LONGINGS & DREAMS

Evans called the owner, John, the next day and was regaled with the story of what was turning out to be quite a find. John had bought the 1979 10th Anniversary Silver Edition Trans Am new off the dealer lot, and over his 42 years of ownership the car lived a pampered life, but John was moving and couldn’t take the T/A with him. It was rust-free, shocking for a Midwest car, due to being stored indoors since the day John bought it. It was a fair-weather ride, and the T-tops hadn’t been installed, nor the windows rolled up, in 25 years! For the last 10 years the Pontiac had only ventured out to the occasional car show or cruise around town.

The other good news was that John was a paint and body guy, so about 12 years ago he had stripped the T/A to bare metal and done a correct repaint! The best part, though, was the engine. The original Olds 403 was gone and in its place was a 0.030-over Olds 455 bigblock replete with a polished BDS 6-71 blower and a pair of Holley carbs poking through the hood! As Evans explained, “The car is set up as a cruiser. Yes, I could run more boost. Yes, I could squeeze a lot more out of it, but I enjoy driving my cars. I could drive the Trans Am to New York tomorrow at 90 mph with AC/DC blasting on the stereo and engine temps would never get above 180 degrees.”

LONGINGS & DREAMS

Once Evans had his blown ’79 Trans Am back home he found it was almost perfect. John had done all the heavy lifting during his ownership, and Evans only found a few things he wanted to change. The first thing to go was the poorly designed rollcage that was a recipe for bruises any time you went for a drive. According to Evans, getting in could lead to a concussion and turning left would bust up your knuckles. It was replaced with a simple single-hoop bar. For better drivability the TH350 was ditched in favor of a Bowtie overdrive Stage II TH200 4R transmission.

To get the car closer to his memory of the World of Wheels cars, he removed the 15-inch Centerline Champ 500s in favor of some chrome 17-inch Cragars wrapped in 255/50/17 rubber. A Bluetooth stereo and all-new wiring were added so he could blast period-correct metal while cruising. Engine tunes now pump through a set of polished Hooker long tubes into a full exhaust with splitter tips and electric cutouts because he likes obnoxious. There’s even a new line-lock, but it’s there for nefarious reasons other than dragstrip use. “I also replaced the carpet since, although it had been stored inside, I can tell you that I strongly DO NOT recommend storing your car with the windows down in a musty Ohio basement garage. It stank. Badly!” quipped Evans. The result is what you see here, a retrolicious Trans Am with enough modernity to make it fun to cruise and more than enough retro to make us remember what it was like to be a kid dreaming of making that poster a reality.