1970 Trans Am: Great Styling and the Last of the High-Squeeze Ram Air 400s.
Proportion is everything in automotive design, and GM’s second-generation F-bodies had it down like Julie Newmar’s curve-hugging Catwoman costume. Free from the design constraints that came with styling the first Firebird and Camaro models on an existing architecture, the second-gen cars would have a body structure shared with no other vehicles. GM Design chief Bill Mitchell’s affinity for European touring cars drove the overall design theme, with the F-body proportions radically reimagined, pushing the passenger compartment farther back on the chassis. The result was a longer nose and fast-sloping rear profile, though surprisingly, the basic exterior dimensions weren’t all that different from the 1969 models.
The first- and second-generation cars shared a 108-inch wheelbase, and while the second-gen cars were noticeably lower, they were only fractionally wider. That longer, lower look was also reinforced with loonngg doors and the elimination of the rear quarter-windows. Those doors made it difficult to squeeze out of the car in garages and parking decks, but such was the price of proportion perfection.
While the second-generation’s F-bodies’ future was ensured with the redesign, the Pontiac Trans Am’s was not. Plans for the second-gen were well underway when the comparatively paltry 697 Trans Am models were built for 1969. The car was intended as a homologation special for the popular SCCA racing series, just like the Boss 302 and corporate cousin Camaro Z/28. Unfortunately Pontiac’s Trans-Am racing engine program was never fully realized, so the production model had no ties whatsoever to its namesake racing series.
この記事は Muscle Car Review の March 2017 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Muscle Car Review の March 2017 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Living Life ⅝ Mile At A Time
Images we develop in our minds during our youth can turn out to be the most vivid of our life, especially when they are captured in lustrous High Impact Technicolor.
Why Not T-Tops On A Mustang?
Why Not T-Tops On A Mustang?
Readers' Day-Two Rides
Skip Gaebe 1968 Camaro
Neglected No More
Boss 351 Back In Action
Their Indian Summer
Good Friends Bond Over This GTO
Nova Links A Family's Past, Present, And Future
Nova links a family’s past, present, and future
Legendary Sleeper
A Special-Order Q-Code Custom 500
Nova And Out!
One of the Final Offerings of the L79
Ohio COPOs
Chevelles Travel Different, Yet Similar, Paths
Heirloom
Dad Raced This Savoy in the 1960s