J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

Got a guy that claims his trans am is a indy 500 festival car. He said its one of the few that came with t tops and a 305 tbi v8. He claims its about 1/147 or something like that.

Also claims he has the carfax that shows the car owned by various dealerships in indianapolis and that these cars wer basically show/demo cars.

Is there any way to quickly identify festival cars? any rarity?

thanks for the help

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Any pics? It could be a local dealer special edition with stickers added.
Only cars I know that were there had turbo 3.8s. I'm fairly certain it wasn't a track or pace car buuut I'm not 100% sure what if any extra cars were there.

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

i dont have any pictures right now but from what i saw its white and has all the 89 ground effects, im gonna go look at it today thats why im trying to find out what to look for, its an auto ttop 305 tbi v8. No indianapolis decals of any sort on it.

jlarsson

iTrader: (5)

All the 1989 Indy 500 cars supplied by Pontiac where either the 20th Anniversary Trans Am (3.8L Turbo) and the Pontiac Sunbird, I think one or two Grand Prix or similar per the breakdown I got from Indy years ago ... so only Trans Am's where the 3.8L Turbo versions nothing else so will be interesting what you find out as you never know if they did have other cars there as well or not.

Did did also have , as every year, a number of GMC Trucks as the "offical pace truck" ...

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

im gonna grab the vin number, and check the door sticker for sure, maybe even find some RPO codes. He said that these cars wer used to show off what the indy 500 cars would look like but im not sure if he means it was ever actually there. He said that there was a festival showing off what the indy cars looked like but ive never actually heard anything about this.

jlarsson

iTrader: (5)

The only thing I'm aware of are the pace cars in the press photos ... some of them were taken so early before the actual pace cars where built so Pontiac used regular white GTA's with "home made" badges etc for the photos ... but we have no clue of the VINs or anything of the one (or more) they used ...

Keep us posted !

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

I will, ill definetly take some pictures maybe u guys can help me out.

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

took some pics of door stickers any ideas on this car guys?

jlarsson

iTrader: (5)

I don't think that one had anything to do with the 1989 Indy 500 event; the one(s) I mentioned Pontiac used that were not the 3.8L Turbo for marketing where GTA's wiht the correct front GTA fenders and the GTA interior so that rules out the one you looked at.

Why does the owner think it was used @ Indy? Any documents, photos or similar he got?

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

And wow, what a poor repaint..

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

i ran the vin and this came up, he said the guy he got it from was a collector and he researched and called all the previous owners of the car which wer dealerships.

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

how can you tell? from what i saw paint looked original but im no expert lol

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

its hard to tell from pics but it actually has the vents on the fender i saw them in person, should be gta fenders

akanitro

iTrader: (2)

Actually in 1989 the GTA did not have fender vents. Also, all GTA cars had either the 305 or 350 Tuned Port Injection. This is a 1989 Trans Am but to my knowledge, there is nothing special about the car's history. If it runs nice, hasn't been crashed and there is no hidden rust, make the gentleman an offer.

J0hn_J0hn08

iTrader: (2)

Ah ok i was not aware of that for the 1989 year makes sense now. Thats a bit odd then, not sure what to make of it, for now ill rule it as a trans am then

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

All the overspray on the VIN sticker and the poor masking job around the door stickers in the pix. Also the door latch screws have been painted. They should be black.
It looks like they just let the paint blow in the jams.

Restrorob

iTrader: (7)

Speaking of the door stickers, It says 15" tires and the vin decode above says 16"......

Also, I've never seen a FWD bird....

Think I'd be finding another decoder site !

JT

iTrader: (1)

The site you used to decode the vehicle is known to be inaccurate. It does not actually decode the vehicle itself, but just a few digits of the VIN. Note that it even states you don't have to provide the entire VIN.

The reason why that site shows "GTA" is because the Trans Am and GTA share the same VIN prefix (1G2FW) and that's only why it shows "GTA" despite the vehicle in question is almost certainly not a GTA. Domestic GTAs never came with with TBI.

2johnny67

All 89 20th Anniversary Trans Ams had a prefix 1G5 in the vin to seperate them from the rest of the field. The vin also had 7 for the engine code (3.8 Ltr Turbo) and the RPO code was Y82. Y84 was for the rest of the GTA line up. 1550 TTA's were produced. The first 187 were t-top Festival cars at Indy and they all had Cloth interior. This is the major clue for a festival car. 1324 were t-top with leather, 24 hard top/leather, 15 hardtop/cloth and 5 pilot cars or TEST MULES. 1 was coverted to a drop top.

I have car #124 (t-top/cloth). When it arrived at Indianapolis it was then issued #96 so they could keep track of it. These cars are wonderful to own and to have one is truly amazing, but to have a Festival Car,,,,,well that's just icing on the cake.

If the car you are looking at doesn't have these charactoristics,,,,,it's not a Festival Car, or an anniversary car.

jlarsson

iTrader: (5)

Fairly close ... there were 150 pace car replicas used at Indy (all with t-tops and cloth as stated earlier) then there were the 3 actual pace cars used.

The 150 were not exactly the first 150 built but very early builds (most of them in Dec 1988 but some in Jan 1989) as there were a number of t-top leather and even a couple of hardtops built very early on that were not to be used @ Indy ....

The 5 TTA's mentioned were pre-production pilot cars, all white and identical to the production cars and one of the t-tops where converted mid 1989 by ASC to a drop top. All 5 are still around in private ownership.

Oh and the 5 in the VIN (1G5) mean "incomplete vehicle" which was a requirement as PAS was the manufacturer on record not GM.

2johnny67

Thanks for the correction of the 150, jlarrson,,,,I thought a couple of those numbers sounded funny after I typed it. It's been about 13-14 years since I had to remember this stuff. But ya gotta admit I didn't do too bad just shootin from the hip.

jlarsson

iTrader: (5)

You were pretty close

I know the former owner of your TTA, when did you get it?

Make sure you join us over on turbotransam.com unless you are already a member ... lots of good info we collected over the years along with great knowledgeble people !

Oh and if you not had a chance to visit this site you should do so: www.pasincorporated.com ... you wont be dissapointed !!