This 1979 Pontiac Firebird Esprit is a Red Bird Edition car located in Holiday, Florida. The car is listed for sale here on eBay for a Buy It Now Price of $4,500. So far there have been no takers but the seller has a Make Offer option. There are 25 days remaining in the listing. Pontiac offered three special types of the Esprit model that included the Red Bird, Sky Bird, and Yellow Bird. The Red Bird, like this one, was produced in 1978-1979 and had red paint, red interior, and red accented wheels. The Sky Bird was made in 1977-1978 and was the same but in a light blue. The Yellow Bird was option code W73 and was built in 1980 and 1981.
The car spent most of its life in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The odometer reading is 57,000 miles but the car shows a lot of wear and tear so this is probably the second or third time around the block for this Firebird. The car is equipped with a 301 cubic inch V8 engine. This was the economic engine developed by Pontiac that generated 155 horsepower when equipped with a 4 barrel carburetor. The engine was introduced in 1977 and it was produced through 1981.
The interior is in just as bad a shape as the exterior. Most Red Birds were equipped with a number of options. This one has a deluxe cloth interior with power windows, tilt, and air conditioning. As can be seen, the dash is cracked and just about every interior part is going to need replacement or restoration. The seller states that there are rust holes in the floors and it looks like it has new whitewall tires.
Pontiac equipped the Red Bird, Sky Bird and Yellow Bird editions with color-keyed 15×7 aluminum snowflake wheels. To my knowledge, all Red Birds were built with automatic transmissions. We have come across much better examples in the past. I think the seller will need to accept a much lower offer to move this car.
Ah, the “Ladybirds”. Definitely unique!
Can’t recall seeing any back in the day – but someone around here must have been collecting (hoarding) them, as a set of blue, red, and yellow all showed up simultaneously in a junkyard a few years back. The yellow and the blue snowflake wheels are in my garage for some unknown future project.
There was also a nurse at the local hospital who had a Sky Bird a few years back. Car looked very nice, possibly restored. I still wonder if it might have been one half of a ‘his and hers’ combo… and if so, what car the hubby chose!
This car is a well-worn vehicle. PMD was looking to keep/increase market share and cosmetic packages were and are inexpensive. I can’t tell from the images and father time about the wheels. They look close to OE but not. If someone wants a Firebird this is probably not the one to buy. Of course it’s not my money so go for it.
This Redbird isn’t a flyer w 301 auto and 2.73 geared
Redbirds did come with a manual transmission and the yellowbird was one year only. The 301 was fair with a questionable valvetrain, very reliable over the road engine. The Esprit series were “pretty” cars with beautiful interiors. Hobnail cloth seats, engine turned dash inserts with matching shift plates for automatics. The yellowbird with there color scheme were attractive to the potential female buyers.