Wanna standout at the next Cars and Coffee? Here is a Goldenrod Yellow 1976 Pontiac Trans Am with a 455 cubic inch V8 engine and 4 speed Borg Warner transmission. The car is located in Footville, Wisconsin and can be seen here on eBay with 4 days left in the auction. The car is currently bid to $8,100. The Trans Am was the king of the hill in 1976 since Chevrolet did not produce the Z28 in 1975 or 1976, the Challenger was long gone and the Mustang II was an economy car.
The car is well optioned with air conditioning (disconnected), power windows and a black deluxe interior. The odometer on this Trans Am shows 76,000 miles and looks to be a good survivor. The seller states that the headliner is falling down and will need repair, as well as, several cracks in the dash. One of the pictures shows some rust coming through on the lower passenger side of the car. 1976 was the last year for the 455 cubic inch V8 engine option in the Trans Am. By 1976, the engine had been pretty choked down and only produced 200 horsepower. However, with a little effort to improve the breathing, the car could be modified into quite a performer. Most of my friends would start with installing true dual exhaust and opening up the hood scoop on these cars. Next they would install Pontiac 6X heads increase the compression ratio. The 455 cubic inch V8 engine could only be equipped with a 4 speed transmission in 1976.
The 15×7 Rally II wheels have been refinished and have new caps and lug nuts. All 1976 Trans Ams equipped with the 455 cubic inch V8 engine came with a 3:23 rear end ratio. The exhaust system is said to be new all the way to the chrome splitters. All the gauges are said to work. The clock does not work but that is not a gauge! The seller believes the paint is average and says it looks good from 10 feet away. There were 100,775 Firebirds and 46,704 Trans Ams built in 1976. There were 7,099 Trans Ams ordered with the 455 cubic inch V8 engine. This one is a survivor and is looking for a new home.
I had a 1979 Trans Am in high school that was Sundance Yellow that I thought was beautiful. It was probably not the most popular color on the order sheet but I was the only one with a yellow Trans Am in Shreveport, Louisiana. I have always admired the clean looks of the 1976 Trans Am. My older brother had a 1976 400 cubic inch V8 Trans Am in high school. It was white with a black interior. 1976 was also the last year for the rounded hood scoop. So who likes yellow?
Instead of looking for used heads that will probably need a rebuild, just purchase a pair of Edelbrock aluminum heads and an aluminum intake manifold. Save the stockers for the true perfectionist collector.! Good call on opening up the hood scoop. I did it on my 1978 Z28 and my buddy did it on his 1977 Pontiac Formula 400.
While you have the engine torn so far down, you might as well install a hotter camshaft, new lifters and a timing chain set.
The last US car with real muscle of the era !..1976 with a 455 4-speed and two big eyes. Discontinued in that form by GM because it put the choked Corvette to shame. Love “Smokey and the Bandit” , but the 1977 + 400/403 CI cars weren’t even close to previous versions.
Pardon my rant, even as a Ford guy, there was nothing close to this car in the day. Always loved the Pontiac division of GM. Big mistake to kill the brand. I relent…
Sure, this was the last year for the 455 in the TA, and it was nice to see, but it was still an under powered turd.
Compared to other cars of the time, most certainly not. Pontiac had huge stones to build and sell these in the second year of the catalytic converter/unleaded gas era.
In Pennsylvania, there were no emissions inspections yet and so replacing the exhaust system was a common mod.
You could still buy leaded regular gas but the octane rating for all gasoline had dropped to what you see today. The oil companies claimed that they could produce more gasoline per barrel of crude if the octane was reduced. Increasing the
compression ratio will introduce detonation so driving on the street risks damaging the engine.
Today you can buy everything you need to get big horsepower numbers from pump gas. 45 years ago you made do with what you had.
Mopar wasn’t offering anything above the 360 in the Aspen/Volare line in 1976.
Name one 1976 vehicle that WASN’T an underpowered turd!
The 1976 Corvette with the L82 was 210 hp.
That’s 10 more hp, with 105 less cubic inches.
I would say the 455 was more “choked”.
I stand corrected…Good call Martin ! My head was stuck in 1974 when Pontiac struggled to keep up with demand on the 455 SD orders. The choke hit hard with unleaded gas and catalytic converters in ’75. Blind love for these Pontiac’s to a fault !
Maybe only 10 more HP but at what RPM and how about the torque curve. These two numbers matter much more that a peak HP number.
Nice looking Trans Am! I’m sure yellow is not high the total production of Trans Am’s for any year.
Very good looking car for the age and condition is more than acceptable.
Someone will get a good car here, depending on the ultimate price.
$13K and reserve not met. No giveaway or bargains here.
Where do u see this 13k reserve at?
In 76 two friends had one each. Ond had the 455-4 spped and the other one had the 400 -4 speed.Same color red . One was puke brown and the other one was black. I don,t know the gear ratio in either car,but the 400 took the 455 a couple of times one night. The day my friend bought the 400 right off the show room floor.We started out to work inPhilipi,W.Va. As soon as we started onto the interstate. He said he was gonna see how fats it would go before red line. 3rd gear–we were flying and it never did red line. I don,t recall the speed,but we laughed and said we could go all the way to work in 3 rd gear. It was geared high.
This is a car to do the motor work and you can have a monster!! The good thing about the low HP cars is that it was harder to beat on them cause they didn’t have enough to race anyone or do burnouts!! Some trick flow heads a more aggressive cam!! Some headers with bigger exhaust and some magnaflow mufflers and you’ll pass everything but the gas station!!!
the 76 l82 vette would run circles around the 76 t/a. over a full second quicker in the qtr mile.
You also paid around $3000 more for the Vette. Imagine what that extra $3k would do to wake up the TA.
Pontiac produced 7,099 Trans Ams in 1976 half were 4speed and half were automatic.
As for performance Car & Driver rated it the fastest performance for 1976 American autos and yes it did beat the 1976 Corvette in a 1/4 mile
I believe there were closer to 46,701 total Trans Am’s produced in 1976. All of the 455 HO cars were manual transmissions.