I just received my newest copy of HPP magazine and am still disappointed there are no articles featuring 3rd gens. I have gotten several issues now and the only third gens I have seen other than in the Hawks ad were a couple of 2x2 photos of 3rd gens at car shows - not the first layout. I enjoy the articles about other Pontiacs, but would really like to see nice 3rd gens featured every once in awhile. Anyone else feel this way? Moderator, sorry if this is in the wrong place!

 

Thirdgens are...
1. still trying to shake off the white trash/low income image
2. not enjoying a large following of owners that spend lots of money on parts to keep advertisers happy
3. not appreciated like other years/models

 

If you read the july 2012 camaro performers magazine you would pretty much read a whole 2 page bit of why magazines ignore our third gens, and there were several third gen owners/cars that made it in the magazine stating there opinion and the guy that i guess is in charge in the magazine got chewed out pretty hard. It would sum up why ours cars don't see the light of day that much, but as of recent i've seen a few third gen make cover magazines, so it could be the lack of third gen owners not trying to make it to the magazine or the people writing articles just aren't interested. It goes both ways from my point of view, but i don't think our cars are left in the dark as far as not making them into pontiac performances or camaro performers. Usually the articles i read so much about on our cars is the usual handling upgrades and they talk about how great in handling our cars are, and i dont think that really appeals to the performance magazine that just focus on power.

 

To expand on the above post, he's correct. A few of the Chevy magazines have recently featured Third Gen Camaros on the covers and had articles for them also. TGO was even mentioned a few times. As for the Pontiacs, I don't know. Write in like the Chevy guys did and see what happens!

 

I used to subscribe to HPP. They have had third gen articles and features in the past but i will admit they were few and far between. I mainly stopped subscribing when the price to subscribe kept going up and up and up and my interest in the same cars from 64-74 went down and down and down haha. Still like them but have seen most of them by now.

 

Good idea! If a few 3rd gen Pontiac guys sent in well written letters, it might go a long way in getting some more exposure. A nice 3rd gen has to be at least as interesting to readers as a '70's Le Mans or Pontiac station wagon. As for the "white trash/low income" part posted earlier in this thread, that role seems to be left to early fourth gens now, at least around where I live (no offense meant - I've owned several 4th gens).

 

I know what you mean, and I find it curious that people bought these cars and stored them away when new..... I guess they didn't realize the ones that were on the road would create a stigma holding the value of their cars down.

The upside to all of this is affordable cars and parts.

BTW, a beater 4thGen Z28 parked next to me Yesterday. The thing was filthy, and in an empty lot I had to back up so my wife could get in the PU it was so close

 

As an aside, I never understood #1. As far as I am (and have always been)concerned, the third gens are part of the great lineage that is the Camaro/Firebird. I think we can all agree that the Corvette is the benchmark for GM performance, both here and abroad. The Camaros and Firebirds always represented, to me, slightly less performance for less money, for the working man. That being the case, that doesn't mean that "white trash/low income" are/were the owners. That whole notion just gets on my nerves.

 

I've been a HPP subscriber for a long time and I agree thirdgens don't get covered that much but they do get covered. They even showcased a TPI build and intake dyno comp a few years ago. Matter of fact here's an article that was late last year. And this car/guy is on our boards.http://www.highperformancepontiac.co...ntiac_formula/

 

#1 makes me laugh since the exact same type of buyer purchasing the 5th gens now was buying the 3rd gens when they were new. Understandably most are beat and may be owned by folks of less means, but there are quite a few extremely nice ones out there.

#2 makes sense - they were super popular until the 4th gens got really rolling and started dying out in the late 90's. Keep in mind that 20 years ago, no one cared about early 2nd gens at all, and now people worship them. A few years and the 3rd gens will be sought after again.

#3 - that is due to #2's perception. But keep in mind that they were the first aerodynamic models that handled really well and actually got good mileage. Once the 2nd gens get so scarce and expensive, you will see a lot of positive talk about the 82 to 92 cars.

 

The first owner of my 89 is a VP of a large shipping Co. in the Northwest. He had bought a 69 new and then my 89 and just bought a new SS, so he had means, and was basically a car guy who loved performance Camaros. He sold the 69 four years ago and bought another less original 69 he could do stuff to, and just sold me the 89. He may even be a future buyer of his 89 back

 

Just to chime in again, I rememeber in one of my magazines a editor was talking about another reason why our third gens dont see much attention is because they want to see (different) high performance clean third gens to make them interested. And it always baffled me because when i get on the forum here i see tons of modified third gens that are insanely fast and nice looking cars. I guess the editors dont get around on the boards or we are not reaching out enough, because as stated they will do a small snippit article and small picture of a clean original third gen, but it doesn't normally get the whole spot light. So i've always been confused as to how many modified thirds are out there with people doing dozens of ls1 swaps and such and they still don't see the light of day when according to them that's what there looking for.

 

I think the fact that third gens aren't powered by Pontiac engines (aside from the lowly Iron Duke) has a lot to do with the lack of coverage in a Pontiac magazine.

 

I totally agree. Our cars were expensive when new, but by the time owner #3 rolls around usually things have declined quite a distance.

Ha, I'm only 31 and I remember when late 2nd gens were the official white trash transportation. Look how many 77-79 Trans Ams were built, they are anything but rare, and they still bring a premium these days in good condition. I agree, thirdgens will shake it, but it will be a few years yet.


Thats because what the editor said is a total BS excuse. Nick Licata said something like that and I think he's just patronizing his thirdgen readers. I still think many of these magazine guys don't like thirdgens, don't want to cover them and need an excuse for not covering them when they get heat from readers. So they say there aren't many nice ones to choose from, when I see enough magazine worthy thirdgens on the Power Tour every year to feed these magazines for over a year.

 

I just made an interesting observation. I looked at a May 1966 Motor Trend 1966 GTO road test article and noticed the 1/4 mile time was a 15.6 @ 90 mph. I then checked a 1989 GTA road test article from Road and Track (thanks GTA sourcepage) and the 1/4 mile times were 15.5 @ 90 mph!! So the excuse for not getting coverage is that third gens are slow compared to all 60's musclecars goes out the window.

 

15.5 that must have been a 305 powered GTA? A 5.7L one should have run a mid-high 14 pretty easily.

 

Thats one of the points a lot of the third genners argued against the editors, our cars were faster and had more power by 1984 over later 70s 2nd gen cars and they are still in denial about our cars

 

Sounded slow to me too, but I rechecked the article and it said it was a 350 car. Heck I had a stock '84 SS Monte Carlo that I ran at the old Warner Robins Dragway in '88 that went 15.50's bracket racing in the street class!!

 

My 66 GTO still runs 15.30s today, granted it is the 389 4V, Automatic , 3.08 open rear with A/C version. My GTO will not hold a candle to my 92 T/A which runs in the low 14s consistently.

 

THe truth of the matter is people remember cars being faster in the 60's than they really were. Especially when you consider how easily it was to upgrade a cam or throw another motor in it. There was a few outliers that were fast, but for the most part they were rather unspectacular. Come 1985, there was an article, (I think it has been posted here) that the 1985 IROC was the fastest car they ever tested, and they had comparisons to several cars from the 1960's & early 70's.

Jump ahead 20 years (it is hard to believe it has been just over 20 years when the last 3rd gen and 10 years since the last 4th gen rolled off the line) The performance cars are really much faster than they ever have been before. On top of that there has been 40 years of people dreaming of an old COPO Camaro that hardly anyone knew of back in 1969, and now they can pretty much buy one, new and everyone knows about them now.

Also consider that we are on the bottom of the pecking order right now, with the exception of the Firehawk and TTA, 350 and LB9/M5 cars, 3rd gens were not overly spectacular straight line performers. But like the vast vast majority of cars of the 60's and early 70's that are heralded as real screamers (that really were not as great as we thought they were), the third gens have the same potential...

Although TPI on the one hand made the third gen relevant, at the same time it made modifications beyond most shade tree mechanics almost impossible and unlike those cars of the 60's that could easily be modified it caused many to shun electronics. And it left many desiring something that could have been, that really has not materialized yet. I am not sure if they will have uber value like some of the cars of old, but time will see. Also consider that there has been increasing interest in them of late... It is a slow arduous process, that patience pays off for those who wait.

 

I have worked on third-gen projects for High Performance Pontiac, but my "big" project never ran because it was destroyed a week before it was going to be smog and dyno tested by a driver who ran a red light. The HPP Editor felt that without results, there is no story.

Although some of the other reasons stated previously are valid, some are not. The HPP Editor does like third-gens, but he finds feature cars at the few Pontiac shows that he still has budget and time to attend. Unfortunately very few people spend the time and money to make a magazine-worthy car, especially a third gen. I have been to a number of these shows and we frequently see more Fieros show up than 3rd gens, and the majority of cars in a show are not considered magazine worthy, so unless your car is remarkable either in history, fit and finish, or performance, the title is not "average Pontiac", if you get my meaning. The massive majority of cars on the Power Tour are not feature car worthy, but are drivers. Why do I want to buy a magazine to see a car that looks worse what I drive every day?

He does not care if it originally had a "Pontiac" motor, you see 4th gens and late GTOs all the time in HPP. But he can only show what he finds and that he considers to be of magazine quality. If you have such a 3rd gen, contact him and send him photos and a description, and ask him which HPP show(s) he will be attenting, and see if you can get a commitment from him to shoot the car if you take it to a show he will be at. Are you willing to trailer your car to Norwalk, Ohio to get a top quality photographer to shoot your car for a magazine? If you have really taken the time and care to build a magazine quality car, then that would not be a bad trade at all. The guys that own the classics are happy to do it.

I bought a '68 GTO in high school for $300. You couldn't buy the hood for that much today. When you stop seeing third gens in junkyards and totally thrashed/limping versions on the streets, the prices will rise. When the generation that sat transfixed watching "Knight Rider" are the corporate CEOs, you will reminisce fondly when "3rd gens were reasonably priced"...
TA

 

There was an article within the past year on a third gen Firebird. It was one that was reposessed in a drug raid and turned into a D.A.R.E. car. I have the mag. on my workbench at home and I can repost with the date.

 

I think one thing that really people do not really seem to understand is there was more than a few cars made by Pontiac. Any given year from 1960 - 2008 there was probably an average of 5 - 7 models. There was only 4 generations of F-body, the third generation obviously only being one of those four. you take the total history from 1926 thru 2008 and try to cater to those people who like Pontiacs. If they simply relegated one magazine article a month to an F-body that would mean (by the rule of averages) that every 4 months or 3 times a year there should be an article about a 3rd Gen. If you consider that probably by the rule of averages, about every 3rd month or 4 times a year they have an F-body that would mean that if each year they had an article that would be doing great.

 

I guess the reason I posted initially was that as a new subscriber of HPP, I was hoping at some point to see a low mileage or rare third gen featured or at least a tech article. After five issues (if I remember correctly) the Hawks ads have had the largest photos of third gens in the entire magazine. I really do enjoy the other features, and appreciate the work it takes to get a car to the point of being worthy of a feature article. Maybe something third gen related will come up in the future.

 

I think the '89 TTA is certainly worthy of a spotlight. I don't believe "High Performance" has anything to do with it....line-up the TTA against any of the cars they adore in their magazines so frequently.

The problem is with information available on the internet it would be difficult for them to shed any new light on that car unless Jan over at turbotransam.com wrote-or was at least consulted-for the article...he is quite the knowledge base on that car.

Additionally, I am guessing the Editor(s) at the magazine are a generation before our cars (not old) and do not share the same interest in the thirdgen as we do.

The bottom line is the bottom line. Do we buy magazines? I don't unless I thought I could learn something credible that I could not learn through online research. I wonder if they have ever tried even a side article on a thirdgen and if there was any change in sales off the racks...not subscriptions...?

 

My IROC was spotted by GMHTP in the parking lot of the Bonefish Grill on the Power Tour. They ran a feature and then later I authored and photographed a tech article on an IRS swap.

BIGMODS on here got a full feature in Hotrod, they saw his car on the Power Tour last year. Heck I drove the HOTROD Suburban while Wes Allison shot pictures of the car in motion.

Then there is that wicked turbocharged silver thirdgen Formula that was featured in a magazine recently but I can't remember which one it was.

My point is that if you are attending the major shows and events, there really are magazine worthy thirdgens out there. Plenty to keep readers happy with 1-2 spreads each year anyway. Heck GMHTP keeps finding rag-worthy turbo Buicks to feature and I NEVER see them anywhere.

You can say what you want, but if editors were looking, they'd find good thirdgens to cover, period, end of story. Any other excuse for not featuring them is just that, an excuse.

 

I just received the newest issue of HPP and opened it to find that third gens are still relegated to one photo that would barely cover the end of a 2x4. I will say though that the article on the birth of the Trans Am was very good, as was the article on the '64 GTO.

 

I have subscribed for about 4 years and they have featured third gens a couple times. They had an article on the 89 TTA reunion that was held in 2011 and it had a lot of pictures. I also remember several yrs ago an article on an 84 TA. Also when they do stories on the car shows, a picture or two of a third gen is shown. They cover the major shows and I have seen them taking pictures at the Pontiac Nats and the T/A Nats.