This 1970 Pontiac Formula 400 is located in Fort Wayne, Indiana and is listed here on eBay. The car appears to be in excellent condition with very little, if any, rust. The car is painted a non-factory correct color which contrasts oddly with the green interior. However, a lot of people like this car and it has already received 27 bids. The current high bid is $18,700 but the reserve had not been met. There are 5 days remaining in the auction.
The car is a numbers matching Formula 400 meaning that it left the factory with a 400 cubic inch V8 engine and 4 barrel carburetor. The engine is backed by a GM Turbo 400 automatic transmission. Pontiac chose to name early Formulas based on their engine designation. There was the Formula 350, Formula 400, and the Formula 455 that were produced from 1970 to 1976. After 1976, the cars reverted to just the Formula name. This car has the correct Ram Air air cleaner to feed cool air from the dual-snorkel scoops to the engine.
The seller states that the car was original Key Lime green on the exterior which has been repainted and the metallic green interior was retained. The seller has the Pontiac Historical Services (PHS) records to prove the originality of the car. At some point in the car’s life, the owner added Trans Am fenders which feature air extractors behind the front tires. A hood tach was also added to the fiberglass hood. The hood is slightly bowed which is normal.
The car rides on Pontiac Rally II wheels and new Cooper Cobra tires. A front spoiler was also added to the car with the wheel spats. 1970 was the last year for the Ram Air III high compression engine. I am not sure if a lower performance 400 cubic inch V8 motor was offered in 1970 in the Formula so hopefully, this is a Ram Air III equipped car. The seller states that the car runs and drives great and needs nothing.
Those hood scoops are hideous.
Yeah. F body Trans am , 67 big block stinger vette hood and big block Pontiac’s ugly too……really!!!
Nice find!1 Looks great !For me i love those year hoods with the dual snorkel looks BAD A$$
This car is all about the functional hood scoops. Anyone that doesn’t appreciate cold air induction should join a knitting club.
Didn’t we see this back in May? Maybe some interior work has been done?
It looks pieced together. I’d be scared of a car from the rust belt with a new paint job that has a throw together vibe. The amalgamation of Trans Am and Formula body parts has always looked odd, this color combination Dark gray with a green interior makes it look worse. Add to that no mention of whether the car has matching numbers or if the car originally came with Ram Air when those would be easy to prove, there is no reason to bid anywhere close to where the auction stands right now.
Steve R
It specifies “numbers matching” in the Ebay ad.
Front and back license plates.
“Franken-Bird”
We used to buy these full of bondo back in the day. They rusted pretty fast in salty climates, particularly around the rear wheel wells and the lower rear parts of the front fenders. You definitely want to check this out in person.
Boy that green on green frankly must have been hideous.
That was the 70s.
Looks like limo tint on the glass to hide the green interior.
I bought a 71 formula 400 in the early 90s from navy guy for I think 800 bucks .He had thrown a Rod out thru the Oilpan so had pulled the motor and spent 4or5 grand on a full engine rebuild making it stronger and faster than original. I was only 20 when I bought it and didn’t know much about engine internals I just knew a big Pontiac 400 freshly built was gonna be an awesome toy… Now this poor guy who was away with the navy for months at a time ,took him a few years to get everything done and the motor back in the vehicle. Well by the time he did living by the Atlantic ocean and
Our salty roads,I dont know if the car was driven in winter weather or not, but the back end of his formula 400 had rotted out to a state that nobody back then would even bother spending all the time.and money to bring something that rusted out back to being road worthy. If we had known what these car were gonna be worth someday back then we would have held onto it and about 50 other rust bucket winter beaters we once owned and put them all on Ebay today and made a fortune. Well we didn’t and so the navy guy got relocated cut his losses sold me the car .I pulled the motor and 3 speed Saginaw. Traded the 3 speed for an auto out of 81trans am and dropped it into a mint 80 grand lemans I bought from an old guy that had a little 267 in it. Cut the front coils from the formula down to fit the lemans got a set of big sway bars from a 78 Malibu ex cop car and a 3:08 posi rear end cone type from some.old green station wagon at the junk yard. Added a Holley aluminum street dominator intake and ran a couple different 4 barrel carbs from 650s to
850s The 650s you could whack wide open right off the line but the big 850 you had to wait until the rpms got up before laying into the big secondaries which was a fun way to burn thru 20 dollars worth of gas in 20 minutes or less too Unfortunately I couldn’t get the headers that were on the engine to work on the lemans but did track down a nice set of somewhat high flow manifolds to fit with some big dual pipes and mufflers.i drove and worked on that car, blocked out the panels lazer straight sprayedsome nice paint on it added a nice set of wide Corvette like turbines and BFs etc.etc for the next 10 years on and off as.my daily driver except for parking it for winters and it was one of the quickest cars around ..legendary ..early 5.0 mustang’s hated me especially my tail lights Lol stop light raced so many guys who when they caught up at the next light wanted to what kind of black magic nitrous I was running..Watching the guys on motorcycles in the rearview mirror laying on the tanks y’know like the 550s and 600s trying to keep up was always alot of fun. I wasn’t beating any ninja 1000s of course Went thru alot of rear end spider gears with them cone type posi’s it would clean the teeth right off but they hooked up both wheels great and I found a good supply of replacements from old astro and safari Van’s.. I eventually snapped the frame in half where it comes down and hits the bumpstop on top of the rearend pot from the back end slamming down so hard at every take off..I redlined(actually never had a tach..redlined by ear and arse)that rebuilt Pontiac 400 day after day and year after year and never threw a rod ever again so the boys who built it did a good job Pontiac rules and you don’t have to spend alot of money to go fast and have fun sometimes you just get lucky and put a car together with the parts and peices you can find and afford and it all comes together into lean mean road racing machine ! Peace fellow Gearheads
The mention of the color green for things sure separates us. I come from a time when EVERYTHING was green, from my parents toilet to Scotty G’s moms oven mitts. Not sure why, I bet it had something to do with the “black and silver” mentality of today. The 60’s and ’70’s were all about color, and interiors were the only part of the car you saw. Greens, blues, reds, were all popular interior colors until they morphed into the dull grays or blacks of today.
This sure is a sharp looking Formula, as Trans Ams got all the thunder, even though, I bet 90% of all Firebirds were like this. I happen to like green, and a repaint would be in order. What color? Well, green, natch.
I quit reading at the toilet reference.
Would be nice to see the PHS on this car. Transam spoilers were optional on the Formula from what I have heard. With the ram air III engine this may be plausible. The lower performance 400 was available in the Formula as the author wonders. I had one in 1970 like this car with the base not very fast 400.
I don’t think i ever seen a 1st or 2nd gen GREY f-body, or for that matter, any model classic car ’68-’74 that was grey.
I would like to see the VIN – it would cost a lot less money to make a formula out of a t/a(which i think this might be) than the reverse.
SOLD for $22,500.