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Fake?

J

JAL

New Member
Hello everyone.
I'm new to the TTA world, but have been a fan of the Firebird/Trans Am since i was a kid. My first car was an '84 Firebird SE and I always told myself I would get a 1986 - 1989 Trans Am.
Well, I'm getting ready to make a purchase this spring/summer and as I've been researching and brushing up on my knowledge, I've fallen in love with the TTA.
I found one listed on e-bay that looks fairly nice. However, it does not have the white/gold eagle between the tail lights, just a gold one. Also, the wheel center caps have a gold eagle on them... not the WS6 caps that came on the TTA.

Below is the link
Pontiac : Trans Am : eBay Motors (item 180477086383 end time Apr-03-10 13:10:43 PDT)

I also googled the VIN (1G5FW217XKL240276) and found some posts on turbobuick.com site that leads me to believe that this is not a true TTA.

Can anyone confirm?

All of this being said, if anyone knows of a nice TTA for sale ($20,000 or less) within a reasonable distance of Michigan, I would be interested to hear from you.

Thanks everyone!
 
Based on the VIN and pics it is a real TTA. Emblems fall off, get broken, or get stolen. The bird appears to be the only one missing. And the center caps simply have a sticker with either the bird or WS6 on 'em. Still seems a bit high on the price to me but it is a dealer. Car could be a little cleaner for only 20k miles, IMO. Maybe a good detailing would help.
 
Looks like a damn good fake. The back bird could have been damaged or stolen and replaced with the GTA one. Same with the center wheel caps, or maybe they got mis-placed at a dealer with the regular T/A caps. The engine bay includes the original air breather canister and intake which are hard to find if this was a conversion/fake most builders probably would have looked over that detail and just put a K&N filter on it, as well most real TTAs now have lost the canister to who knows where. Need to have pics of the dash to see if it has a boost gauge. That would be hard piece to locate to make a fake. All that said it's a nice car from what the pics show.
 
Thanks Ron!

To further educate myself, what can I look for in the VIN to verify it's a TTA?
Also, I've only seen the WS6 caps on the wheels... did some come with the eagle?
Lastly, can you shed some light on the 20th anniversary emblem that supposedly came on the map pocket. I've seen so many interior pictures and some have the emblem and some don't. Was it simply glued on or were they pins? I've found a couple pins online that look like they could be meant for the map pocket.

Any help/advice you can give would be much appreciated!!
 
1G5 verifies that it is a TTA. The 5 stands for "incomplete vehicle" as the cars were not certified as being finished until they were shipped to PAS, then shipped back to Pontiac. The VIN stickers will be present under the hood, inside both front fenders, doors, quarters, and under the carriage near the rear plate area. If they all match then those the parts should be all original. Also, there should be a PAS build sticker on the driver's door along with a PAS emissions label under the hood.

The map pocket emblem is just a stick on. Many were missing, including the one on my old car. Replacements can be purchased. The pins are very similar to the emblem.

I don't know of any cars having the eagle center caps as original but like I said, they are easy to change. Either the entire cap can be changed or just the sticker.
 
JAL said:
Thanks Ron!

To further educate myself, what can I look for in the VIN to verify it's a TTA?
Also, I've only seen the WS6 caps on the wheels... did some come with the eagle?
Lastly, can you shed some light on the 20th anniversary emblem that supposedly came on the map pocket. I've seen so many interior pictures and some have the emblem and some don't. Was it simply glued on or were they pins? I've found a couple pins online that look like they could be meant for the map pocket.

Any help/advice you can give would be much appreciated!!
Click to expand...

All TTA VINs start with 1G5 where as normal third gens are 1G2. You can look under the front and rear bumpers, both doors, the rear hatch, and inside the trunk compartment on the drivers side there is a hole up on the top that you might be able to see one, for additional VIN stickers. If the gauge cluster has the boost gauge that is another good hint. Look around on here especially in the pictures section and study the pictures. If you go to look at a car post on here of where it's located and you might be able to find someone nearby who can look at it with you, or check the Turbo Buick boards they will be able to help quite a bit too. Take lots of detailed pictures especially in the engine bay and you can post them if you're unsure of anything.

Edit: I see that car is in Schaumburg. There are 2 guys who regularly post on here in the Chicago area and I'm a couple of hours from there. If you decide to look at it let me know or Chris or Mike may speak up and could help you look at it.
 
Thanks guys!

Jared, I am potentially going to look at it this Saturday. I just need to clear a couple things off my schedule. If I can head out there, I will indeed post it to see if anyone is available to meet me.
Apparently the owner of the dealership owns the car. I spoke with a salesman there today, but the owner was not in. He said that no one was sure as to why the rear bird and wheel caps weren't original. Maybe the owner could shed some more light on it? It just seemed weird to me that of all the TTA photos I've looked at, this is the only one that had any non-original badges.

Thanks again for your help!
 
We seen a number of TTA's withthe GTA Gold rear bird emblem ... these came from the factory so guess they ran out and just used the gold one on a couple of TTAs ... I beleive I've seen the same on some of the festival TTAs @ INdy for sure I've seen the wheel center caps beign the gold bird one instead of the WS6 caps that should be on there. How these passed the quality control beats me but hey it was in the 80's :-)
 
Hey, this car is about a mile from my place in Schaumburg and I have seen it. It is in good condition and the dealer has been trying to sell it for about 3 years now. It is, or was, a Pontiac dealership and they obviously are in no hurry to sell it. I don't know how much they are willing to go down in price and there are a couple actual Festival cars on eBay right now that may be better deals for the rareness of those cars. Good luck either way and feel free to contact me if you want me to go with. Mike 847-636-3946
 
As Mike points out it's been up for sale for some time. I lost count of how many times I've seen that one on ebay :-)

At some point in life it where in Ohio ... besides that I have no other info in my database
 
Yes like Mike said. I too saw this car and its been there for a long time.
Why??? I have no clue.
 
WOW! Thank you all for your input, info, and advice. You don't know how valuable your info is to someone looking to buy their 1st TTA.

The link below includes some pictures the dealer sent me.

Obviously, I would love to have an "off the showroom floor" TTA. However, I realize that $20,000 probably won't get me there. That being said...
Your opinions regarding the condition and "showability" of this car would be greatly appreciated.

I have some opinions regarding them, but I'm curious to see what you all think.

http://www.gopontiac.com/89ta/


Again, I GREATLY appreciate your input and advice!!

THANKS!!!
 
After seeing the pictures they sent you, I would stay away from it for that price! I would say if they were asking around $15K I would start thinking about it. Sorry, but that is just my opinion. I never got to the point of looking underneath the car when I saw it.
 
From the pictures I don't think the car looks that bad, and for the mileage I'd probably pay about $16k for it. If you decide not to look at this car further here are some things to look for from those pictures by picture number:

2 - That isn't the original exhaust from the cat back. The tips should be a a split Y shape with the ends angle cut (check the other thread recently posted on here looking for some). At the top in the middle you can see the VIN sticker for the rear bumper, this is an easy one to check when looking at a car.

5 - That's the original tranny pan, it will have Metric stamped in it and the little indent is where there is a donut magnet.

6,7 - surface rust on the suspension is normal, they were all bare steel from the factory except for the shocks which normally just get covered in road grime

8 - That's the intercooler shroud from the front. It's common for that screen to be missing, rivots missing, and basically for it to be kind of mangled. The shroud hangs extremely low on these cars and it'll hit on parking curbs, speed bumps, steep inclines. If it's not the front bumper scraping it's the intercooler shroud. This one is in pretty good condition for an original, they make a reproduction if you really have to fix it (mines messed up and I'm very very picky with my car). At the bottom of the pic you see the k-member, this normally has some oil on it. You're going to learn the TTA leaks, if it isn't leaking then you should probably check your oil. The k-member original came with a thin coating of a clear oil type of liquid on it but it wore off within like the first year or so.

9-11 - the cars were sprayed with a thing grey primer on the bottom. Some areas will have a little black overspray on them too. A little surface rust is normal especially along the unibody weld joint. This car looks pretty damn clean.

Hope that will help you some more with details to worry or not worry about with under the car. One of these days I should put together a buyers guide of all the little details.
 
Thank you all again for your help and input. I too felt that the price was a bit high. The seller is holding at $19,000 firm... I guess I'll keep looking for now.

Thanks again!
 
JAL said:
WOW! Thank you all for your input, info, and advice. You don't know how valuable your info is to someone looking to buy their 1st TTA.

The link below includes some pictures the dealer sent me.

Obviously, I would love to have an "off the showroom floor" TTA. However, I realize that $20,000 probably won't get me there. That being said...
Your opinions regarding the condition and "showability" of this car would be greatly appreciated.

I have some opinions regarding them, but I'm curious to see what you all think.

http://www.gopontiac.com/89ta/


Again, I GREATLY appreciate your input and advice!!

THANKS!!!
Click to expand...

Joe, any chance you can ask them for a better photo of the PAS sticker on the drivers door (photo 19) ... would be great to have for our VIN list ...
 
I asked them specifically for that picture and this is what I got. They said the sticker is "somewhat worn" and they could not get the camera to focus any better.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Thanks,
Joe
 
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