Hey guys, I have a question thats been staring me down for almost ten years now. Back in 99 I bought my first GTA. It was a LB9 car with drum brakes and T-tops. It also had the rare Euro mirrors which I didn't know or think much about at the time. Anyway after I sold the car, I ran into the gentlemen that bought it from me. He told me he did some reasearch and found it was the third GTA built. I don't know how he came up with this figure but I though that was kinda neat. I found through the GTA source page that only the first 50 - 200 GTA's had those style mirrors. Ok great, but how do I find out from there. I'll look through my papers to find a vin or something on it. Any direction would be great, this had really been bothering me lately.

Thank alot

- Zack

 

You need the vin. That will tell you what order the car was produced in.

 

The VIN would only tell you the sequence for ALL Firebirds & Trans Am's not the sequence of the GTA...

Anything is possible, being that it had the paddle mirrors it is indeed rare... I looked at a 87 GTA with the paddle mirrors, T-tops and a 350 a few years ago... It was from Canada...

 

I believe that you'd have to have that car's build sheet, plus access to all the rest of the '87 GTA invoices to decipher the actual build number. Plus for that first year you'd also have to take into account the two plants of production from what I've been told.

So, unless the fellow who bought your car is a GM insider.... I don't see how he would be able to make that particular claim. Does your LH door still have the decals on the rear? If it does, there should be a month/year printed on one of them. That would help to narrow it down a little bit for you.

 

The guy was a kid just out of high school at the time so I guess credability may not be there. Also I don't even know where the car is now so finding the door sticker will be very difficult. I am always looking in to see if I spot here up for sale. I would like to own her again. I guess I though it would be a little easier to figure out the sequence with just a vin. At least I know it was a rare one and one I should have kept.

- Zack

 

It would be an early car regardless because of the mirrors... Frankie, how many cars came with the mirrors anyways.. I want to think about 50 or something really low... I am probably way off as the Mirrors were not listed on your Web page...

John

 

There is one of those wierd mirror cars in here in town.. might be forsale to.

 

Anyone have a pic of this?

 

Zman hasn't been logged into the forums for a few days, so if you want to see a white 1987 GTA with the paddle mirrors, here's one currently on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=180303523072

 

I may be wrong aobout this. I was informed that if you had a 87 or 88 GTA with t-tops it was a 305 car, that you could not get one in 87 or 88 with a 5.7 & t-tops ?? Also I have one of these 87 GTA's with these mirrors. If anyone knows how to look at the vin and see what # car it is let me know and I post the vin up. I dont think they are that rare, might just be rare in the US ?

I thought all 3rd gens sent over seas had these mirrors ? Just not many of them were sold here in the good old USA ???? Like I said this is just stuff I have heard. I would like to know the facts as well.

 

1) In the States you could not get a GTA, T/A or Formula in 1987 or 1988 with T-tops and a 350... If you Ordered the car in Canada then you could. It had to do with Emissions and fuel economy...

2) The only thing you could do is look at the last five digits of the VIN and you could tell what the production sequence is for all Firebirds..

3) I am not sure if ALL of the exported cars got the paddle mirrors. I do know it was manditory in some countries however. I suspect it may depend on the country it was exported to...

John

 

That was interesting. Thanks for the link.

 

Thanks for the info.