With the pony car concept still fairly new and proving to be a hot segment in the marketplace, Pontiac got in on the action in early 1967 with the introduction of its Firebird, though the Chevrolet Camaro had beaten it by nearly six months. First-year buyers had their choice of six or eight-cylinder engine power, and while most selected one of the V8 options, opting for the Sprint model got you a 4-barrel on top of the I-6, which raised the output to a satisfying 215 horsepower. This 1967 Firebird Sprint here on eBay could use a thorough restoration, but it’s running, mostly complete, and likely at a pretty good starting point to become a fine cruiser. This one’s in Antonito, Colorado, with the present bid of $8,250 still falling short of the reserve.
Both inline-six engines measured 230 cubic inches in 1967, although that size increased to 250 for the following year. Each 230 was also of the overhead cam variety, but for just over a hundred dollars more, the Sprint featured higher compression, a more aggressive cam, and a Rochester Quadrajet instead of the base 1-barrel, resulting in a 40 HP gain over the entry-level I-6. This one is reported to start and drive, and more good news is the transmission, as it’s a 4-speed manual. Recent mechanical maintenance includes a new carburetor, fuel pump, and radiator. One of the photos also shows what appears to be a fresh gas tank down below.
The owner states that until recently, this Firebird had been parked in New Mexico since 1993, and rust issues appear to be minimal. There’s a bit of corrosion behind the wheels on both quarters, but it’s light enough that even a novice bodyman could probably make the repairs, and most of the panels seem to remain relatively straight. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the missing paint almost resembles a bird perched on the hood from the passenger-side angle, with the front of its head near the right wiper and tail facing the left front headlights, so I might have to drive this car as-is for a while before eliminating this unusual novelty.
The only interior tidbit provided is that the dash lights are working, but enough pictures are supplied to show that it’s mostly there and could use a refresh. Though the steering wheel, dash pad, and headliner need to be replaced, the seller posts a good photo from underneath that seems to show the floors and rails are likely still strong, so hopefully the work needed on this 1967 Pontiac Firebird Sprint will be mostly cosmetic. Is this first-year F-Body one you’d be interested in taking to a higher level?
Nine out of ten Firebirds of this vintage have V8s so this would be somewhat unique. Not to mention this one also has three pedals. This car is probably fun to drive too with that 4-speed. About the OHC six, they sound great with a split exhaust and headers. Its cam is rubber-belt driven. I don’t know if it’s an interference engine but if the belt breaks you’re going to be hoofing it anyway, if not replacing the mill. But an inline six does have an advantage of smoothness too. Would I take this one? Sure, if I could ship it.
IIRC, the factory cast exhaust manifold was a split exhaust, but the factory combined the split pipe into a single exhaust further down the line. An aftermarket outfit, Clifford Performance, makes a four barrel intake and headers with split exhaust for these if you want to convert a one-barrel car to a four-barrel intake (see link below). I saw this on an episode of “Roadworthy Rescues”, a.k.a. “Vice Grip Garage”, specifically, Season 1, Episode 3, “Termite Tempest” (see link below).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt22814018/?ref_=ttep_ep_3
https://cliffordperformance.net/store/ols/products/68pohc
I did a valve job on one I think. I don’t think they were interference engines. Funny fact. Back in one of the many car mags of the seventies, they actually swap;ped out the Jag engine in an XKE and replaced it with one of these Pontiac cammers. Leaned it over and all! Sacrilige now, but back then, it was just a used car. ps Loved these engines, wish they had continued.
Hope the buyer doesn’t pull out the six in favor of a V8. I always thought this was the first American OHC six, but Jeep was first.
Straight six is an excellent solution, engineering-wise, and the manwell would make a huge difference in driving experience. I have to wonder what they were hooking up to the trailer hitch?
Nice write up Mike, This one needs restoration and seems to be solid. I never realized these were 4V carb OHC motors. I always thought they were the run of the mill I6 like the Camaro. The 4 speed makes it even more unique.
When I first clicked here I was expecting the dreaded column shift and/ or bench seat.
My brother had a 1969 example of one of these, a convertible in “Carousel Red”, a.k.a. “Hugger Orange”, with a hood tach and three-speed manual, until it was stolen from our college dorm parking lot in 1981! We had just rebuilt the motor, transmission and replaced the rear end, and were going to start on some bodywork when the boys from “Midnight Auto Supply” (home of the five-fingered discount), grabbed it to replenish their inventory! Rob Sad!
P.S. They were available in base trim with a one-barrel carb and 8.5:1 compression, or the Sprint version, with 10.5:1 compression and a four-barrel fuel mixer.
I think what everybody thinks id missing paint is a shadow of someone!!
Go look at the pictures on eBay. It’s not a shadow.
That’s one potent shadow…took the paint right off!
Moe: Brighto, Brighto, makes old bodies new!
Larry: We’ll sell a million bottles!
Curly: Woo woo woo woo woo woo woo!
Dr. Bright: Well boys, how did it go?
Curly: We rubbed it on a man’s car, and it took the paint right off. That polish ain’t no good!
Dr. Bright: Polish? You idiots, that’s medicine!
Curly: Medicine?
[Curly drinks a bottle]
Curly: I feel better already!
Moe: What was wrong with you?
Curly: Nothing.
[Moe slaps Curly]
From “Dizzy Doctors” (1937)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028791/?ref_=ttqu_ov_bk
yeah, it needs a redo. had 1 of these motors in 67 lemans. cooling motor but a real p o s. ended up putting a 455 in it and selling off that sprint motor
Nice Firebird. Like the Sprint 6!!
The seller notes the “discoloration on the hood”. Discoloration?? It looks like the paint was eaten up by a toxic spill!
had a tempest with one ran great but smoked real bad LOL
These were prone to oil leaks and lifter issues, particularly if you didn’t change the oil at least as often as the owner’s manual recommended. Also cam wear for the same reason, as the hydraulic lash adjusters would gum up and lose oil pressure, and the cam would be starved for oil. It was another engine from GM that was cancelled before the Engineers could work all of the bugs out of it. Engineers call these little issues on early products “teething pains”, because like a baby who is teething, the pain is temporary, but it takes time to get through it. You never know what the issues will be until the product actually goes into production and ends up in the hands of real customers, no matter how much testing you do ahead of time.
“Nothing can ever be made foolproof, because the fools are so ingenious!” – Murphy’s Law.
I noticed on the interior photos that there’s a lot of “spaghetti” in the wiring under the dash. I suspect that the previous owner/owners did some repair and splicing (the Kenwood AM/FM/Cassette is a giveaway), and that would give me pause. the other thing I noticed was with the headliner – the holes/tears are in pretty much the same place in the back seat area. I’m not sure what they were doing, although I suspect they may have been routing or repairing wiring. I’m not the biggest inline 6 fan, but the Pontiac OHC was very intriguing and might sway me to give it a shot if there was one in better condition.
Always run away from a wiring mess. I had a Navy man bring his relatively new Firebird to our service dept on a trailer and said he had a wiring problem and it was under warranty. My service writer came to me and I walked out to the trailer where the car sat and opened the driver’s door. I bent down and looked under the dash at about 4685 miles of wires hanging down. So I told the nice man to take it back where he bought it and let them fix their mess because I was not touching it. It had an aftermarket radio he said was installed at the dealer he bought it from. He complained to Pontiac and the service rep called me and told me I HAD to fix it. I told him if he wanted to work on it in my shop he was welcome to but we would not be taking on that job for him or anyone else.
I would never allow a car to be taken off a trailer unless I knew of it beforehand and had agreed to see it. Those things are always somebody else’s problem they couldn’t fix.
First thing I’d put a v8 and store the 6. Where’s this car at ? Did I miss it
Colorado.
Right above the second picture.Antonito,Colorado.
It’s in about the remotest part of Colorado that there is….not near any major population center. Shipping expenses would be out of this world!
Back when I was driving used cars at a Pontiac store in the 60s, I drove one of these with a three speed for a short time. It was noisy, it was slow and it was no fun.
I’d put a 400 up to a 455 in it and enjoy the ride.
That’s were Chuck Norris left his shadow . It eats up paint ! The trailer hitch is rather optimistic…….pull a double axel camper trailer ? Snakes aplenty above clutch/brake pedals. Other than that looks like what a daily used 25 year old car would have looked like back in 1982.
No mention of the original cast iron exhaust manifold. Didn’t it bolt to the intake?
Way back in the days of my youth, my first car was a 67 Sprint6 Firebird convertible with a three speed on the floor. Mine had a 69 Sprint motor in it, but it was a fun car to drive! Handled great and when that 4 barrel opened up it would fly! Sounded great too, as I had a 6 inch air cleaner on it so you could hear the air being sucked into the carb! Loved dropping the top too!
These first gen Firebirds are sweet. With an ohc i-6, 4 bbl & 4 spd even better. Personally I’d just clean it up and drive it. I don’t get the need to restore when for must less effort you can go through it fixing or improving whats needed and enjoy it for what it is? A rare beast ready to suprise a few unbelievers. No big blocks please, not needed here.
This sounds like a basically solid car that simply needs some TLC to be put back on the road. Great car!
Couldn’t agree more robt on all counts. I love this thing just like it is. Drive it and improve things as time and money allow. Cool car, I hope it finds a good new home.
Being a little bit rusty is like being a little bit pregnant….
Friend from high school had a 66 Tempest Custom Sprint with the 250 OHC 6, 4 bbl. 4 speed.
Why was the 250 available in the Tempest but not in the Firebird until 68?
It seemed to be a good engine. Good enough for a swap for a Tri Power tuned for the strip that was alleged to have turned an 11.72 et when a bit newer…
The OHC Six went into a Chevy pickup that was seen around town for years, the owner completely happy with it. The Tri Power turned out to be a dog.
The night after graduation from high school in ’70 we took the chicks down to the beach and of course got into a bit of street racing from light to light. Kept getting walked away from by a car that sounded like a big 6 cylinder. It was a friendly set of kids in the other car. It was a “pull over and let’s see what you’ve got” after a few lights. We all got out and popped the hoods and checked out the other cars mills. The look of surprise to see that look when they saw the Tri Power. The look of disappointment when we saw their 6 cylinder… A Pontiac OHC 6.
It was modified by a local speed shop and it had no problem kicking a Tri Power that was on its last legs. Good times. About a year later, my brother just had to have that Tri Power Tempest. I came home on Christmas leave from the Army and he gave me a white knuckles ride back to the airport… That was the last time I saw it. The guy with the Chevy pickup truck with the OHC6? He’s probably still driving it, though I couldn’t say.
Shouldn’t there be a “Sprint OHC6” badge somewhere? Those two “Overhead Cam” badges on the hood were on all base 6-cylinder Firebirds. This looks like a base OHC6 with a 4-bbl manifold and aftermarket headers.
I loved my 1966 Reef Turquoise Tempest Custom Sprint 2-dr hardtop. It’s biggest problems were with its Saginaw 4-speed transmission. Pulled a 16.6 quarter mile at Austin Raceway Park to win an H/Pure Stock trophy.
Yes. IIRC, they were located on the hood, on either side of the hood bulge and on the fenders, down low, next to the rocker panels by the leading edge of the doors.
If the engine serial number starts with Z, it is the high compression 4 barrel motor.
Mike I disagree with you on this, the engine code shown in the picture is
?K, I can’t read the 1st letter, but even if it is a ZK that code was used on all years 1bbl manual transmission engines. And most OHC6 engine codes started with a Z, a couple of exceptions but in short both 1bbl and 4bbl engines used the Z? Engine codes.
No disrespect intended I am also wrong at times.
I agree this was a 1bbl car originally with a manual transmission. It has been back yard modified in the past. My experience is that the Clifford intake and smaller carb would slow down the car vs the factory intake and Q-jet. The headers would help a little but not much.
Things that make me think it as not a Sprint, besides the missing OHCSprint emblems on the rockers, and Clifford intake are that there are no indash gauges, The car has a strange power steering bracket installed, and the Alternator has been relocated to the passenger side of the engine, both things I have never seen before. The Alternator was probably moved to make room for the #1 header tube. I was always told that you could not mount the stock power steering/alternator bracket with headers. But I found it just took some grinding on the bracket, and some 1/4″ spacers to move the bracket away from the engine block.
Things I find odd but do not affect if it was a base model or a Sprint is the 1/2 clear steering wheel that was part of the deluxe interior package, but this car has the base interior.
Things I would have to correct before driving it are the fuel line to the carb, the rigged throttle return spring, and the use of the original mono leaf rear spring brackets with the later style multi leaf springs.
And does it have a rear sway bar mounted infront of the rear axle tubes? If not what are the brackets mounted on the axle tubes for?
It does look like a solid starting point though.
Interesting…
Also quite capable of being wrong at times here Jeff, but years ago, it was explained to me that in that era The General used a Z as the first digit of engines they deemed to be high performance (usually a higher compression ratio). Having no ZL1 or Ram air IV cars here to confirm that on (dreamer), I did go look at my Sprint powered 48 GMC truck. Sure enough a Z. I later acquired a 69 Lemans Sprint and used it as a summer daily driver for a number of years, mainly to have the motor as a spare, also a Z. The extent of my OHC6 expertise.
No worries Mike, I have owned around 30 OHC6 powered cars over the years, mostly Sprints, but some 1bbl cars also. My 1st one was a 69 Sprint Tempest 4-speed that was mostly used as a Class Drag car for its 1st 5 or 6 years until Bracket racing came to our local track. Then the owner sold it to me. I didn’t realize how modified it was It would run 13.8 and 103MPH in the 1/4 mile. I wish I knew how rare it was (less than 50 Manual Tempest Sprints made that year) As I drove it as a daily driver until the Michigan rust ate it up.
Wow! A 48 GMC with a Sprint swap! I would love to see it sometime. Do you ever take it to the Tripower Nationals at Norwalk Ohio in July? There is a pretty active OHC6 club in the POCI that meets up there. I am sure it would be a hit there!
To Mike G old man, if your friends 66 Tempest did have a 250 OHC6 it was swapped in. All 66 & 67 OHC6’s were 230’s, all 68 & 69 OHC6’s were 250’s. Model didn’t matter A Body or F Body.
There were a few 270 cubic inch OHC6’s made, but they were engineering test engines only. They had plans to make the larger OHC6 the base engine on the full size Catalina Models. But they never actually made that change, and the 270 CI version never made it into production.
In a resto-mod “tribute” car, someone swapped in an LL8 “Atlas” straight-six cylinder from a Chevy Trailblazer, but not before adding a turbocharger and other mods that made an engine with almost 500 hp (see link below).
https://www.hotrod.com/how-to/ccrp-1108-turbocharged-vortec-inline-six
This engine is the DeLorean six-cylinder engine’s spiritual successor, with aboth an aluminum block and heads, double overhead camshafts (DOHC) and twenty-four (24) valves, a.k.a. four (4) valves per cylinder. Yet another engine the bean counters killed just as the Engineers were perfecting it, it only lasted for seven (7) years (2002-2009), before the bean counters pulled the plug (see link below).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Atlas_engine
This car will be a future collectible for sure and much more nicer than the Camaro depending on personal preference. Being the first year of the firebird these are highly collectible and desirable by many and at this price there is wiggle room to make some improvements. With the six cylinder it will be a gas saver but obviously will not have the power of a v-8 a lot less of these around versus the Camaro, this car will sell fast….
It sold for $10,050.
It was bid to $10,050 reserve not met.