The four-barrel engine made 20 less horsepower, but came with a four-speed manual.ĭue to a low torque peak, just 1600 rpm for the carbureted engine and 2400 rpm with fuel injection, the car had above-average standing acceleration for its time. The TBI engine was rated at 165 hp with 240 lb-ft of torque, but was only available with an automatic transmission. Pontiac ditched its unreliable 4.9-liter turbocharged V8 in favor of a single powerplant for the new T/A, a 5.0-liter Chevy V8 in both carbureted and dual throttle body injected form. Even better, the styling was engineered for aerodynamics the Trans Am boasted the best drag coefficient (0.32) of any car sold in the United States at the time. The interior also benefited from the redesign: Cargo volume increased dramatically in the hatchback coupe, due to a curved, frameless glass hatch. The T/A's contemporary styling screamed sportiness and was as attractive as anything on the road that wasn't European. In a New Wave world, Firebirds-especially in their "screaming chicken" Trans Am clothes-were too disco.īut despite a seven-inch-shorter wheelbase and EPA classification as a compact, the new-for-'82 models were still bloated, with the top-of-the-line Trans Am weighing all of 3300 pounds. The 12-year-old second-generation pony car had been through more facelifts than Liz Taylor, and given the paucity of power that was available from emissions-challenged engines, the car was just too big. When Pontiac restyled its version for model year 1982, it faced a rather daunting task. ![]() Snickering aside, one of the highlights of this dark time in our domestic automotive history is GM's third-generation F-body. With one of the Big Three bankrupt (Chrysler), another nearly so (Ford) and the third in a state of disorganization (General Motors) that it still hasn't straightened out 20 years later, it's amazing that any notable cars were produced during this era. Performance, economy, build quality, styling-there was little that Detroit seemed capable of doing right. No matter how you judge it, in the early 1980s the American car industry was in rough shape. ![]() In 1983, a year in which Chevrolet did not sell a Corvette, the Trans Am was the top performance car offered by GM.
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