Well this is a new old one for me. Searched but didn't find a thread about this 3rd gen aftermarket Firebird.

 

That's a new one on me.

 

Wait, so there was a company trying to do business by putting JCWhitney gfx, a notchback, and Fiero spoiler on a Firebird, and giving it an ugly clash-tastic paint job?

What part is suppose to make someone want to buy one? It's like the pitch meeting was about taking a regular Firebird, and making it worse in every way.

 

You are missing the most important information in the add... written by a college marketing major.. with every BS trick in the book....

"Classic 2 seat motoring" - i can get the same thing if i take the rear seats out of my station wagon.... really!
"Proven Performance is the thrust behind EuroSprint" - Proven by who? Your grandma?
"with years of experience" - yeah.. 1.5 years of crap
"Exceeding your driving requirements and expectations" - you think pretty low of me don't you... this was the 80's but it wasn't THAT bad.....
"Incredibly high recognition" - Which is why no one on this board has ever heard of it....
"Design experts shun the mediocre" - no one else was this crazy
"based on a standard Firebird or Camaro chassis" - but we only show the Firebird, and no mention of any actual changes to the chassis.
"increase in fuel efficiency and stability" - adding crap like this doesnt help fuel consumption... show me the numbers....
"available at a price you truly won't expect" - can't imagine someone would ask that much for something like this.

 

The shape of the end of the RDI logo is hilarious. How does no one not see this when they create it or was it on purpose? Still doesn't make me want to buy one though.

 

I don't live far from that address, and done business at the RV surplus store across the road. The actual address in google is a livestock operation. If you go east a tad down the road there is a building there that looks like it could have maybe built a few cars but it's hard to say.

I'd say it was a fake or a homework assignment for a grad student if the photograph wasn't as good as it is. That would have been hard to fake in the 80s.

 

You nailed it!! You can still make out the logo if you zoom in:



So, it is a real place. Interesting. Doesn't look like they are doing much these days though...

 

You should stop in and see what they have to say about the project. They might be Thirdgen people!

 

Nah they look to have moved up to professional hording and bee keeping.

On the other hand, they might have a warehouse full of notchbacks, corny GFX, Fiero spoilers, and luggage racks. If it wasn't the corniest package ever conceived, someone would probably trade a vital organ for that sign. Knowing odd people, someone would probably still trade an organ to put that sign up in their garage with their rdi modified Firebird. That's assuming they sold even a single car, for all we know they never got further than paying a graphic artist for the sign/logo and putting that add in magazines.

 

The north central Indiana area is the RV capital of the world. Suppliers to the RV manufacturers are dotted all across northern Indiana and southwest Michigan. Many manufacturers in the area also build conversion vans, toy haulers, livestock trailers and handicapped accessible vehicles. Back in the 80s there were various companies modifying vehicles like this in the area. For example, Autoform based in Elkhart Indiana built thridgen convertibles. So it's entirely possible that some of these cars were actually built, and this is the place that built them. It would appear that they HAD to had built at least one firebird shown in the literature. I am intrigued now. I may try and call them and see what they say. If they have any info or are willing to talk about it, it would be worth the 45 minute drive over there for me to learn something.

 

Did RDI do any other passenger car work?
I'm no GTA Notchback expert, but some pics lead me to believe the contour of the edge of the notchback hatch in the RDI pics is different from the GTA Notchback hatch.
Were those ground effects pieces known to be distributed under any other brand?

I don't think I've seen the luggage rack bits applied to a GTA NB hatch before.
Is there any other colorset lthat would better shine on these particular cars?

 

The Notchback for Pontiac was done by Auto-Fab in Michigan. There was aftermarket units available. This one by RDI does look fairly close to the Auto-Fab for Pontiac but, like some aftermarket unit I've seen, you can see the RDI unit has exposed bumps on top where the hardware would mount the hatch on the underside. The Auto-Fab unit for Pontiac did not have those exterior bumps. None of the Auto-Fab for Pontiac units that I've seen had any luggage rack, either.