Today, being Thanksgiving here in the U.S., most of us are thinking about one kind of bird: the turkey. I will offer you an alternative: the screaming chicken on the hood of today’s Nice Price or No Dice classic Trans Am. Between eating, watching football, and naps, let’s decide what this bird might be worth.
In I Sing the Body Electric, Walt Whitman celebrates the human physique as nothing short of a miracle. While not quite miraculous, the wagon body on yesterday’s 2021 Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo 4 proved pretty good-looking. The Taycan also is fully electric. We all celebrated the car’s $67,000 asking price by giving it a solid 65 percent Nice Price win.
The story that Benjamin Franklin advocated for the turkey to be America’s national bird over the eagle is well-known but ultimately untrue. Franklin did praise the turkey as a “Bird of Courage,” but thankfully, we all enjoy them on the dining room table and not as a symbol of national pride.
Another bird we all might take pride in owning is the flaming phoenix that traditionally adorns the hood of Pontiac’s classic pony car, the Firebird Trans Am. Introduced in the 1970s as a way to spruce up performance cars that were sorely lacking in actual performance due to emissions and fuel economy standards, this sort of tape and decal treatment is a pastiche of the era. Once manufacturers figured out how to make cars muscular while at the same time clean and efficient, such treatments mostly fell by the wayside.
This 1975 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am is then a true denizen of its decade, as it has both the famous “Screaming Chicken” decal and, as was par for the course at the time, a big V8 that puts out relatively few ponies.
In this car’s case, that’s a 400 CID Pontiac V8 with a four-barrel Quadrajet carb sitting pretty under a shaker scoop. As fitted, the smog-strangled engine managed 185 horsepower and a more meaningful 310 lb-ft of torque. On the plus side, this is apparently the earlier block which is stronger than those introduced later in ’75, and there are plenty of hop-up parts available to give the Pontiac mill more poop. According to the ad, the TH350 mated to the engine (the TH400 won’t fit in the car with cats) has a shift kit installed.
Other points of note on this car include a fresh paint job, new decals, and a completely redone interior. This is also the first year with the wrap-over rear window, so the back seats, while cramped, aren’t the former dark holes of despair.
Mechanically, the car has been gone through and features rebuilt suspension and brake components, new seals and consumables, and wears new Cooper tires on its handsome Rally II wheels. Overall, the car presents as handsome and clean. Per the ad, the mileage is 84,937, but a replaced odo reads 48K. Less confusing is the title, which the seller says is clean.
It’s not all turkey and gravy, though. Per the ad, the A/C is missing the engine bay components, which must be sourced and installed. That lack of A/C means this car probably got little use over the past few months as it resides in Phoenix, Arizona, which masqueraded as a pizza oven for most of the summer.
There are also a couple of minor leaks (fuel pump, oil pan) that should be addressed. Then there’s the fiddly stuff inherent to owning an old car, such as a misaligned door and the threat of people talking to you at the gas station. Perhaps most egregiously, there’s a CD stuck in the stereo. However, nothing in the ad’s “Cons” list should prove a deal-killer.
What might, though, is the car’s $24,500 asking price. That’s a lot of green to go with our dark and white meat today. It is in the range for such cars of this age and condition, but is it a deal?
Where do you land on this Trans Am at that $24,500 price? Does that feel like a good deal? Or does that asking make this Firebird a turkey?
You decide!
Phoenix, Arizona, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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