Vintage ad: 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am – The Driver’s Car

Posted on Jan 15, 2020 in Featured | 2 comments

1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am

Cropped image from 1982 magazine ad.


In 1981, Pontiac introduced the third-generation Firebird Trans Am as a 1982 model, the car’s first clean-sheet redesign since the second-generation debuted in 1970 as a 1970 ½ model. Six years in the making, the new Trans Am was smaller and lighter than the model it replaced, and far more aerodynamic. Knowing it couldn’t pitch the modestly powered Firebird as a muscle car, Pontiac instead advertised it as “The Driver’s Car.”


Sure, buyers could still get a V-8 beneath the hood (now devoid of screaming chicken), but neither the four-barrel Chevy LG4 nor the Crossfire fuel-injected Chevy LU5 produced anything near impressive thrust. The 5.0-liter LG4 produced 145 horsepower and 240 pound-feet of torque, and came with the buyer’s choice of a four-speed manual transmission or a three-speed automatic; with the automatic, the Trans Am hit 60 MPH in a disappointing 10.8 seconds. The LU5, which came only with the automatic, wasn’t much faster. Rated at 165 horsepower and 240 pound-feet of torque, the optional V-8 still took 9.2 seconds to hit the mile-per-minute mark.


1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am ad

The car’s revised suspension, which now used MacPherson struts in front coupled with coil springs and a torque arm in the rear, did deliver superior handling and improved road feel. The setup, along with a wheelbase shortened by over seven inches, helped to shed roughly 500 pounds compared to the outgoing model.


Pontiac was justifiably proud of the car’s overall shape, which was based upon a design by Roger Hughet and a clay model crafted by John Schinella’s studio at Pontiac. The company claimed a drag coefficient of 0.31 for the Firebird Trans Am, the best of any production car tested by GM to that point in time. It was also a bit misleading, since achieving this figure required dropping the front end below the minimum height required to meet pedestrian impact standards. In production form, the coefficient of drag was a still-admirable 0.323.


In its debut year, Pontiac sold 52,960 third-generation Trans Ams, an increase of 19,467 units, or 58-percent, compared to the last year of the previous model. Though sales would suffer in 1983 (dropping to 31,930 units), the Trans Am would bounce back again for 1984, when Pontiac dealers sold 55,374 examples.

2 comments

  1. Kathryn Mcdonald

    PS- 1979 TA sales were 116, 535, more than double 1982. The buyers had spoken. GM just didn’t listen.

  2. Roderick Cole

    To be fair, sales on just about American car went down during the high-inflation, high-interest rate recession years of 1980-82. But it certainly didn’t help that Pontiac had “lost the plot” from the original “Bandit” years.

    BTW, “Smokey and the Bandit Part 3” (1983) was a low-quality, box-office dud that fairly matched the shadow-of-its-former-self ’80s Trans Ams featured in it.