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TTA convertible video
- Thread starter RatFink
- Start date
Yea I think that's who Lenny sold his TTA vert to I would guess. I'll buy him a Rav 4 for it! 
kidsixpack
Silver Member
Not so interesting commentary. Great looking visor though:yes: More about the car and less about the camera. I mean phone. How many verts were made? I seem to recall only three? Did they all have that different spoiler? Car looked pretty darn cool!
KID
KID
They all looked like that one. There is one. The other is with Rich and the other is with an oil guy in Mexico last I heard. At least one should be in Ohio next year for the reunion so make sure you make it out and you can see it in person! 
av6ateu
Active Member
Exactly, the commentary about the "video camera" phone was amazing. Hey! There is a plane flying over. :whogives:
Sweet car though.
ttanewyork
Well-Known Member
Not bad.
RatFink
TORQUE
I wonder if ASC still has any conversion kits left. I remember the ASC convertable cars back when I worked at dads D-ship. The ASC cars were pretty good. I drove a 305 tpi Iroc Automatic one night and it was a nice car, fun and fast. Maybe a 16.5 1/4 mile car. I'd love to have a TTA conv.
Jim, Scott's hardtop is still a hardtop and sold on ebay late last year ... the car converted was one of the 5 pilot's and was owned by Jeff Beitzel for the first six month ... this is the car Rich owns ... oh and it used to be a t-top as all the cars had to be that ASC converted.
Interesting write up ... http://www.youtube.com/user/pmcdriver
1989 Pontiac 20th Anniversary Trans Am Turbo Convertible 1 of 2 or 3 built 9k orig. mi. 2
From: pmcdriver | 06 April 2010 | 258 views
This is one of the 2 known convertibles. Three were supposedly built but there is no known physical evidence of the third. This one was originally ordered as a convertible. As soon as the car was built it was shipped to PAS Inc. for turbo conversion, and ASC for convertible conversion, and then to the dealer. It arrived at the dealer for the first time as a Special Edition convertible. It was not bought as a T-top car and then converted into a convertible like the other known example. The other one was a pilot car with t-tops and cloth seats that was promoted at car shows with t-tops before it was converted into a convertible as a used car. It was owned by Jeff Beitzel of PAS inc.
This one was bought new and owned by a California car collector for 17 years. It has been featured in 2 books and one magazine article. I tried for 15 years to get one of the convertibles. This one is all original except the battery. I removed the wheels and tires because the tires were 20 years old. I got some new wheels and put some new tires on them so I could save the old tires without dismounting them from the original wheels.
This is a bittersweet experience, because I really wanted a Toyota RAV-4. SUV's are so much cooler than used v-6 automatic Pontiacs. I mean, Toyota is like THE coolest car company and Pontiac isn't even a company any more. Besides, the Rav-4 must be sportier than the Trans Am, because it has a stick shift, and of course because it's an SUV! That is like the best type of car to have. Since the dealer only offered me $2500 for the Trans Am when I tried to trade it for an awesome RAV-4, it looks like I will be keeping it. Especially since the Honda place didn't want to trade it for a CRV either. There are things I would like to do to the car but I am reluctant to change anything because of the rarity. I think a small block chevy would really improve the car. Come to think of it, a Honda civic motor would be better, because they sound so good with no muffler. And a nice 5 inch exhaust tip mounted to a 1.5" single exhaust system. And a 1 foot high double decker spoiler with faux carbon fiber finish. And front wheel drive of course, with slicks on the front. All it would need then would be a set of plastic headlights with blue bulbs, and maybe some clear taillights with white turn signals. And some chrome plastic stick-on faux side vents for the fenders.
I would love to do those awesome mods. It would be almost as cool as a RAV-4. Man, I want a RAV-4 so bad. Oh well. Thanks for looking at my video
1989 Pontiac 20th Anniversary Trans Am Turbo Convertible 1 of 2 or 3 built 9k orig. mi. 2
From: pmcdriver | 06 April 2010 | 258 views
This is one of the 2 known convertibles. Three were supposedly built but there is no known physical evidence of the third. This one was originally ordered as a convertible. As soon as the car was built it was shipped to PAS Inc. for turbo conversion, and ASC for convertible conversion, and then to the dealer. It arrived at the dealer for the first time as a Special Edition convertible. It was not bought as a T-top car and then converted into a convertible like the other known example. The other one was a pilot car with t-tops and cloth seats that was promoted at car shows with t-tops before it was converted into a convertible as a used car. It was owned by Jeff Beitzel of PAS inc.
This one was bought new and owned by a California car collector for 17 years. It has been featured in 2 books and one magazine article. I tried for 15 years to get one of the convertibles. This one is all original except the battery. I removed the wheels and tires because the tires were 20 years old. I got some new wheels and put some new tires on them so I could save the old tires without dismounting them from the original wheels.
This is a bittersweet experience, because I really wanted a Toyota RAV-4. SUV's are so much cooler than used v-6 automatic Pontiacs. I mean, Toyota is like THE coolest car company and Pontiac isn't even a company any more. Besides, the Rav-4 must be sportier than the Trans Am, because it has a stick shift, and of course because it's an SUV! That is like the best type of car to have. Since the dealer only offered me $2500 for the Trans Am when I tried to trade it for an awesome RAV-4, it looks like I will be keeping it. Especially since the Honda place didn't want to trade it for a CRV either. There are things I would like to do to the car but I am reluctant to change anything because of the rarity. I think a small block chevy would really improve the car. Come to think of it, a Honda civic motor would be better, because they sound so good with no muffler. And a nice 5 inch exhaust tip mounted to a 1.5" single exhaust system. And a 1 foot high double decker spoiler with faux carbon fiber finish. And front wheel drive of course, with slicks on the front. All it would need then would be a set of plastic headlights with blue bulbs, and maybe some clear taillights with white turn signals. And some chrome plastic stick-on faux side vents for the fenders.
I would love to do those awesome mods. It would be almost as cool as a RAV-4. Man, I want a RAV-4 so bad. Oh well. Thanks for looking at my video
Just to clear up a couple things...
Sorry about the lame comments. I was in the middle of explaining cellular telephone tethering technology to a senior citizen when I realized I could shoot a silly phone video of the car, since I had already posed the car for some still shots. Many months later I tried uploading it to youtube for the hell of it because there weren't a lot of tta vert vids on there already. I suppose I could make a nicer video someday.
As far as the leather seats comment. That was because i thought maybe you couldn't tell the seats from the lousy telephone video camera. Since the other convertible has cloth seats, it might be of interest.
The Car...
If anyone is interested in converts...This was the first convert made according to the ASC production dates. Jeff Beitzel's aka Rich's was the second one made. I have no info on the third. It is not included on the ASC log of cars for that year, which I have in my files. My only guess is that it was converted after the 89 model year was over and it is on the log for a later year. (I know there were dealers who still hadn't sold their TTA's in 1990, when the 1991's were already available. They were offering them for $10,000 discount. Perhaps one of them thought to have the car converted into a convertible to make it easier to sell.) Or it doesn't exist. Or something. I haven't seen any evidence of the car existing other than a letter from Pontiac Historical's Jim Mattison stating that there were three made, but no other info. If anyone is friends with him maybe you could ask him what the story is on the third one. If anyone has any info about the “third” car besides the mexican story, it would be nice to know. This car was not converted after it hit the dealership. It was drop shipped from the factory to ASC for the convertible conversion. I have the shipping docs, plus I have the PAS window sticker which has ASC's address as the "ship to" address. That shows that it went to ASC before it went to the dealer. ASC is the company that GM used for Camaro and Firebird convertibles. ASC has made over 1,000,000 convertibles. My particular car was bought in California and owned by the original owner for 17 or 18 years. I believe that the car was probably not driven for at least the last 5 years that he owned it, and perhaps the last 10.
If anyone has questions about 1989 convertibles I have some files pertaining to production from ASC.
As for the written comments.
1. For the kids of today, it was to make them feel good about their Honda Civics with 6” exhaust tips, and to make sure they don't think that the tta is cool. The tta is way too fast and way too quiet for the kids of today. It doesn't have enough exposed body seams, and the headlights are not plastic enough or blue enough. Taillights are not slanted enough or silver enough.
2. For people like me it is a joke that makes fun of the way things are today. Would you have imagined 20 years ago, that there would be a time when Cadillac would be selling Chevy trucks and calling them Cadillacs? When GM would run itself into the ground, US banks would go belly up and Pontiac would cease to exist? When the coolest thing on the street with kids would be the cheapest econobox available from Honda?
If you read any further please be warned that my views do not agree with US government or US Media propaganda and you run the risk of being amused, offended, or perplexed, and you are advised to proceed at your own risk... If you are under 30 years old I wouldn't read this next bit. It won't make much sense unless you went to private school.
I think it is ridiculous that cars like the rav4 are called sporty. Sports Utility Vehicle is an oxymoron in itself. Sports cars are one thing.(Ferrari, Corvette, etc) Utility vehicles are the opposite.(Panel van, tanker truck, etc) The two don’t go together. It is like saying you want a big small hamburger. Rav4 is a front wheel drive 4 cylinder econobox substructure, with a station wagon body, the height of a truck, with the ground clearance of an econobox. The econobox substructure is not strong enough to be a truck, and the high bodywork precludes it from getting good enough mileage to be an econobox. But since it is labeled SUV, it will make you cool, therefore you must buy it.
The only thing more ridiculous than that marketing tactic is the fact that the consumers just lap it up like a dog eating cat poop. Even with gas at $3.00.
What is this fascination with trucks? Trucks used to be the vehicles that the help had to drive because they needed them for blue collar work and they couldn’t afford a car too. Farmers and tradesmen drove them. Now I see so many people driving pickup trucks to work and they work in an office! In Florida! They sit there on the highway with this huge empty cargo bed behind them. They pay double for fuel for the privilege of being less comfortable, having worse performance, faster depreciation, and no secure storage for luggage. 99% of the trucks I see have empty beds. Most of these people don’t use these trucks. 90% of the Suburbans I see on the road have 8 empty seats in them. Do these people really think that it is worth it to get 12 miles per gallon so that they can drive around alone in a vehicle that is used by the department of corrections for transporting prisoners? Oh I forgot it is a sports car. The reason the Suburban is called an SUV and a Full sized chevy truck is not is because of the price. SUV $54,000. Truck, $18,000. Here you have two vehicles that are essentially the same. The only difference is the rear section of the body, the engine choices, and the marketing. The Chassis is the same, the dashboard, the windshield, the suspension, the front clip, etc all exactly the same. And yet you can buy three full sized trucks for the price of one suburban. It does not cost GM 300% more to build a suburban than it does to build a chevy truck. It costs perhaps 30% more. The rest is profit. How to sell them to people who don’t need them or want them? Tell them they are sporty and cool. And they will pay $54,000 for a truck that you could buy at the same dealership for $18,000, just because this one has a roof over the back and seats inside it instead of an open bed. And the all important SUV marketing and the implied coolness that goes along with that. Hey, I have an idea. Let’s call this Chevy truck a Cadillac! Lets put a huge plastic grille on the front and an even bigger plastic Cadillac crest, and some huge plastic headlights. Then we can get people to buy a Chevy and think they have a Cadillac! A Chevy truck, no less!
In ten years Daewoo will probably be so rich they will buy the Rolls Royce company and start putting plastic RR grilles on Daewoos and calling them Rolls Royces. And with a good enough marketing firm and some strategically placed tv spots, they will have a whole new customer base of new money consumers who will be happy to pay $300,000 for a Daewoo.
I thought this might be funny or interesting to some people. If not, sorry to have wasted your time, and I am just more alone in the world than I thought. My views are always a little weird. I thought TTA's should have been mostly hardtops. And should have had 6 speeds available. And other years besides 89, and black paint available, and red leather, and digital dash. Weird and wild stuff. And Carson was funny and Leno was not.
Sorry about the lame comments. I was in the middle of explaining cellular telephone tethering technology to a senior citizen when I realized I could shoot a silly phone video of the car, since I had already posed the car for some still shots. Many months later I tried uploading it to youtube for the hell of it because there weren't a lot of tta vert vids on there already. I suppose I could make a nicer video someday.
As far as the leather seats comment. That was because i thought maybe you couldn't tell the seats from the lousy telephone video camera. Since the other convertible has cloth seats, it might be of interest.
The Car...
If anyone is interested in converts...This was the first convert made according to the ASC production dates. Jeff Beitzel's aka Rich's was the second one made. I have no info on the third. It is not included on the ASC log of cars for that year, which I have in my files. My only guess is that it was converted after the 89 model year was over and it is on the log for a later year. (I know there were dealers who still hadn't sold their TTA's in 1990, when the 1991's were already available. They were offering them for $10,000 discount. Perhaps one of them thought to have the car converted into a convertible to make it easier to sell.) Or it doesn't exist. Or something. I haven't seen any evidence of the car existing other than a letter from Pontiac Historical's Jim Mattison stating that there were three made, but no other info. If anyone is friends with him maybe you could ask him what the story is on the third one. If anyone has any info about the “third” car besides the mexican story, it would be nice to know. This car was not converted after it hit the dealership. It was drop shipped from the factory to ASC for the convertible conversion. I have the shipping docs, plus I have the PAS window sticker which has ASC's address as the "ship to" address. That shows that it went to ASC before it went to the dealer. ASC is the company that GM used for Camaro and Firebird convertibles. ASC has made over 1,000,000 convertibles. My particular car was bought in California and owned by the original owner for 17 or 18 years. I believe that the car was probably not driven for at least the last 5 years that he owned it, and perhaps the last 10.
If anyone has questions about 1989 convertibles I have some files pertaining to production from ASC.
As for the written comments.
1. For the kids of today, it was to make them feel good about their Honda Civics with 6” exhaust tips, and to make sure they don't think that the tta is cool. The tta is way too fast and way too quiet for the kids of today. It doesn't have enough exposed body seams, and the headlights are not plastic enough or blue enough. Taillights are not slanted enough or silver enough.
2. For people like me it is a joke that makes fun of the way things are today. Would you have imagined 20 years ago, that there would be a time when Cadillac would be selling Chevy trucks and calling them Cadillacs? When GM would run itself into the ground, US banks would go belly up and Pontiac would cease to exist? When the coolest thing on the street with kids would be the cheapest econobox available from Honda?
If you read any further please be warned that my views do not agree with US government or US Media propaganda and you run the risk of being amused, offended, or perplexed, and you are advised to proceed at your own risk... If you are under 30 years old I wouldn't read this next bit. It won't make much sense unless you went to private school.
I think it is ridiculous that cars like the rav4 are called sporty. Sports Utility Vehicle is an oxymoron in itself. Sports cars are one thing.(Ferrari, Corvette, etc) Utility vehicles are the opposite.(Panel van, tanker truck, etc) The two don’t go together. It is like saying you want a big small hamburger. Rav4 is a front wheel drive 4 cylinder econobox substructure, with a station wagon body, the height of a truck, with the ground clearance of an econobox. The econobox substructure is not strong enough to be a truck, and the high bodywork precludes it from getting good enough mileage to be an econobox. But since it is labeled SUV, it will make you cool, therefore you must buy it.
The only thing more ridiculous than that marketing tactic is the fact that the consumers just lap it up like a dog eating cat poop. Even with gas at $3.00.
What is this fascination with trucks? Trucks used to be the vehicles that the help had to drive because they needed them for blue collar work and they couldn’t afford a car too. Farmers and tradesmen drove them. Now I see so many people driving pickup trucks to work and they work in an office! In Florida! They sit there on the highway with this huge empty cargo bed behind them. They pay double for fuel for the privilege of being less comfortable, having worse performance, faster depreciation, and no secure storage for luggage. 99% of the trucks I see have empty beds. Most of these people don’t use these trucks. 90% of the Suburbans I see on the road have 8 empty seats in them. Do these people really think that it is worth it to get 12 miles per gallon so that they can drive around alone in a vehicle that is used by the department of corrections for transporting prisoners? Oh I forgot it is a sports car. The reason the Suburban is called an SUV and a Full sized chevy truck is not is because of the price. SUV $54,000. Truck, $18,000. Here you have two vehicles that are essentially the same. The only difference is the rear section of the body, the engine choices, and the marketing. The Chassis is the same, the dashboard, the windshield, the suspension, the front clip, etc all exactly the same. And yet you can buy three full sized trucks for the price of one suburban. It does not cost GM 300% more to build a suburban than it does to build a chevy truck. It costs perhaps 30% more. The rest is profit. How to sell them to people who don’t need them or want them? Tell them they are sporty and cool. And they will pay $54,000 for a truck that you could buy at the same dealership for $18,000, just because this one has a roof over the back and seats inside it instead of an open bed. And the all important SUV marketing and the implied coolness that goes along with that. Hey, I have an idea. Let’s call this Chevy truck a Cadillac! Lets put a huge plastic grille on the front and an even bigger plastic Cadillac crest, and some huge plastic headlights. Then we can get people to buy a Chevy and think they have a Cadillac! A Chevy truck, no less!
In ten years Daewoo will probably be so rich they will buy the Rolls Royce company and start putting plastic RR grilles on Daewoos and calling them Rolls Royces. And with a good enough marketing firm and some strategically placed tv spots, they will have a whole new customer base of new money consumers who will be happy to pay $300,000 for a Daewoo.
I thought this might be funny or interesting to some people. If not, sorry to have wasted your time, and I am just more alone in the world than I thought. My views are always a little weird. I thought TTA's should have been mostly hardtops. And should have had 6 speeds available. And other years besides 89, and black paint available, and red leather, and digital dash. Weird and wild stuff. And Carson was funny and Leno was not.
Thanks for sharing, glad the new owner is stil on these boards!
Would be interesting for sure to know if there is a 3rd convertible or not, as you point out could been a late (1990 or later) ASC conversion hence we don't see it on the 1989 ASC list of VIN's
The build number for yours #410 has that been confirmed by PHS? Just helps me update the VIN list we are keeping.
Would be interesting for sure to know if there is a 3rd convertible or not, as you point out could been a late (1990 or later) ASC conversion hence we don't see it on the 1989 ASC list of VIN's
The build number for yours #410 has that been confirmed by PHS? Just helps me update the VIN list we are keeping.
DaveGershon
Well-Known Member
Nice car. It would very nice next to my Hardtop and Festival cars....
Dave
Dave
av6ateu
Active Member
:rofl:
Thanks for clearing things up! I found it both interesting and funny. I'm not sure if I should be offened though. My winter vehicle/tow vehicle is a cadillac escalade! Oh wait, I bought it for pennies on the dollar when the original owner realized what you just said about. It really is nothing more than a chevy truck with a different grill. (oh, and it has fancy fake wood in the interior)
around 1997 I bought a set of emblems from a guy who claimed to have a red tta convertible, new in the wrapper. he said it was genuine, and didn't elaborate on why it was red. at a time when new tta's were worth $18-$20k, I offered the guy $50,000 and the guy didn't flinch. never saw car. never saw guy. dont remember name. when the nos emblemset came it was missing one emblem. guess which one? the big huge "turbo." so i played phone tag with this guy. never got emblem or money. make of it what you will. to this day i have that emblem set with only one turbo emblem.
i met this guy from a message board about tta's in 1997. dont know if that was this board or not. there might be an archive of his ad for the emblems and he could be tracked down from that. but i thought the story might have been bs.
by the way...i have no ill will towards anyone who owns or bought a chevrillac escalade. it seemed to me to be priced very close to the equivalent chevy, and if you need one you may as well get the cadillac version. if you bought it to be cool, that is ok too, because you have obviously been brainwashed by the media. not to mention all the other reasons...snow, screaming children, etc. my problem was with the morons on the 14th floor who ran gm and the whole us auto industry into the ground. there is no excuse to sell 12mpg vehicles these days. my jetta diesel does 66mpg on 80mph trips. the equivalent gm car can't do half as well. no excuse. a 12 year old could have done a better job running gm.
i met this guy from a message board about tta's in 1997. dont know if that was this board or not. there might be an archive of his ad for the emblems and he could be tracked down from that. but i thought the story might have been bs.
by the way...i have no ill will towards anyone who owns or bought a chevrillac escalade. it seemed to me to be priced very close to the equivalent chevy, and if you need one you may as well get the cadillac version. if you bought it to be cool, that is ok too, because you have obviously been brainwashed by the media. not to mention all the other reasons...snow, screaming children, etc. my problem was with the morons on the 14th floor who ran gm and the whole us auto industry into the ground. there is no excuse to sell 12mpg vehicles these days. my jetta diesel does 66mpg on 80mph trips. the equivalent gm car can't do half as well. no excuse. a 12 year old could have done a better job running gm.
kidsixpack
Silver Member
Andre#4
Very interesting to read all of this! I hope that you didn't take my original comments to heart! I really just thought the video was funny in that it was such a cool car but the video was about the phone. Well you certianly cleared things up for all of us. I found humer hidden in all of your comments here and on utube.
Thanks
KID
Very interesting to read all of this! I hope that you didn't take my original comments to heart! I really just thought the video was funny in that it was such a cool car but the video was about the phone. Well you certianly cleared things up for all of us. I found humer hidden in all of your comments here and on utube.
Thanks
KID
The commentary is flat out retarded!!:blink:
Hehehehe....I posted before I read past the 3rd post....oops:whistle:
Company changed over the years ... at one point I beleive TRIAD was part of ASC as well (TRIAD like in the PAS mother company or whatever the deal was ....)
ASC Transportation and Industrial Design Services
As I understood things PAS split into Triad and Wheel to Wheel. The gearhead performance guys went to W2W.
I think I recall about ten years ago seeing an ASC building out in SoCal not far from a company I worked for. I believe at the time they were working with Toyota on the Solara (or whatever it was called) convertible.
Hello Andre, I come and snoop around occasionally and I am glad to see you are enjoying the car and have returned to the TTA forum.
I did get a replacement for the TTA and it is a 6 speed stick! I also installed a 4 post lift and since I had the space; I bought a second car which is a 4 speed.
First is a 1996 Grand Sport conv, red interior with 780mi. The second is a 1974 base engine roadster with 24000mi. Not a remarkable car, but it is a Bloomington survivor, Bloomington gold, original paint (except bumpers) and all original parts except battery. The original tires were recalled Firestones and it has the factory replacements. Jan would appreciate that it has most of the original markings and stickers, like on the frame, shocks, springs.
To bad the TTA didn't come as a stick.
I did get a replacement for the TTA and it is a 6 speed stick! I also installed a 4 post lift and since I had the space; I bought a second car which is a 4 speed.
First is a 1996 Grand Sport conv, red interior with 780mi. The second is a 1974 base engine roadster with 24000mi. Not a remarkable car, but it is a Bloomington survivor, Bloomington gold, original paint (except bumpers) and all original parts except battery. The original tires were recalled Firestones and it has the factory replacements. Jan would appreciate that it has most of the original markings and stickers, like on the frame, shocks, springs.
To bad the TTA didn't come as a stick.
