1967 Pontiac Firebird on 2040-cars

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Are orphan cars better deals?

Most folks don't know a Saturn Aura from an Oldsmobile Aurora. Those of you who are immersed in the labyrinth of automobilia know that both cars were testaments to the mediocrity that was pre-bankruptcy General Motors, and that both brands are now long gone. But everybody else? Not so much. By the same token, there are some excellent cars and trucks that don't raise an eyebrow simply because they were sold under brands that are no longer being marketed. Orphan brands no longer get any marketing love, and because of that they can be alarmingly cheap. Case in point, take a look at how a 2010 Saturn Outlook compares with its siblings, the GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave. According to the Manheim Market Report, the Saturn will sell at a wholesale auto auction for around $3,500 less than the comparably equipped Buick or GMC. Part of the reason for this price gap is that most large independent dealerships, such as Carmax, make it a point to avoid buying cars with orphaned badges. Right now if you go to Carmax's site, you'll find that there are more models from Toyota's Scion sub-brand than Mercury, Saab, Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn combined. This despite the fact that these brands collectively sold in the millions over the last ten years while Scion has rarely been able to realize a six-figure annual sales figure for most of its history. That is the brutal truth of today's car market. When the chips are down, used-car shoppers are nearly as conservative as their new-car-buying counterparts. Unfamiliarity breeds contempt. Contempt leads to fear. Fear leads to anger, and pretty soon you wind up with an older, beat-up Mazda MX-5 in your driveway instead of looking up a newer Pontiac Solstice or Saturn Sky. There are tons of other reasons why orphan cars have trouble selling in today's market. Worries about the cost of repair and the availability of parts hang over the industry's lost toys like a cloud of dust over Pigpen. Yet any common diagnostic repair database, such as Alldata, will have a complete framework for your car's repair and maintenance, and everyone from junkyards to auto parts stores to eBay and Amazon stock tens of thousands of parts. This makes some orphan cars mindblowingly awesome deals if you're willing to shop in the bargain bins of the used-car market. Consider a Suzuki Kizashi with a manual transmission. No, really.

Trans Am Depot teases 2014 GTO

Here comes the Judge. Court is in session. The verdict is in. How many more tired clichés can we come up with? It hardly seems to matter, because it's happening: Trans Am Depot has announced via the teaser video below that it is launching a 2014 GTO, complete with Carousel Red (bright orange, really) paint and full Judge badging.
The car is based on Trans Am Depot's 6T9 Goat, which, in case you don't get the reverential references, is meant to mimic the look of the 1969 Pontiac GTO. As with the company's other cars -including the 2013 Hurst Edition Trans Am we recently drove - the GTO will be based on the current Chevy Camaro, which means two doors, V8 engines and rear-wheel drive, just like the muscle cars of days past.
As for actual details of what's under the 2014 GTO's hood, we're completely left hanging. We'd expect some sort of power adder (turbo, supercharger or possibly some other form of a highly massaged version of the Camaro's V8), and we certainly know that GM has any number of hi-po crate engines to choose from.

Michigan floods from breached dams consume Pontiac Fiero collection

“WeÂ’ve never had an event like this,” Michigan's city manager Brad Kaye said in a Detroit News story. "What we're looking at is an event that is the equivalent of a 500-year flood." Kaye is referencing the catastrophic flood that occurred in central Michigan this week after heavy rainfall was compounded by two breached dams on the Tittabawassee River. Reports say the flooding forced evacuation of up to 10,000 residents, swallowed entire towns, and destroyed thousands of properties. No casualties have been reported, according to the Detroit Free Press, but car enthusiasts will be sad to learn a Pontiac Fiero shop and collection called Forever Fieros was decimated by the natural disaster. The Tittabawassee River is located about two hours, or roughly 140 miles, north of Detroit. It starts 20-30 miles further north and flows southeast as a tributary to the Saginaw Bay Watershed. Along the way, the Tittabawassee is held up by several dams, including the Edenville dam that failed and the Sanford dam that was breached during torrential downpours. According to NPR, the federal government took away the Edenville dam's license in 2018 and suggested it could not last through a major flood. Unfortunately, that prediction was proven accurate.  Forever Fieros is located in Sanford, Michigan, which is just below Sanford Lake, which is created by the Sanford dam. So when the Edenville dam north of Sanford broke, water from Wixom Lake flooded Sanford Lake, and a berm next to the Sanford dam was overwhelmed, according to MLive. Technically the dam did not fail, but the end result was the same: an entire town underwater. The Tittabawassee reportedly crested at 35 feet, or 10 feet above flood level and 1.1 feet higher than the previous record set in 1986. According to The Drive, the man in charge of Forever Fieros, Tim Evans, had time to attempt to save his vehicles from floodwater. He reportedly moved about 12 cars to a street that doesn't typically flood, but the water level was simply too high for that to matter. A floating pole barn also reportedly struck and damaged the  Forever Fieros building.  Worsening the situation is the fact that Evans was planning to hold an auction to sell many of the Fieros. As seen on Industrial Bid, he planned to sell 12 Fieros, Fiero GTs and a Fiero Formula, ranging from 1984 through 1988. The lots included a 1984 pace car, a Lamborghini Countach kit car, and a Fiero Cosworth Pontiac Super Duty 16-valve DOHC engine.