This 1979 Pontiac Trans Am is claimed to be an essentially original and solid car. The only obvious deviation from original is the wheels and tires, but the originals are also included with the vehicle. You will find it listed for sale here on eBay. Located in Dearborn Heights, Michigan, it comes with a clear title. Bidding is currently sitting at $5,500.
The owner says that this Trans Am is a solid car. He states that the floors and trunk are solid, and the only rust is some repairable spots on the quarter panels. He also states that he has hand-polished a small section of the car, and it came up well. I did see evidence of this in one of the photos, but I still believe that the car will require a repaint at some stage. The wheels and tires fitted to the car are brand new. The original wheels and center caps are included with the car.
The seller says that the interior is in good condition, and I have to agree with him on that. The seats look really good, as does the carpet. The dash pad looks free of cracks, and the dash itself looks good. The car is also fitted with air conditioning, a tilt wheel, and cruise control. The downside is that someone has fitted an aftermarket radio/cassette player into the dash, and has also cut holes in the door trims to fit speakers. This has also had the effect of puckering and bending the trim and material, so you can’t laugh it off as being a quality installation job.
Under the hood is the 403ci V8 which is hooked to an automatic transmission. The car hasn’t been run in a few years, but the engine does turn freely. The owner is of the impression that it won’t take much to get the car running. This is a claim that I always find interesting. If it is the case, I’ve always wondered why the seller wouldn’t get it going. To me, a car that starts and runs is infinitely more attractive than one that doesn’t do either. Just a thought.
This Trans Am seems to represent a fairly straightforward project car. If it’s as solid as claimed, then rust repairs are going to be minimal. The interior trim is better than we have seen on many project cars of this age. I wish the engine was running, but hopefully, that won’t take much work. I quite like this car, and so does at least one other person. After all, they have bid on it.
Those wheels do nothing for the look of the car.
They look like AMC’s “Turbocast II’s” to my eye.
Indeed. I had TCIIs on my ’80 AMC Spirit GT. They did wonders for the look of that car.
Turbocast IIs are 13 spoke, so these ones are likely aftermarket vector wheels.
I couldn’t agree more about the seller getting it running first. It’s not rocket science or brain surgery or even rocket surgery for that matter. Always makes me wonder what their hiding. (Was it parked because of a rod hammering?)
That being said, that’s the second reason why I’m not interested in it. First being, never cared much for the noses on these.
To each his own though I guess.
But it could be in flight rocket repair. Those guys don’t come cheap and are hard to find.
Trailer hitch. Hmm. Well, nice wheels, I remember similar ones from back then & the Radial T/A’s look right at home but I believe I would have held off until that little matter of the running condition had been sorted. Ah, just had a look, the seller states that they are HTF Keystone Turbines. OK then. There’s a lot of work to do here, paint, decal set, nose, door panels to start with and beyond what’s needed under the hood. And it’ll still be a gold ’79 with the Olds engine. That said, really hope it’s brought back.
If you’re really lucky you can find somebody with a custom van that would want to buy these wheels off of you. Then you could go out and buy a proper set of Pontiac Snowflake wheels.
I would buy these wheels in a minute for my van!
Is that color supposed to be gold or beige ? A coworker bought a new 78 Trans Am that was gold and it sure looked better than this one even when he drove it to work in the winter with road salt all over it. I know it’s quite old but it looks god awful the paint that is and the nose too.
Always a fan of this year , have to admit I never heard of a WS7, I owned a WS6 optioned trans am back in the day , it gave you 8” rims , handling package , and 4 wheel discs , so I had to google it , same as WS6 but with no rear discs !, strange , that being said why would you put new rims and tires on a non runner? ,the original deep dish rims are an important part of the package he’s hyping, Get it running! It looks solid enough , great interior , values are on the rise
Trans Am Highway wonderland
Yep….think those wheels put “Western Wheels” on top for a while seems they were the first to market them……had them on a 1974 Formula 400…..looks like a TA that could be saved…..
Funny seems like wheels are the only interest on this car in terms.of comments personally I like variety I’m sick of seeing snowflake wheels on every ta that comes down the pike those Wheels look awesome on that car and it’s the only thing I like about that car. There’s just so much junk on that engine it’s got to be a nightmare to work on it’s got an Olds 403 which is a pooch of an engine the only thing to do there is that comes out and for Simplicity sake put a 455 olds in it. All the bracketry and pulleys would work. I don’t like those old air conditioning cars they just the components are so heavy and dated and expensive they make working on the car really hard make the firewall look ugly. Ditch the factory AC components and upgrade to newer better AC components and the better 455 olds engine then it becomes a question will the turbo 350 hold up and will the stock 10 bolt rear end hold up well speed cost big money boys