ShawnG
UltimaDork
8/10/21 12:25 a.m.
Ok, going to nerd out on you guys but a Black and Gold T/A is only a "Bandit" if it's an SE.
A Special Edition carries a Y82 Chassis code in 1977 and 1978, Y84 in late 78, 79, 80 and 81.
There was also a Solar Gold SE in 1978 had a Y88 code.
1979 Tenth Anniversary T/A's were Y89
Turbo pace cars in 1980 and 1981 were Y85.
A giveaway for a true Y82 or Y84 SE is a gold dash insert and gold trim around the grille openings. The cars had red arrowheads on the grille and center caps in 1977 but switched to gold in 1978.
The only way to be sure is to have a look at the build sheet, even the cowl tag doesn't always show it.
The movie cars and the Y82 cars all came with Hurst T-Tops. In late 78 Pontiac switched to the factory installed Fischer T-tops, this also meant you could by a Y84 without T-tops.
My brother's 1979 WS6, 400, 4-Wheel Disc 4-speed, non T-Top TA. Three brothers spec'd out the car and one placed the order with a willing Pontiac dealer. The order included decal delete. The factory originally kicked the order back to the dealer assuming the decal delete was a mistake. The dealer again placed the order. When the car arrived, the factory omitted the hood chicken, but could not bring itself to delete the shaker, fender, and spoiler decals. At every gas stop driving home from the out-of-town dealership, my brothers peeled away some of the offending decals. When they arrived home, the car was pristine as it remains today. My brother owns the car still.
In reply to AndyHess :
That is the TransAm of my dreams.. Tell your brother to get out of my head
Seriously though, that is beautiful and possibly the rarest 79 TA on earth with that option combo (decal delete).
Daniel here, one of the other brothers and the original owner of this ride. Andy neglected to mention that once I convinced Detroit that we really, really didn't want the decals and they accepted the order, it knocked-off $95.00 from the price of the car! Sweet!
Nice job ordering Daniel and you lucked out. I ordered a '80 Monza Spyder through my uncles dealership and we couldn't convince them to do a stripe delete, even if I still paid for the stickers! I left them on for a couple weeks when I first got the car then removed them all.
What's the "three brothers" part? Am I understanding that one brother had the $$$ to buy the car, and he allowed his other siblings to chime in on specs?
That car is lovely . . . and your parents should be proud to have raised men of aesthetic sophistication.
In reply to ZOO (Forum Supporter) :
That is correct Zoo. One brother was contemplating buying a new TA and two of his brothers who were also hot rodders (for lack of a more sophisticated term) helped to 'spec out the purchase. Collaborative effort. We wanted to order what the three of us viewed as the perfect TA. My recollection is that we all agreed on nixing T-Tops in hopes of getting a more rigid chassis. And Dan's (the buyer - brother) car was one of the last built with a Pontiac 400 mill. Man.
All this talk about hood bird delete got me thinking, and I found the following from Steve B. at Pontiac Heaven:
"There is no such thing as 'bird sticker delete' as it was an option. Something ordered 'delete' refers to something that was standard and was specially ordered without it."
So the 79 above came with the other decals (fenders, shaker, sail panels & tail) because those were standard but the hood bird was not. The hood bird was a $95 option, except on the Special Edition (black & gold "Bandit") and 10th Anniversary (TATA) cars - see D53 below:
I am strongly in the Blue Car Gold Mesh Wheels camp.
In reply to buzzboy :
That combo in the photo does look stunning. I think I am in that camp as well.
Tony Sestito said:
I really like silver ones.
I remember the Appliance Wheels ad for that car that ran in the magazines back then...
Not a TA but... Damn that's hot. From the GRM Monterey kick-off thread:
The son of a friend of mine, had a sky blue '76 with dark blue bird. I know that is not the "official " color, but it was pretty cool.
Tony Sestito said:
I really like silver ones.
Agreed. I think silver looks better than the black and gold.
Zoo, Thank you for the compliment.
That's pretty much how it went down. When you sit down to order an automobile, there are a LOT of options to wade through and some conflict. For example, I ordered a HD radiator and HD alternator but when you order AC, the HD radiator & alternator automatically come with.
I didn't order tilt steering and kinda wish I had. I didn't order T tops and am glad I didn't. The 400 W72 is a torque monster and this unibody already has enough twist. I understand that the T tops make it worse. And they rattle and leak.
So this was sort of a committee activity by three gearhead brothers who grew up in Detroit. I feel that we made mostly good decisions by putting our heads together.
SEADave, I think you're correct. 43 years was a long time ago.
"There is no such thing as 'bird sticker delete' as it was an option. Something ordered 'delete' refers to something that was standard and was specially ordered without it."
So the 79 above came with the other decals (fenders, shaker, sail panels & tail) because those were standard but the hood bird was not. The hood bird was a $95 option, except on the Special Edition (black & gold "Bandit") and 10th Anniversary (TATA) cars - see D53 below:"
I don't think that there was a 'bird delete' so much as the factory wanted to make sure we weren't nuts for not ordering the bird. But they did in fact initially reject the order perhaps as a double check.
And yes, it did come with all those other decals too but as my brother & I were driving it home, we stopped top fill the tank and removed them then & there. Some of the other folks standing around thought we were nuts too but you can see the results in the photos posted above.
It really is a beautiful car but I think Detroit sometimes got a little too wrapped up in the decal thing. And not just the Firebirds either.
