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    1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455: Muscle Cars In Detail No. 6
    1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455: Muscle Cars In Detail No. 6
    1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455: Muscle Cars In Detail No. 6
    Ebook181 pages48 minutes

    1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455: Muscle Cars In Detail No. 6

    By Barry Kluczyk

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    About this ebook

    In Volume No. 6 of CarTech's Muscle Cars In Detail series, author Barry Kluczyk covers engine development and special equipment of the Super Duty 455 engine. In addition, covered are the high-performance chassis and suspension parts, so the TA could effectively apply and control all of the power.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCar Tech
    Release dateApr 17, 2017
    ISBN9781613254035
    1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455: Muscle Cars In Detail No. 6
    Author

    Barry Kluczyk

    Barry Kluczyk graduated from Central Michigan University with a degree in journalism, with the intent of writing about cars for a living. His first professional job was as managing editor at Musclecar Review magazine. He then moved on to McMullen-Yee Publishing (now Primedia) and worked on several magazines. He moved back to Michigan in 1996 to work as a writer and editor of several auto manufacturer customer publications. He is currently employed as a new vehicle product writer at a Detroit-area public relations firm.

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    Reviews for 1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455

    4/5

    11 ratings3 reviews

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    • 2/5
      It was a good book but not what I accept it to be very short not much in details as I would like how I gotten from other books
    • 5/5
      Very good, though short. Many useful pictures showing how to identify the unique SD455 parts. A good addition to the library of any Pontiac enthusiast. I recieved the book through the Early Reviewers group.
    • 4/5
      This book has a great addition to this Pontiac lover's library. I really enjoyed the pictures and the descriptions of the different parts of the 1973-74 Trans Am. It was full of a bunch of information that was very interesting.

    Book preview

    1973-1974 Pontiac Trans Am Super Duty 455 - Barry Kluczyk

    CHAPTER 1

    THE LAST OF A BREED

    The last true muscle car was the Pontiac Trans Am with...

    The last true muscle car was the Pontiac Trans Am with the optional Super Duty 455 engine. Its conservative ratings of 290 hp and 395 ft-lbs of torque offered real-world performance comparable to all but the mightiest of the high-compression big-blocks that ruled the streets just a few years earlier. It was offered from mid-1973 through 1974; only 1,195 were built, 252 in 1973 and 943 in 1974, along with an additional 101 Formula models.

    It’s been said that timing is everything. In that regard, it’s difficult to overstate the significance of Pontiac’s Super Duty 455 engine, which was offered in the 1973–1974 Firebird Trans Am and Formula models. At a time when other manufacturers’ high-performance offerings were emaciated shadows of their former selves, the Super Duty cars represented the last true vestige of a brief but colorful and important era in American automotive history, the muscle car years.

    That the cars were built at all was somewhat remarkable, given the political climate, shifting market trends, and the engineering challenges automakers faced to simultaneously reduce vehicle emissions and boost fuel efficiency. As was often the case with Detroit’s landmark performance cars, a handful of dedicated and determined engineers found a way.

    In the end, only a handful were built, but their legacy was established the moment they were introduced. Decades later, their capability on the dragstrip and between stoplights on Woodward Avenue has been matched with commensurately high value among collectors. More than simply the last true muscle cars, the Super Duty Trans Ams and Formulas were 290-hp proof that Pontiac engineers could still pull a high-performance rabbit out of their collective hat, as they’d done time and again in the previous decade.

    Factory high-performance models well and truly disappeared after the last Super Duty Firebird was built. A renaissance more than a decade away. In fact, nothing with comparable performance capability rolled out of a Pontiac dealership until the 1989 Trans Am 20th Anniversary model, whose turbocharged V-6 enabled mid-13-second quarter-mile times. After that, it was only the 1998–2002 Trans Am models with LS1 engines that could match the Super Duty cars in raw power.

    Pontiac’s performance legacy was established in the early 1960s...

    Pontiac’s performance legacy was established in the early 1960s with the first Super Duty engine program. Introduced in 1961 as an over-the-counter performance engine package for the popular Super Stock drag racing classes, it grew to include factory-built race cars in 1962 and culminated in 1963 with a number of lightweight models dubbed Swiss Cheese cars for the weight saving holes cut into their frames. At the heart of it were high-performance Super Duty engines that pushed full-size Pontiacs into the low-12-second range straight off the showroom floor.

    CHANGING TIMES

    The heady days of the muscle car era were comparatively short. Factory high-performance models had been offered in one form or another for years, but it was the mainstream success of the 1964 Pontiac GTO that kicked off that all-too-brief period, which lasted slightly longer than a half-decade. The horsepower arms race heated up quickly and the manufacturers’ arsenals included the 426 Street Hemi, solid-lifter big-block engines from Chevrolet, Cobra Jet engines from Ford, and, at the zenith of the battle in 1970, the Buick 455 Stage I engine that delivered a gut-tugging 510 ft-lbs of torque.

    Although other performance cars came before it, the 1964 Pontiac GTO...

    Although other performance cars came before it, the 1964 Pontiac GTO is generally credited with launching the classic muscle era. The formula was simple: stuff a large, powerful engine into a small car. In the GTO’s case, installing Pontiac’s 389 engine in the intermediate Tempest body defied a corporate edict. However, with first-year sales of more than 32,000, a cultural trend was born while affirming Pontiac’s performance credentials.

    Viewed through the narrow prism of the muscle car market, those cars engendered well-deserved bragging rights on Van Nuys Boulevard and at the countless burger stands that were the weekend hangouts for teens and young adults. Viewed through the wider lens of the American automotive market, those solid-lifter soldiers of the dragstrip represented only a few drops in a very large bucket.

    Take the 1970 Hemicuda, for example. It is rightfully regarded as one of the kings of the muscle car era, although only 666 were sold. Even the less-expensive models with 440 engines, including single-4-barrel and 3×2-carbureted Six Pack versions, totaled only 2,104. Those collective 2,770 high-performance models represented only about 5 percent of the Barracuda’s entire production run that year and .003 percent of the brand’s entire production of nearly 724,000 vehicles for 1970.

    It was a similar story at Pontiac, where the well-respected high-performance offerings amounted to a fraction of the brand’s total build. There were also signs that the pony car market had reached a saturation point, at least until the late 1970s. Sales for the personal, sporty coupes had declined across the industry and a prolonged strike at the Norwood, Ohio, assembly plant for the Chevy Camaro and Firebird drastically reduced sales in 1970 and 1971. Firebird sales exceeded 88,000 in 1969, but dropped 55 percent to only 48,739 in 1970. They rebounded to more than 53,000 in 1971, but crashed again in 1972, registering a mere 29,951 in total. And like the high-performance ’Cuda models, Firebird Trans Am sales were a small percentage of the whole.

    Pontiac joined the pony car race in 1967 with the Firebird...

    Pontiac joined the pony car race in 1967 with the Firebird, paving the way for the 1969 Trans Am introduction. Ironically, the car was named for the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Trans-Am series, in which other pony cars, such as the Mustang and Camaro, were enjoying great success. Pontiac wanted a Z/28 competitor for the street and track, but difficulties in developing the small-displacement, high-revving V-8 needed for homologation meant the Trans Am went to market without a presence in its namesake racing series. Only 697 were built that inaugural year, offered either with a standard 400 Ram Air III or optional Ram Air IV engine.

    The 1970 Trans Am marked the final year of Pontiac’...

    The 1970 Trans Am marked the final year of Pontiac’s high-compression Ram Air engines. The 345-hp Ram Air III was standard and the 370-hp Ram Air IV optional, which is exceedingly rare, with only 88 examples built. The 1970 Trans Am also introduced the shaker hood air scoop, which defined the model’s styling for more than a decade.

    Although it was nearly discontinued a year after its introduction, the...

    Although it was nearly discontinued a year after its introduction, the Trans Am returned with the redesigned Firebird lineup in 1970.

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