This Cameo White Trans Am is a little bit of a puzzle. The rectangular grille indicates a 1973 model year, as does the hood scoop, which says "455" rather than "455 H.O.".
For most Trans Ams, though, 1973 was the first year of the huge screaming chicken decal that covered the whole hood, while this one has the smaller bird on the nose cone plus the Admiralty Blue centerline stripe, like a '72 car. A '72 would also have an elongated honeycomb grille.
The 455 cubic inch engine in the Firebirds happened in response to a corporate edict from GM, that capped the compression ratio of all their divisions' cars at 8.5:1 so as to run on low-lead fuel. Pontiac decided that a 400 small journal V-8, thus neutered, wouldn't keep the Firebird competitive in the horsepower wars still raging, so they did the only thing they could do: Stuffed a 455 under the hood.
By 1973, the 455 Trans Am could be had in two flavors. The "455" on the hood scoop lets us know it that this one has the base engine for the Trans Am package, the 250bhp L75, rather than the optional 290-horse Super Duty LS2, which would have added another $550* to the MSRP and an "SD-" prefix to the decal on the shaker scoop. '73 was the first year that emissions regs began taking a really noticeable bite out of the Trans Am's output, with most previous reductions being a result of shifting from SAE Gross to SAE Net power measurement and some fiddling with numbers in the marketing department.
It's too bad it's not an SD-455, because the 1973 Super Duty Trans Am sent the Muscle Car Era out with a bang. Car and Driver tested one with a 3-speed automatic and the 3.42:1 Safe-T Track Limited Slip performance axle, and it cranked off a 5.6 second zero-to-sixty time and a 13.8 quarter at 104 miles per hour, with a top speed of 132 mph. It'd be the mid-1980s before TPI Corvettes and turbo Buick Grand Nationals would put up those kinds of numbers again. All this for $5,295... or about $37,500 in today's money.
*$550 was a steep option in 1973, when $2500 would buy you a whole Pontiac Ventura coupe.
The hood decal was always an option for '73-81, although so many Trans Ams came with it that it almost seems like it should've been standard. A friend of mine has a Martinique Blue '78 that he ordered way back in the day, and he went without the decal.
ReplyDeleteThe LS2 was originally rated at 310 HP because Pontiac had come up with a way for the EGR system to deactivate under certain conditions. After they got caught and the system was "corrected" the HP rating was revised to 290.
I just checked and not only was it an option, but it cost $55!
Delete