Description
Lot #763.1 - This is a rare example of the 1979 10th Anniversary Trans AM. The odometer reads 7.9 miles, the title reads exempt. This car was preserved by its one-and-only owner for all these years in his farm shop building since the day it was trailered home in 1979. From the time of its purchase, it was always going to be a collectors car and never driven. It is one of the most difficult models to find equipped with the factory Pontiac 400ci engine and Borg Warner 4-speed transmission. These engines were a special build and held over from the 1978 production run specifically for these Anniversary cars. Although there were 7,500 Anniversary cars build in 1979, only 1,817 were equipped with this hard-to-find Last of Breed ground pounding Pontiac engine and manual transmission. That is less than 2% of the total production in 1979. So this makes this Trans Am one of the last true muscle cars manufactured by Pontiac and Detroit from the 1960-70 big-displacement era. These cars were so special that they were chosen to Pace the Daytona 500 in 1979 adding to the collectability of these beautiful machines. They are the first Firebird to retail at over $10,000 dollars. They also introduced 4-wheel disc brakes on a Trans Am for the first time as well as real leather seats with custom embroidering. They are the first Anniversary model of what would be repeated in 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999 and 2002. This extremely well-documented car was purchased on March 29, 1979 for $15,000 dollars. That was $4,177.45 over $10,822.55 MSRP. This practice was common back in 1979 as the dealers and everyone knew these would be an instant collector's car. There is a log of the car being started on a regular basis, but never driven. The owner, a farmer and weekend dirt track racer, just enjoyed having the car to look at and share a story of days gone by with friends and family.