One thing I really enjoy about the Barn Finds community is that when we highlight a car for sale that we hardly ever see, our readers set to work flagging similar examples. The Pontiac Sunbird Turbo is a rare beast, but especially in convertible form. We spotted one on Facebook Marketplace, and thought that was somewhat unrepeatable; however, here’s another one up for grabs that a reader sent in. The Sunbird shown here on eBay looks clean and just has some light surface rust in places; the seller notes the engine and transmission were recently rebuilt. Bidding sits at just over $2,000 with the reserve unmet.
The Sunbird looks an awfully lot like this one we listed in 2023, down to the colors and the fender flares, but this example is a year newer. Our subject car here also has higher miles than the older Barn Finds listing, with 164,000 on the clock compared to 32,000. The higher miles on this Sunbird don’t seem to have hurt the car’s cosmetics any, as it still presents well with the paint, wheels, black trim, and top all in good order. The fender flares appear to be a GT/Turbo-specific feature, but they seemingly highlight how narrow the factory wheels are.
I can still remember my high school buddy’s turbocharged Sunbird GT and the boost gauge spooling up as he laid into the throttle. Like this car, his was an automatic as well, and it didn’t seem particularly fast. However, at 16 years old, anything with a turbo was cool. The turbocharged convertible was not a big seller, and I wonder if it’s because most drop-top shoppers just wanted an open air experience and cared less about how quick it was (or wasn’t.) The turbocharged Sunbird grew to a 2.0L displacement in 1989, which also increased power to 165.
The seller reports that the engine and transmission have both been rebuilt, with the latter more recently serviced. At first, you might be tempted to toss that detail aside, chalking it up to seller hyperbole. However, he claims there’s a binder full of maintenance records, which we don’t often see mentioned on these otherwise average domestic entry-level vehicles. Assuming there’s paperwork verifying the rebuilt engine and transmission, this Subird’s odometer reading shouldn’t dissuade someone from throwing a bid at this turbocharged droptop, especially if the reserve is safely under $5,000.
Jeff….. You really struck a chord with me when you mentioned High School. I do remember, back in the 80’s when anything with a turbo was cool. And seeing this Turbo drop top Sunbird is no exception. I remember in High school one argument one guy had was it was better to have an automatic with a turbo because it would stay spooled up. He had a point, but how many cases you’d see the automatic version with less power than the stick version? I agree with you, if you can get this for under 5 grand, you’d have a good buy, especially if the motor and trans has been already gone through.
Turbo was indeed pretty cool back then – my memory of this was my buddy who got himself a black Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback turbo (that said “Pocket Rocket” on the side in tacky script font). It was a stick, and indeed, it seemed REALLY fast at the time!