Well If the GTO sells like its suppost to then in a few years when they start making them here in the US & it still sells then I dont think ya ever see the Firebird back.


Oh Just to let ya guys know. The firebird was actually build as an offter thought. Coming out like 4-6 months after its Twin the Camaro.

SO really the Firebird (OMG how many are going to flame me for this one) is the AFTERbirth of the Camaro.

 

My assesment:

1. The coupe market is only a fraction of what it once was.

2. 4th gen Firebirds sold less than half of what Camaros sold till the last 3 years when Camaro sales dipped below 45,000.

3. It can be said Firebird sales were more stable than Camaro's, since as a percentage the 'Bird's sales drop was less dramatic, though it never was a strong seller.

4. As you correctly noted, the uproar for a new Firebird is virtually non-existant compared to the feedback GM has gotten over Camaro.

5. GTO IS Pontiac's halo car. They have pretty much carved it into stone. It's also going to be the quickest and fastest Pontiac. This includes the next GTO as well.

6. Pontiac is no longer marketing cars that look like the WS6s. Pontiac is basically going to produce "sleepers", cars that go like stink, but isn't obnoxious looking.

7. GM pays a royalty for each Trans Am sold. With GM giving serious thought on changing the Camaro name because of potential bad will, it's not hard to imagine them foregoing the Trans Am name to save money (they did it with the 3rd gen, but backtracked at the start of production). At a conservative $5 per car in 1994 would cost GM over $100,000 in lost profit!

8. Word is there are 2 front ends for the next F-body. Could be 2 versions of the car for 2 divisions, could be 2 versions of the same Chevy (base & SS?), could be a revision of the same front end.


On the whole, I would not put money on the Firebird returning. But if it becomes just a Camaro with a different nose (like the 1st gen), I wouldn't go as far as saying "no way" on it returning. Especially if it becomes a 3 series coupe in Pontiac's BMW quest.

But I would say "no way" if there is the expectation that a Corvette/Probe-lookalike WS6 car with the base name of Trans Am is going to return. The new "Camaro" seems like it's going to ba a blunt nosed fastback coupe, so I'd expect "Firebird" to be the same IF GM decides to bring it back. I wouldn't expect it to be any different than "Camaro" beyond some trim, & the grill.

 

Intresting way of putting it.

 

Oh I know the history of the Firebird, as well as probably most here on the board. What I don't understand is why can't a similar situation occur today? If Pontiac built the Firebird on the Camaro platform back in '67 because the 2 seater Banshee wouldn't get approved, and considering Zeta is so modular and can have many different chassis specifications, why can't Pontiac offer the FIrebird in limited numbers? Here is what I feel could be a successful business case:

GM and Pontiac has said that the Firebird was more brash and had more aggressive styling, and thus that's one of the many reasons why it didn't sell well. So they decided to make the GTO less aggressive to appeal to a more mature, and hopefully a bigger select market. Fine I can deal with that. This is where marketing comes into play.
Pontiac can have both the GTO and Firebird, and this is how I could see it working. They can market the GTO to the older crowd, where performance and ride quality etc. is important to the market. And they can also sell the Firebird in numbers of 20-40000 units a year ( Zeta shouldn't cost much being the platform of many cars for GM) as a true performance car marketed to younger people with more aggressive styling. Pontiac even advertised the Trans Am as not for the masses, and never will be. Why not do the same to bring the Firebird back?

 

is it possibly for pontiac to use the zeta on an entirely different car, while leaving an option for a facelift and engine plant?

 

1. Agreed. But I think much of that is due to a lack of desireble product. Coupes generally sell because they are exciting and youthful. If you produce a bunch of cars that are neither, then who would you expect to buy them?

2. You are correct. For instance in 1999 there were 42,098 Camaros and 36,219 Firebirds sold. Certainly not a huge difference. I think the trends from "99 up indicate that many people appreciated the more aggressive and timeless styling of the Firebird line in '98. So let's see, GM realized almost twice the sales for the F-body by offering an almost identical car in another division. They were able to spread the costs out over many nore cars. That is the whole point of platform sharing , is it not?

3. I'm not sure where the strong seller/not strong seller cut off is but I don't think either car qualified for that status in the 4th gen.

4. This is a tough one to explain, but Pontiac guys are sort of used to being treated like the "red-headed stepchild" compared to chevy. If you talk to Firebird owners at shows or on the street, we are PISSED, make no mistake about it. On a board like this that is named after the CAMARO Z28 I'm not surprised that the majority of the "uproar" is for the Camaro. Plus, there are a few of our "old schoolers" who are still pissed that these cars use a corporate (they say Chevy) engine, no matter how great it is (this is a minority).

5. Your right again. GTO is Pontiacs new Halo car. Guess what, Chevy has one too, and it ain't the Camaro! Corvette=Halo Camaro=affordable performance for the average guy (income- wise) Why can't Pontiac have the same Formula for the GTO and T/A. A GTO will never sticker in the 20's. Can the Solstice fill this niche? I don't think so. So far it is entry level performance and no coupe.

6. Too bad. What year did Pontiac sell the most Firebirds and T/As? 1979. There were over 117.000 Trans Ams sold and over 211,000 total 'birds put on the road. As we all should know, 79 was the T/A at its most outrageouswith many cars having factory pinstriping and a HUGE FREAKING BIRD on the hood that even extended to the fenders on tenth anniversary cars. Am I suggesting that we go back to that? No, yes!, no, yes! No, I'm not . But that along with the strong sales of the later 4th gen WS6 cars proves that aggressive styling sells coupes.

7. A small price to pay for name recognition which is GM payed ot for all those years.

8. I hope one of these is for the Firebird but I kind of doubt it. But I hope that GM understands That there is such a thing as a "Camaro Guy" and a "Firebird Guy". The Camaro is virtually the same car, but Chevy styling doesn't speak to me like Pontiac does, period.

I could go on and on about options and features that debuted in the Firebird first and how Pontiac kept performance cars alive in the 70s, and the times when the top T/A outhandled and/or out accelerated the grandaddy of them all, the Corvette. But I think I've said enough.

By the way, If I'm not mistaken there were no plans for GMC to get a version of the new midsize Colorado until shortly before introduction but due to an outcry by the dealers the GMC Canyon was born for a minimal cost...

 

Hoodshaker: on point # 4, you mention that alot of Pontiac owners and enthusiasts are pissed when talked at shows and such. Maybe you can get a movement started where you're at and get those Pontiac owners to actually do something about it instead of accepting the fact of being a "red-headed stepchild." I'm thinking a few hundred to a thousand emails would at least attract some attention. And for your point # 5, that's basically what I'm thinking Pontiac can market it as. The bang for your buck performance coupe that is more stylish and a little more aggressive. As much as I love the newer WS6's, I would still love a Firebird coupe that can be aggressive but not as "over the top" as some people feel about the WS6's if i meant that the 'Bird would make a return.

Guionm: About the $5 royalty GM had to pay for every Trans Am built, wouldn't GM just add that on to the sticker price of the car? And if they didn't, I don't think an extra $5 or whatever it might be in today's dollars be all that much if GM decided to start putting it on the sticker price. IMHO

 

My intrest in cars hit overdrive in the late 70s, so naturally my favorite car back then was the Firebird Trans Am. It accelerated as quickly as the L82 Corvettes (and *gasp* was much quicker than base Corvettes!), the "screaming chicken" on the hood was cool, and everything from the turned alumunum dash, chrome hurst shifter, shaker hoodscoop (simply cut out the back portion & it became functional ), the "feathered" chrome exhaust pipes, it's own engine, and black out everything made the cars something else! Though Pontiac had roughly half as many dealers as Chevrolet, Firebird sold very nearly as much as Chevy did Camaros.

As a result, IMHO Firebirds died when they lost their own engine and gained oversized Corvette styling.

Hoodshaker, if Pontiac guys feel like "Red Headed Stepchildren", they should be ashamed of themselves! Why?

* GM gave the Trans Am one phenominal anniversary engine in 1989: a turbocharged & intercooled V6 engine that it took till latter LS1s around 2000 to match in performance!

* Firebirds had an extremely disproportional amount of the F-body budget. Camaro has had 2 noses and 2 hoods designed & engineered from GM during the life of the 4th gen. How many did Firebird have? 4? 6? Trans Ams have had at least 2 fronts that were separate from base Firebirds. Trans Ams (not including SLP designed hoods in any of this) had 2 in addition to the 3 for other Firebirds. Yet, both Chevrolet's and Pontiac's accounts were charged equally for the 1998 redesign though Firebird's sales were about half of Camaro's. I'm not sure how the mid model changes were sliced up, but while Firebird got them, Camaro didn't.

* When the final year special models were proposed, it was the special edition Trans Am that got the go ahead. Camaro's anniversary SS got the go ahead almost grudgingly.


Last of a breed, Pontiac isn't aiming to appeal to young aggressive types. I believe that's where they want to put Chevrolet.

GM is abandoning the every model for everybody in every division philosophy that blended Pontiac and Chevrolet customers.

IMHO, after Firebird lost it's engine in 1993, the only difference between a Firebird customer and Camaro customer was their taste in the skin of the cars.

 

I have thought about this in the past to an extent, and my personal opinion/idea is that GM was initially thinking that they would drop Camaro and keep Firebird... in the sense that Chevrolet had a sports car in Corvette, and Pontiac did not if Firebird went away, plus Pontiac was supposedly the "Performance" division...

I don't know if I am right or wrong, this was all thought up in my head, but it does seem to make a bit of sense...

 

You are correct. In the '70s, GM did plan on dumping Camaro in '76 or '77 I believe, and run Firebird till the numbers dwindled.

The Chevy Monza was Camaro's replacement. It initially was supposed to have a rotary engine, then when it ended up with a V8 at the last minute, Chevy began increasing power till GM changed their mind again & started puting together the 3rd gen F-body around 1978. Monza soon after became a full car line and and lost their V8 to preserve Camaro's performance position at Chevrolet.

 

Well this is depressing. I just figure that maybe with enough responses from Firebird enthusiasts that GM could at least give a thought about possibly bringing back the bird. I just can't envision Pontiac without it. Looks like Pontiac is going to lose me as a customer, and I currently own a '97 Grand Prix GT and the '02 WS6. I'm only 22 by the way, and if Pontiac were to offer a car with a little bit more styling, they'd continue to have me as a customer. Looks like I'll have to look elsewhere.

 

I hope that you manage to get enough people to make a difference Last of the Breed, and I will make sure anyone I know with a Firebird sends a letter in. I think most of your arguements are valid, and hope there is a new firebird sometime in the near future.

Maybe you should spread the mesage to some other fbody boards. This is primarily a Camaro board. Maybe some better luck at some more generalized sites, like www.ls1.com, www.ls1tech.com, ect...

 

I dont think Gm will listen to the enthusiasts, because they did that last time with the 4th gen and it sold terribly. Too much sports car not enough practicality. Most hated the long doors and the poor build quality, and for the most part the only attractive thing was the power train. Gm went for an all out sports car with the 4th gen, i do not think the 5th gen will be as much or as powerfull as we all hope. As for the bird i hope they do bring it back, i like the looks of it alot. Its agressive and masculine. Same goes for the camaro, but moreso with teh SS package. Coupes still do sell well, so i dont understand most of your theories of that coups wont sell etc. Look at all the rice you see, all celica's, 3000 gt's, honda coupes, eclipse is a very well selling car. I mean you can generalize like that. I think if you build it right, and make it appealing as well as properly advertise it, people will buy

 

That's pretty much about the time when my interest in cars literally exploded too, Guy.

In the '70's Trans Ams and pretty much all Firebirds were wildly popular.

But IMO too....Firebird died in 1982.

 

I think there are alot of us out there that would love to see a new firebird or Trans Am someday. Almost everyone that has seen my 96 WS6 loves the way it looks. The 96-97 and 98-02 Trans Am's were both amazing cars in terms of external looks. What I don't get is why people liked the 98-02 Camaro's look over a Trans Am or firebird? The 93-97 Camaro wasn't bad, but the 98-02 front end wasn't very attractive. Then again why do so many people buy Mustangs, they are one of the worst looking sports cars on the market (in my opinion). Yet they sell like crazy. Look at the Toyota Camry, so friggin ugly, and they are the best selling car on the market. If so many people loved the way the Trans Am looked, what kept them from buying one? I guess thats a whole other topic.

When it comes to bringing it back....I feel like Pontiac is so focused on the GTO as its muscle car now that the firebird/Trans Am is on the back burner. Kinda like the Original GTO was for over 25 years, I feel the Firebird/Trans Am will be for quite awhile. The GTO's poularity will fade eventually again and someday Pontiac will test the waters again with a new Firebird/Trans Am. The only way it could be sooner is if the Camaro comes back and is selling like crazy then maybe GM would consider bringing the Firebird/Trans Am back built on the same platform as the Camaro. But its just hard to imagine the GTO and the Trans Am in the same showroom. The GTO is priced too well I think for it to make any sense to bring the firebird/TA back. A WS6 actually cost a little more than a GTO I think. At Chevy its a different story, the Corvette is priced alot higher obviously making perfect sense to have the Camaro come back and fill in that $25k - $32k price range for a RWD Muscle Car. I would be more than happy to send an email or sign a list in support of bringing the Firebird/TA back. What is the email address you guys are talking about anyways???