This 4-speed 1976 Pontiac Trans Am is located in Cleveland, Ohio. It is said to be a one-owner Trans Am being sold from the original owner’s estate. The car appears to be nonrunning, and the seller states that the new buyer will need a trailer to take it home. The car is painted in Code 36 Firethorn red with a Buckskin interior. The pictures indicate the car has rust on the lower parts of the fenders and quarters.
The seller states that the car has only 30k miles on the odometer. The exterior of the car reflects that it has much more use than this but the interior looks pretty clean. The car was optioned with power windows and air conditioning. Pontiac offered 4 versions of the second generation Firebird – the base Firebird, Esprit, Formula and Trans Am. There were 110,775 Firebirds built in 1976 and 46,704 of these were Trans Ams.
There were two engines available in 1976. The base engine was the L78 400 cubic inch V8 (Z code), rated at 185 horsepower and 310 lb-ft of torque. This engine was available with either an automatic transmission or a 4-speed transmission. The optional engine was the L75 455 cubic inch V8 (W code), which was rated at 200 horsepower and 330 lb-ft of torque. This car is equipped with the Z code (L78) 400 cubic inch engine backed by a 4-speed transmission. There were actually fewer 4-speed L78 400 equipped Trans Ams built (5,424) than 4 speed L75 455 equipped Trans Ams (7,528) in 1976.
This Trans Am is freshly listed here on Craigslist with an asking price of $8,800. If you live in the Cleveland area, this might be a great project car to check out. The car looks to be in pretty original condition but rust repair may be an issue. The car has factory Rally II wheels and is said to have a clean title.
I think the license plate is from no later than the early 80’s. So has this car been sitting since then? If so the mileage might be correct? But did it get rusty in only a few years? In Cleveland, I suppose that is possible?
Posting already gone.
If it was on the road for 5-8 years in Ohio then yes, it is possible to probable it has a lot of rust. These rusted prolifically, particularly around the rear wheel wells. And those cool looking fender flares trapped salt underneath, which made the problem worse on Trans Ams. And the floor pans on these were also very prone the rust even in storage. I would tread carefully here.
I’ve been thinking about providing this piece of information, might was well do it here.
When a car turns up from Ohio, the knee-jerk reaction is “snowy state, therefore rusty car.” Which may or may not be true. Consider the following data on annual snowfall:
Cleveland 64 inches — yes it is snowy there
Columbus (120 miles to the southwest as the crow flies) only 28 inches
Cincinnati (another 100 miles to the southwest) 23 inches
Marietta (southeast part of the state, on the Ohio River) a mere 16 inches
So it depends on where in Ohio a car lived.
I’m from northwest Ohio up by Toledo we had a blizzard in 1976 & 1978 that hid Semi trucks on I 75 that the National guard was called out with heavy equipment to dig us out so throw that recent history of snow fall in the garbage!
It’s not the amount of snow that matters. It is the amount of salt put down. I too currently live in NW Ohio. We may not get much snow but they put down a ton of salt to make sure the road never ices etc. Even more salt than I saw growing up in Ottawa Canada.
A few years back they ALSO started putting down LIQUID BRINE on the roads in my area – sometimes the day before! it was supposed to snow – sometimes for nothing if weatherman was wrong. No consistency of application on city vs county roads.
Do they do that over there too?
Man, I saw the price and zipped to the link but it’s deleted. From what few pics are here it looks decent but don’t know what the the underside looked like. I guessing someone got a decent deal!