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Junkyard Gem: 1992 Pontiac Firebird

Last spring, this series featured a 1992 Chevrolet Camaro RS in a Northern California junkyard, an example of the final model year for the highly successful third-generation GM F-Body. On a later visit to that yard, I spotted the Pontiac sibling to that car, a Firebird that was born the same year at the same Southern California factory. When the Chevrolet Division introduced the first Camaro as a 1967 model, the Pontiac Division got its own version of the F-Body called the Firebird. While the two cars were built on the same chassis and looked very similar, the first-generation Camaros got Chevrolet engines while their Firebird colleagues got Pontiac engines (including the innovative SOHC straight-six). The 1970-1981 second-generation Firebirds still had some Pontiac-only engines, but Chevrolet and Oldsmobile power crept under some hoods during that period. The third-generation Firebirds first appeared as 1982 models, and they drew from near-identical stockpiles of GM running gear (including the distinctly agricultural Iron Duke four-banger, which could be considered a Pontiac-derived engine). When the Camaro got the axe after 2002, the Firebird's neck was put on the same chopping block. When the Camaro returned for 2010, the Pontiac brand was sputtering to an agonized halt during its final year and there was no chance of the Firebird's return. This car is a fairly ordinary coupe, though it does have the mid-grade 205-horsepower 5.0-liter Chevrolet small-block V8 instead of the base 140-horse 3.1-liter V6. A 5.7-liter small-block was available as well. A five-speed manual transmission was base equipment, but few Americans wanted a three-pedal setup by the early 1990s. This car has the optional four-speed automatic. The MSRP with 5.0 engine, automatic transmission and air conditioning (which this car has) started at $14,304. That's about $31,868 in 2023 dollars. It was built at Van Nuys Assembly in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County. By the dawn of the 1990s, the Camaros and Firebirds made at Van Nuys Assembly had become known as the worst-built GM cars made in North America, and the plant was shut down forever soon after this car was built. Today, a shopping mall lives where the factory once stood. This car managed to drive more than 150,000 miles during its life, so it beat the odds. The thrid-gen F-Body was pretty antiquated by the early 1990s, but the fourth-gen cars handled better and looked up-to-date for the era.

Junkyard Gem: 1996 Pontiac Grand Am SE Coupe

The Grand Am was the best-selling Pontiac model in the United States for every year of the 1990s, and it outsold most of its N-Body platform-mates (including the Chevrolet Corsica/Beretta) during nearly all of that decade. A sporty-looking compact with two or four doors, the Grand Am offered true 1990s radness—and, in some cases, respectable performance — at a good price. Today's Junkyard Gem is a nicely preserved example of the facelifted 1996 Grand Am, found in a Denver-area car graveyard. This is an SE Coupe with base engine and transmission, the most affordable Grand Am available in 1996. List price was $13,499, or about $26,523 in 2023 dollars. The factory-issued Monroney sheet for this car was still inside, so we can see that the original buyer got the car at Bob Ruwart Motors in Wheatland, Wyoming (about 175 miles up I-25 from this Pontiac's final parking spot), and paid a total of $16,054 ($31,543 in today's money) after the cost of options and the destination charge. The '96 Grand AM SE buyer had to pay extra for cruise control, air conditioning, power windows, rear glass defogger and other features we now take for granted on new cars. The base engine was the 2.4-liter Twin Cam four cylinder, a member of the screaming Oldsmobile Quad 4 family. This one was rated at 150 horsepower and 155 pound-feet. A 3.1-liter V6 with 155 horses and 185 pound-feet was an option. If you got the V6 in your '96 Grand Am, however, you couldn't get a manual transmission. This car has a proper five-speed manual, which made for fun driving with the high-revving Twin Cam engine in a machine weighing just 2,802 pounds (which is quite a bit less than what the current Honda Civic weighs). It traveled just over 160,000 miles during its 27 years on the road. The body and interior were still in fairly good condition when the car arrived here, so we can assume that some expensive mechanical problem doomed this car. Perhaps the original clutch wore out and the owner didn't consider it worth replacing. After all, a mid-1990s Detroit two-door with a transmission most people can't drive isn't worth much these days. Though nobody knew it when this car was new, the Grand Am would be gone in nine years and Pontiac itself would get the axe five years after that. It makes the ordinary extraordinary. Husbands and wives would argue for 12 hours over who got to drive the Grand Am, if we are to believe this ad. Proud sponsor of the 1996 Olympic team.

Porsche Syberia RS rally car is what you make when you need a Hummer that's fast

Some history: The Porsche 911's first-ever race was the 1965 Monte Carlo rally, entered because Porsche's PR man at the time wanted to show how much the future icon could do. A year later, Porsche began selling an optional rally kit for the 911 that included Recaro seats, a roll bar, and adjustable Koni dampers. Porsche produced factory rally racers until the early 1970s, winning Monte Carlo three times in a row before letting privateers carry the torch so the factory could focus on campaigning in the East Africa Safari. After years of painful lessons, when Porsche took its brand-new 1978 911 SC to the safari, the 3.0-liter flat-six coupe was hours away from winning the race before damaging the suspension, demoting the car to second place. Porsche fans wanted their own replicas, and finding the new 911 to be an affordable option, the SC — built from 1978 to 1983 — went from denoting "Super Carrera" to "Safari Car."   Porsche took a big step up in with the 953 rally car. Built to win the 1984 Paris-Dakar, which it did, the 953 introduced the four-wheel-drive system Porsche would evolve for the 959 in 1985 and the 964-series 911 in 1989, as well as the now-unforgettable 911-based Rothmans livery. All of this is what's fueling today's 911 Safari Car revival around the world. Almost all of today's builds start with the so-called G Model 911s, produced from 1973 to 1989, usually focusing on the SC and the Carrera that ran from 1984 until 1989.  Fast forward to 2007 when a mysterious crew organized the TransSyberia Rally, a "sports-touring" event that stretched 4,500 miles from Moscow to the capital of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar. Of the 34 vehicles that entered, 25 were Porsche's purpose-built Cayenne S Transsyberia Edition.  Put this all in a pot and you have the beginnings of the car that brings us here, the Syberia RS. It's said that a German fellow by the name of Kai Burkhard wanted to buy a Humvee, but the low top speed, around 50 miles per hour, put him off. So instead, he imported a 1986 911 "in collector condition" from Japan with the idea of rebuilding it to provide almost all the off-road fun he could have had in the H1. Burkhard tapped the Tailor Made department at German suspension designer H&R, and the two set to work creating a build like the 953 Dakar winner.  This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. The owner's been mum on most of the details including engine revisions.