Originally Posted by WS6firebird

First of all, thank you for the nomination of my 1983 Trans Am. This car means a lot to me and is my dream car. I began dreaming of owning one of these cars at age 4 in 1982 when I sat down with my Dad to watch the premiere of Knight Rider. In the years that followed I played with plastic 1980’s Trans Ams and hotwheels cars imagining owning the real thing. Over the years I amassed a large collection of Trans Am toy cars and memorabilia and a mega large Knight Rider toy collection. Once I was old enough to drive I had my mind set on buying a black t top trans am with an automatic transmission and tan interior.

I wanted an 82 or 83 since that was the Knight Rider style car with the black bowling ball wheels. I did not want to build or buy a replica tv car but rather just wanted the car that the show was built around as I’ve been fascinated with this Trans Am for years now. Long story short finding an intact Trans Am like mine in black with a tan interior and automatic transmission was not easy. There was a few that came up in years past but I was never in a position to buy them or they turned out to be not as represented but I never gave up the search!

Finally, in the summer of 2018 I was thumbing thru the Hemmings auto book at a local bookstore and saw the Trans Am I now own! The car was located in upstate New York. The ad was accompanied by an email address so I emailed the seller and started emailing back and forth. I am the 3rd owner of the car and the person I bought the car from knew the original owner. It turns out the seller did not have a smart phone to text me pictures and I did not make the trip to New York to see the car so I took a major leap of faith and bought the car sight unseen! About a week later the car was brought to me in an enclosed trailer and the rest is history!

I got the car of my dreams home in August of 2018 and then started to make it my own by having some work done to it. The car only has 26,000 original miles. The car sat for a long time in a barn and so a lot of mechanical work had to be done to get the crossfire engine running as smooth as it can! I had multiple gaskets, seals, etc replaced along with fluids and a new set of tires. There were numerous other mechanical operations that took place but in short the car runs phenomenal now. The car is all stock inside with no modifications. The driver side upper black door rail trim had a few cracks so I had that replaced with a new OEM piece. The tan carpet and seats are as new and have always been covered in a towel. The original floor mats I took out of the car to preserve their as new appearance.

Exterior wise the car did suffer from years of bad washing with bath towels in the eighties etc so was full of swirl marks etc. I had a 2 stage paint correction done and a full buff and polish and the original single stage black paint just shines now! The decals and emblems are also all original.

The car originally had the 15 inch gold turbo fin wheels but I had to have the 15 inch turbo cast wheels with bowling ball hubcaps like the Knight Rider car has. After searching long and hard for a set of these wheels which are very hard to find I found a set off of a parts car in New York and purchased them! They are in great shape with no curb rash. My Dad and I cleaned them up and had them mounted and balanced on my new tires. They look awesome! I then needed the bowling ball wheel covers which were next to impossible to find so I had a set made from a mold of the original from a manufacturer in the Netherlands that sells Knight Rider parts. Once I received the hubcaps I had them painted from a local auto body shop and they were then mounted onto the rims and I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out!

Additionally the car had some door dings on both sides of the car that were professionally removed with paintless dent repair. The car is now mechanically sound and the body is straight and original and I could not be happier with the end result of the time and money that has been put into it to get it to where it is now!

The thumbs up and looks I get with this car is unlike anything I’ve ever driven new or old. This car encapsulates all I set out to buy and dreamed of owning since being a small kid. I love driving it, looking at it and showing it. It’s truly a timeless vehicle that defines the eighties in my opinion. I will share some additional photos of the car in a separate thread immediately following this one. Thank you again for the nomination!