I bought this car for my son last summer. Its a 1990 Firebird convertible 3.1 V6. The convertible is an aftermarket job by a company in Newport Beach California called Straham. Apparently there were article in car magazines about them and they did high end convertible conversions like porches stuff. Anyway the convertible job is ok, a little homeade looking to me. Like the A arm posts in front look like the were adapted from T top ones and cut off with a hack saw or something. The top is in good shape and works good, although the way the front seat belt attaches to the side is kind of funky.

The body is very good, the paint sucks. I just put about $700 into the motor, wires, plugs, injectors, blah, blah. We like the body style. With a real nice black paint job, and redone interior it would be a pretty sharp looking car,

Im worried about the top, if I need a new one I would I guess have to go to an upholstery shop and have them make one using the old one as a pattern. I wonder if the top was a standard GM one from another year or what.

Anyway, just wondering about opinions on whether to stick with it, or drive it for a few years til the top wears out and dump it.I only paid 2250 for it. its got like 110,000 miles, not to bad.

 

Nice looking car. I'd love to see what it looks like with the top up and with the new paint. Can you do that?

Anyway... it sounds like the top is passable now, am I right? If so, I would ride it. If you are keeping it garaged, that would certainly lengthen the life span a little at least. A black top in the hot Texas sun can be brutal and certainly speed up the deterioration process.

I would do a couple things just for information purposes at the very least. See if you can contact Straham in CA to see if they sell replacements and have a record of this car being modified. It would be nice for a collector to have that documentation on the car one day and to see if they are still in business. More importantly, it would be cool if they have information on what you can do to get it swapped.

Second, I would go to an automotive upholsterer and see what they would charge to copy and install a replacement. I'm willing to guess the specs on that top are much different than the one on mine so your cost to replace will likely be much higher.

I hope this helps.

 

The top is fine now, no problem. I was garaging it but we moved about two months ago and I can barely squeeze my 91 formula in the garage right now, but the plan is to garage it, for sure before summer and that brutal Houston heat you are talking about hits.

We have a boot with the top too, it works all right, but hardly ever put it on because it has a jillion snaps, then if you stop and want to go in somewhere, you got to put the top up, then back down, etc. I don't have a pic with the boot, but here is one with the top up.

I got a work order with the car from Staham to do the conversion in 1990. It had a phone number on it and I called it but it was disconnected. They either moved or went belly up. I might call information for Newport beach or other areas around there to see if they changed numbers. You would think a conversion company would just buy a standard top from another year and use that as opposed to completely customizing one. I don't know how I can tell unless I can contact them.

 

Looks pretty good, I think. I'd fix it personally, but if you dont like the car, why not sell it to someone who will fix it?

 

any convertible is worth restoring......does your firebird have a power top, or is it manual only.?? I'm trying to figure out who built my "84 Camaro, the story with the car is that it was shipped to California to be converted, but I'm wondering if its true......my car has a power top (doesnt work right now) and I'm going to need a top soon, and was wondering if I need to have a custom top sewn up or if a replacement is available (long shot).....

 

That top looks like an ASC top . I'd talk to Willie on here about this car. He knows just about anything there is to know about third gens. You've got a rare car there.

 

It certainly is a nice looking car, but I think I'd hold off and look for an ASC conversion, and one with a V8. The snaps seem like they'd be a pain in the butt, and the V6 turns me off. ASC verts fold underneath a hard toneau cover...no snaps involved.

 

Larry,

I think the car is worth fixing up - BUT, then again I am car NUTZ!

That convertible top looks an awful lot like the ASC top. If you go to topsonline there are instructions on how to measure for a top. These measurements are specific to the ASC top but if you do the measuring you can see how close you are. I would be real surprised it the measurments were not the same. If that were the case the only alteration would be the snaps on the rear. Lon Salgren is one of the moderators of this page. He knows a lot about these cars and might be able to tell you right off what top and where to get it...

The car looks great. I would drive it and enjoy it. When the time comes that you have to do something then you can make the decision on whether it is worth the expense or not...

Nice Car!
Good Luck!
Speedy

 

LARRY:
yes...keep it. Not many aftermarket convertibles out there at all. I'd do like above and measure your top's dimensions (3 of them). First, because I seriously doubt any aftermarket convertible company would have tooled the convertible hardware from scratch. Second because i doubt any aftermarket company would have stitched their tops from scratch. Where's the profit?

I'd like to see more pictures of the rear 1/4 panels. You've seen ASC conversions that have that plastic strip along the tops of the rear 1/4 panels to cover the welding/cutting to the panels during the conversion. Yours appears to not have those strips.

Also, what does the backseat interior sail panels look like. Just out of curiosity. And the trunk also if you would.

RArnold:
There were some two seater convertible conversions done in 1984. But I had no idea that the tops were power tops. What do the motors look like and where are they?

 

its not the 2-seater, i have a fold-down rear seat, and the motor for the top is mounted behind it....I'm going to try and post a couple pictures of the old girl on this site to see if someone can help ID the car........

 

Definately keep it. And definately try and contact the company that did it. Good looking car.

And try to get the endcaps that go down the fender and the rear spoiler off of a stock ASC car. The ASC spoiler looks better than that chopped stocker.

 

It looks like primer and a mish-mash assembly to me, however, not too bad, that being said, but I think ASC made tonneau versions exclusively as far as F cars, and were manual ones. The power tops done to Cadillac Eldorados of the 1980s were the other style, but looking very clean. ASC kept making modifications we've been told here, but I think they are not known for the early 1980s or 70s conversions done in California by specialty coach builders.

Being a Trans Am style body, I'd spend the engine money upgrading the power and welding in the subframe connectors to stiffen the Unibody up, as even ASC's can use some stiffening, though mine is stock I believe, I keep to slow speeds mostly as I don't race hehe
Bill