R.I.P Pontiac, you had such great looking cars like this Firebird.

This test car was actually pretty rare. Just 104 of these were made in a ragtop with the 5 speed. I wonder how many are left out there 30 years later?

I love Retro motor week lol

Love that 82 to 92 Firebird body style.

Beautiful car. I mean, in those days it seemed a bit too crazy of a shape. But compared with today's cars caricatures, this Trans Am is prenaturally beautiful.

My favorite Firebird/Camaro Body style by far

They titled this segment, "Ageless Wonder." To be honest they were predicting the future there because that statement is so true. This will alway sbe a beautiful car I think. It's just such an timeless design and in the same vein of the Mclaren F1 and Dodge Viper GTS in my book. I prefer the T-Top version and Formula trim to this but still. Now it's quite obvious that it could do more as far as build quality and power from the motor but the body is a work of art.

I remember when these were new. I still prefer T-tops but that is a good looking car! And such fun to drive

Such a fantastic looking car!

Beautiful looking car

Still looks bad ass.

Probably could have knocked 1.5 seconds off the acceleration times had they figured out how to launch it without blowing the tires off. Looked good walking sideways though. 😉

For a 28 year old car it was fast for its time... Motor Week times are usually slow most road tests in 91 had TAs running mid 15s , it had roughly 300 lbs of torque. They should get a new track or better drivers lol.

ohhh sweet baby jesus i want that car!!!

OMG! That car ran 16's in the quarter!!! Man, it felt SO much faster back then. Today's Camaro's are super cars by comparison. Too bad we don't have Trans Am's any more. 😪

Mr. Davis can really enunciate… Anyone ever noticed that? Great video though!

1991/92 are the best looking years for the Firebird

Wow is that a good looking car.

I owned one of these for 20 years. Fun ride and sharp looking. Performance was awful because the chassis was a wet noodle. The extra bracing did not do much for stiffness once the original top was cutoff in California to make a convertible. Not sure what the commentators were talking about when they said no body flex 😂 you could not latch the top unless you were parked on a flat surface. GM engineers knew this hence no 5.7L engine option like the regular GTA. I sold mine with 50k miles on it and occasionally miss it.

The Wheel hop at launch makes me laugh but was quite Nice at the Time and definitely better with the Manual Transmission

My dream car!!!!

So pretty. And the lack of power means you can really get every bit of enjoyment out of the rest of the car. Also that dash is so cool. One of the things i miss about sporting vehicles is the 'long' gauge clusters, where you practically need a co driver to monitor the other things.

bring back that 2002 Firehawk WS6!!!

Interesting.. Every T/A I've ever worked on from 89 on had 4 wheel discs. Apparently, Pontiac was doing things a bit differently in the engine compartment as well, as apart from the base V6, 1 could get the 5.0 TBI in both manual and automatic, 2 versions of the 5.0 TPI, including the rare 1LE 235hp version, and the 245hp 5.7 mated to the 4 speed auto only. Though the video didn't say the car tested had ALL of the top available items offered, what it did have was kind of an enigma. WS6 suspension and tire group, but rear drum brakes, mid of the group 5.0 TPI but mated to the std 5 speed, not the HO version, or the 5.7. I like the sudo Banshee styling.

Classic machinery.

loves my 91 formula, if you never drove or owned one you wouldnt understand. yall can keep the kia optimas

Hey y'all remember the 90s when everything was pretty okay and you know women were like nice to you and not all crazy and we had cool cars yeah I miss those days

man i love this spec, the red with the beige ragtop is so nice imo

I loved these. I especially loved them when they were next to me while I was in my 1991 Grand AM with the 2.3 Quad-4 HO LG0 & 5-speed Getrag. Pontiac made a nice little V8-killer, and as a 16 year old in that car, I sure made all that I could out of it.

I still think they are good lookn ride...

My uncle had one of these back in the day. While the horsepower really isn't that much it felt really fast back in the day. There were no other really fast cars back then. The mustang was only slightly faster. The main thing is that it was a really fun car to drive. A V8+manual+convertible will always be a fun combination. You want to talk about slow cars, my wife had a 1982 mustang, back then the 5.0 was only putting out 130 horsepower, so by that standard they had come a long way. No wonder the 4th generation was such an amazing car in 1993. 275 horsepower was quite a bit

Take that Tokyo

The 89 Turbo Trans Am was the shit. Back then it was a scalded dog compared to other cars. Turbo 3.8 that ran its ass off. It was underrated and bs ing the insurance hp. They were some very cool cars to own but rare and high dollar for an old used car.

Thanks for all the great retro videos MotorWeek. If possible, could you could upload a retro review of an 88-90 Buick Electra Park Avenue or a 95-96 Oldsmobile 98?

Thank you for finding and sharing more GM videos. I look forward to more. Do you have the 1985 Oldsmobile 98 and the 1987-1990 Oldsmobile 98 Touring Sedan ? There are others I would like to see.

Love it. But the intro sequence has the left and right channels reversed....weird phase issues when listening in stereo. Keep up the retro reviews!!!!

0-60 is actually 2 seconds faster than it was performed here. they added an extra 2 seconds to it by spinning the tires at launch....

That turn in is actually not bad.

WS6 cars all came with 4 wheel disc, not rear drum.

Love the 4x4 ground clearance.

I think that one may be a bit off speed wise or the chassis bracing was more than 100 lbs. This one is a TPI engine so it will make loads or torque and GM had to keep the power down on the manual transmission cars because the transmission wasn't rated for anything higher. That's why the 350CI F body's had the auto. The TPI Vette by this time had the ZF 6 speed rated higher. Still an old F body with a tired engine is a great excuse for an unbelievable build since 383 strokers drop in and are very inexpensive.

5:55 John: You'd better be tiny to try the backseat for more than a few miles! LOL

I've seen a few comments about reliability. I've had 5 3rd gen Trans ams and 4 4th gen trans ams. All were extremely reliable. I currently drive a 96 ws6 that I've put 40k miles on with no problems. Most people's problems are self inflicted due to stupidity.

Motorweek is made possible by Rock Aut... Tire Rack.

A diamond plate over night bag? Nice!!!!

It made sweet sounds.

I owned a 1991 Formula L98. Miss that car...

I wish GM would have equipped the f-bodies with a 5.7 ltr, and a five speed. That would have been awesome! Love the retro firebirds, although I am kosher to a 1990 IROC-Z, red 5.7, T-Tops, and some 80's music in the tape deck...yes I said tape deck. #mygeneration

Insert standard teenage kid comment about low hp in regards to displacement, despite making 290 ft lbs of tq at likely 2000rpm, pretty much the same as a 3.2 Porsche that makes all its hp in 1500rpm of range over 6500, literally the same. I giggled at the big burnout off the line! Suprising the chassis is so stiff, must be lots of metal in there to make it non jiggly.

Damn nice car. I had a beautiful 1992 white Formula. It may have been slow as a boat with its 305 TBI and automatic but was still a very nice car. I always dug the gauge layout.

the gta and regular trans am were slower than the 5.0. the big 5.0 was hard to beat in the late to very early 90s

Great early 90s design cues . beautiful now as well!!

Everybody likes to give Ford credit for ushering in the "aerodynamic" era back in the 80's, ie getting rid of the sharp edge boxy styling. I think Pontiac was the real innovator here with the 1982 Trans Am, it had a very sleek, revolutionary look. And it wasn't just a look, the coefficient of drag was .29 on certain models, which even today is impressive. Alas, the convertible in the test video shows that you need to know how to work the option sheet on GM cars to get a good one. The L98 350 TPI/Automatic combo would have dropped about 2 seconds off the quarter mile et.

If you watch closely, when they launch the car in a drag race, you can see the back of the flex quite a bit.

NICE!

It's lighter than your new Camry, handles better, sounds better (reference 2:42) , and is much better looking

This quarter mile time seem much slower than what I've seen for the 305 TPI 5 speed. They should be in the low 15s. Would the 100 additional pounds make it lose a second ?

I WANT ONE FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!

not bad for 91

Wow so good looking a car. Looks like it was created by Da Vinci - Work Of Art.

This is sort of accurate. ASC was building these for Pontiac dealers a few years before this 1991... upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/20th_Anniversary_Turbo_TransAm_Convertible_august_2009_9,000_original_miles.png

It's nice, but I prefer my T-tops. However I wish the T-top models were more rigid.

"Take That Tokyo!" 😄

TTop cars were quite sufficient and cool looking. I dont know why they made convertibles.

Yeah take that Tokyo!

Cool

Sure, it's 1990 or 1991, but that's the most 80s jacket ever...with the possible exception of those acid-washed denim ones.

thats nice

1993 Firebird? I think the uploader is a bit tired. At 0:45 John even says "all that changes for *1991* with the Firebird convertible." And obviously it's a 3rd gen, not 4th.

If it were me and I'd have known a close up of my shoes was coming @3:15.... I probably woulda worn something nicer! 😂

I could never get past the register/vent cover looking hood venting on these ..

my mom had a 91 taurus sho that was faster with a V6, and better on gas, and not much difference in weight lol...and those cast iron log exhaust manifolds held back a shit load of horsepower

before you say its the wrong year ( ...its a 91/92....)its a 93, the convertible got changed one year later than the coupe.

Take that Tokyo!!

I Highly Doubt That 0-60mph Time 7.8secs? Probably More Like 6.8secs and 15.2secs in the 1/4mile not the 16.2secs Time Motorweek Claimed...

The Driver's haircut runs the 1/4mi in low 13's!

16.2s...what a dog. They should have stuck with the turbo V6 if they didn't have the guts to sell the 5.7 with the 6 speed from the Vette in the Fbodys. At least if it was geared well having 6 gears to pull through it may have had a prayer of hitting in the 14s.

Next retro review: 2002 Nissan Sentra SE-R spec V please

One sexy car

Somebody pressed the 'C' button on that Firebird!

The dark ages of the automotive world. Glad I survived it.

should have tested the 5.7, instead of the standard 5.0...the 350 put out 240hp and the optional 305 had 230hp...this was the base motor...the '91 5.7 ran mid to high 14's stock

this is a 91 model not a 93..typo..

We all know you're 2014 Camry is faster, heck it's faster than 95% of the cheap sports car and muscle cars from before 1995. Yet your Camry is boring as hell.

A 2 inch drop in ride hight is needed in the worst way

0 to 60 in 7.8 seconds! WTH! Really? My 1988 White Formula T Top car ran 6.8 completely stock! I think you may have the numbers wrong, Tho I do understand that they re enforced the frames on the ASC convertibles making them a lot heavier but still... I wud imagine a time of 7.2 to 7.4...

jeez jon levity really let himself go back there in the 90s..

This chap sounds very like Lionel Hutz sometimes.

What was that guy transporting? Uranium?

this is definitely a 91-92 model not 93. please fix the title.

Ya, these cars were definitely faster than what they ran here! And the only place anyone seen the back of these F bodies was on a road race track. Anywhere else they were always looking at the rear of mustangs!!!

I'd rather have the sunbird turbo or v6 for about the same price as the v6 firebird

it appears that it's too high off the ground

1993 you say...

Hi motorweek, can you upload nissan maxima SE 1992 or 1993 videos, you are the best!!

0 to 60 in 7.8 seconds!

I like the notchback roof line so much better

Wow. 7.8 0-60. We've come a long way.

"We could hardly detect hardly any structural difference between our Trans Am convertible and the hard top Firebird..." ...But how hard did they push it? Did the driver get an apex right *anywhere* on that road course? The one I could see clearly, he was so far out from the apex he could have mailed it a post card.

cars now a days all look the same however older cars are all uniqe