stolen. It was eventually recovered although, I do not know in what
time frame that this occurred. The GTA had sadly been partially disassembled. The
radio and taillights were missing, there was a scratch down the passenger side,
the windshield was missing and the VIN tag had been removed.
The second owner had purchased the car at an
insurance auction.
Oddly enough, because the major components of the
car were still intact, the car retains a clean title with a reissued VIN. The
taillights and radio were replaced, as were the windshield and the paint was
repaired.
Today she sits in our garage. It goes out on nice
days to car cruises or for drives in the country, sometimes just to go get ice
cream and occasionally to work. Since we’ve owned it, it’s never even seen the
rain.
Now, she’s not perfect. There are small details and
imperfections that we will enjoy detailing as time goes by but, she is better
than anything we ever dreamed that we would own!
Recent events in our lives have proved to us that
there is never a right time and that life is too short. The timing, financially,
was definitely not right for us to purchase this car but, it is a dream come
true and a continuation of a family tradition...in fact...our Trans Am bares the
Pennsylvania Antique license plate that was originally registered to my father’s
first antique car...a 1930 Chevy.
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