Steve Kuhn's 1969 Pontiac Trans Am is a work of art. It's wearing a great restoration, it's a rare car, and it's a hell of alot of fun!
Kuhn purchased the car from an owner in Los Angeles, drove it for a week, and sent it off to Aloha Automotive Services in Port Washington, Wisconsin for a complete concourse-quality restoration. With 697 cars produced in '69, and only 114 having the Ram Air III engine and an automatic transmission, we can see why he went through the time and expense to preserve a piece of musclecar history.
The Trans Am featured several unique body modifications setting it apart from garden-variety Firebirds. These fiberglass air extractors were located behind the front wheels, and they served to evacuate high pressure and high temperature air from the nose of the car.
The most significant addition to the 1969 Trans Am, especially from a restorer's standpoint, is the steel ram air hood. Equipped with fiberglass inserts, the functional dual-snorkel hood placed openings close to the natural high-pressure zone at the front of the car. Today, these hoods are not reproduced in steel, and originals are extremely hard to find. Kuhn reported seeing them approaching $15,000.00 on eBay!
Equally as important to a correct Trans Am Restoration is the steel Ram Air Pan attached to the bottom of the hood. This part mated the bottom of the hood to the foam seal of the lower Ram Air Pan on the carburator.
Another styling cue exclusive to the Trans Am is the Tyrol Blue taillight panel and rear spoiler. Typically, the rear spoiler only had the pedestals painted blue.
The Trans Am owes its aggressive stance to a lower chin spoiler and heavy-duty suspension pieces like a 1" front sway bar and specific springs. Although they were considered high-performance cars, they still needed to have Pontiac drivability and comfort, so the suspension wasn't extremely harsh.
This car enjoyed a complete rotisserie restoration performed by Aloha Automotive Services in Port Washington, WI. They first media-blasted the paint and crust off the car to reveal a clean, Western shell with minimal rust.
You have to be careful when working on super-rare body panels like a hood worth more than a new Hyundai. The crew at Aloha is used to these kinds of restorations. Their main area of expertise is the Mopar world, but they were able to pull off this resto with ease.
Next came the mechanical re-hab. The Aloha team painstakingly disassembled the original Ram Air III Pontiac V8 and restored it to original specs. When doing a concorse restoration, everything has to be perfect down to the smallest detial.
This engine compartment is almost perfect. Kuhn admits the only element not correct is that the alternator does not have the correct date code stamped in it. Everything else does; the carb, distributor, etc. It's hard to imagine all the original parts staying with a car so long.
With bodywork completed, they Aloha team sprayed the original Trans Am exclusive Cameo Ivory paint with Tyrol Blue stripes. The location of the stripes required extensive research to verify perfect placement and size. Interestingly, the stripes do not cover the rear spoiler on production Trans Ams. Apparantly, there was a Pontiac prototype car used in press photogrpahy with the stripes on the wing, but it's not correct for the production version. Take a look at the die-cast models of this car next time you're in a hobby shop - you'll see that some used the Prototype as their guide.
Under the car, a Gardener Exhaust system was used for correctness.
So how did it come out? Kuhn's Trans Am took home 397 out of 400 at the Pontiac Nationals the first time it was shown. Kuhn is searching for the 3 missing points. We've owned cars that would have taken 3 out of 400, but we understand his desire.
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