Buyers liked it, and the Red Bird continued into 1979. The interior was also red – as red as possible really, a love-it-or-hate-it kind of look. Meanwhile, in 1977 the Sky Bird proved a moderate success, and returned in 1978 – but was replaced at mid-year by the next version, the “Red Bird” The Red version executed a similar treatment in a deep red scheme – but now a regular Firebird color with gold graphic accents and optional T-tops. The “Snowflake” wheel was popular enough to spawn wider (15″ x 8″) and smaller (14″ five-lug and 13″ four-lug) versions for various models all the way down to the Sunbird, and lasted through 1982. Porter and his team would follow them up with a turbine-like wheel in 1980 for the Trans-Am Turbo. We take aluminum rims for granted in 2020, but they were cutting edge factory stuff at the time. In 1977 they were available on many different Pontiacs, but were always most closely associated with the Firebird. To get these stylish 15″ “cast aluminum road wheels,” you checked off option YJ8. The wheels had a pattern that looked like a stylized snowflake but were never actually called that by the factory. For 1977, Porter finally managed to convince Pontiac’s management to give it a go. This design ended up heavier than a standard steel wheel and was also susceptible to curb rash. The first attempt, the “honeycombs,” (designed by Porter and Bud Chandler and inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes) ended up being a Poly-cast wheel – a steel wheel encased in plastic.ġ977’s “Snowflake” rims on a very worn out Sky Bird.
#PONTIAC THUNDERBIRD 1980 SERIES#
The accountants, however, believed such a wheel would be too costly for series production. Porter and his team had been proposing a cast aluminum wheel – which would not only be stylish but also greatly reduce unsprung weight – since the late 1960s. The wheels used on the Sky Bird, and indeed on many 1977 Firebirds, were genuinely new, but Pontiac had been working on them for some time. These predecessors of modern wheels were a design that spring from Bill Porter’s Pontiac studio just like the earlier “honeycomb” Firebird wheels and the overall design of the Firebird itself. The car used Pontiac’s striking new “snowflake” wheels, color-coded to the car. It came in Lombard Blue, a color borrowed from the compact Astre and not shared with the other Firebirds, with darker blue accents on the bottom and a blue interior with a dash panel that looked like milled aluminum. The Sky Bird had elaborate pinstripes and a special (very 1970s) bird decal on the B-pillar. A hit with showgoers, the idea was turned into the production 1977 “Sky Bird,” the first of three such feathered specials. There were color editions of the Trans-Am, too, but it was the quieter Esprit that got the color editions – previewed by a concept “Blue Bird” model in powder blue at the 1976 Chicago Auto show. The new specials were aimed specifically at Women – by Pontiac’s estimation 30% of Firebird customers by 1976 and more by 1979. 1980 proved to be a terrible year for car sales across the board and F-body sales tumbled accordingly, so this car – a small subset of Firebird Esprit production – is the rarest of these specials today. Starting in 1977 Pontiac launched a series of “color” specials, the “Yellowbird” being the final iteration. With so many flying off the lot, there was a combination for every buyer. Firebird sales were no doubt helped by the famous association with “Smokey and the Bandit” and by the surging popularity of style coupes of all types.ġ979 proved to be the Firebird’s best-ever year, with more than 211K sold. With fewer other muscle cars around in what became called “the emissions era,” the F-bodies had a perfect position to themselves as de facto muscle – even if they weren’t as fast as before. Good thing they did, because the latter half of the 1970s were a bonanza for Firebird (and Camaro) sales. The pure early versions of this car proved disappointing, sales wise, and both of the F-body cars survived a brush with cancellation in 1974. It sure is yellow! And appropriately so, since this is a Pontiac Firebird “Yellowbird,” a one-year-only special model for 1980, obtained by checking off RPO W73.īy this time the 2nd-gen Firebird was ten years old and had been freshened at least three times, acquiring its latest front and rear treatment a year earlier.
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