I was looking at the cars going up at Mecum Indianapolis and found this.



Seller calls it a Pre Production Pilot car. Says car was assigned to Pontiac plant manager Pat Glover and was one of five.

Would be rare if true, but GM generally destroyed or parted pre production cars. Anyone know about this car?

Car is for sale on Thursday lot number T234

 

Subd

 

It should be Pilot #5.
It was discussed over on the TTA messageboard. The owner was not forthcoming with too much info and the only info we had was what some of the more knowledgeable members provided.

 

Yes, after advertising it over there for 2 years and never stating an asking price, it will be interesting to see the real "worth" of the car. Prob wont hit his reserve.

 

True, it seems that GM is in the habit of destroying project, per-production or concept cars once they have lived past their useful life.

In the case of the TTA, keep in mind that these cars were not made by GM, they were converted by PAS, not unlike the ASC convertibles, once they left GM's hands and went to PAS or ASC they could do whatever they wanted with them. GM obviously authorized it and may have actually assigned them special VINs for production. Unlike GM cars that were always under the GM umbrella, the per-production cars would have been outside of GM's control.

 

Knowing Dana, it will get bid right up to the reserve, whether there are bidders in the room or not.

 

I called the owner and talked to him about a year and a half ago. For me, I love the fact that its a TTA hardtop and is a historical one at that. I'd love to add it to my collection...

I was hoping to buy it... Being a pilot car i'm sure it got wound up more than a few times and it does show some wear. The price for me was out of range considering what the other "in-the-wrapper" TTA hardtops have sold for recently at Mecum ($price started with a 5...) I'll be watching too, to see if it hits reserve...

 

This is one of those rare instances where less is more... If you have a cloth interior Hard top TTA, it seems to be the next holiest grail behind the 2 convertible TTAs

 

I'd be interested to hear what that car goes for. The president of the dealer I work at (former Pontiac dealer) ordered a TTA new and specifically ordered without Ttops. He heard they leak. Haha. But it is a legit hardtop leather car. I think it has about 3k on it. Just sits in a warehouse under a cover. Sad for the car really.

 

No kidding... If he ever decides to sell it, keep me posted! I have been looking for one like that ( I have a wanted post in the cars wanted forum )

 

Nice. Have a few pics of the Red TTA nicknamed Flame by PAS, as the owner took it out of storage to take a few pics of it to share with us on the Turbo Buick board, but back into storage it went immediately after. Very rare car...

 

I've heard this before, but if it were me that wouldn't mean anything to me. I guess the only reason I'm posting this is that I do know where one of the TTA hard top cloth interior cars is. It's in my hometown (Worthington, MN). The guy who owns it was the Chevy dealer for years and is loaded. He's into cars, signs and antique toys. He has an old dealership building which he converted to a museum and in what used to be the showroom floor sits the TTA. He will be having a car show there over memorial day weekend. If anyone wants I can snap some pics of the car at the show. I think it only has like 6,000 miles and I know it was in a magazine.

I found the magazine article online http://www.superchevy.com/features/0...turbo-feature/

 

Cool, if you can snap some photos and share would be great. Got that article and we (the TTA owners over on turbotransam.com) always wondered which no TTA hardtop that is so if you can share (or PM me) the last 6 digits of the VIN we can look up the build (actually its the VIN sequence number) number of it as we try to keep track of as many TTA's in excistance as possible.

Pilot no 5 is cool and is the real deal ... PAS bought them off GM (and vin changed from 1G2 to 1G5 at that time) for peunuts (I got copies of the invoices on them) HOWEVER roumer says that GM tried to get them back as they were not supposed to end up in private ownership ... good news is all the 5 pilots are still around to this day :-)

 

I will do my best. He has it roped off so you can't really get any closer than 2 feet to it. If I can't get close enough I'll ask him if it's ok and show him this thread.

 

Really appreciate that !

 

I know it's a couple weeks until the car show but after work last night I stopped by to snap a picture of it from the outside of the building. At least it's got a cool home now.

 

what a beauty!

 

On e-bay at the moment, goes across the block in Indy tomorrow.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pontiac-Fire...m=141996371980

 

That's one of the things about mecum that is deceiving. They can shill bid while under reserve price. What I often wonder is if the Live bidder/s know when its a real bidder they are up against? So many of those reserve auctions are one live bidder against the reserve. The bidding stalls on the live one, the reserve drops & for some crazy reason, no more bids. They sure sell a lot of cars that way.

 

I wonder if they will ever have mannequins with a mulet & a tank top for the 2nd & 3rd gen cars in displays like this? I don't think the service guy with the Texaco cap wouldn't look quite right. Come to think of it, add a 6 pack of beer & it would have been me in the 80's

EDIT: how come I can't say mulet (spelled correctly) without it being x'd out like a swear word. Thats cracking me up.

 

Several years ago we were out there bidding on a 1967 RA Convertible GTO and were bidding against a ghost - they claimed we had bid 55k when our last bid was 50 - we got our price.

 

Wow, very cool ,yet sad, to see a ole 3rdgen lumped in with such "classics"

 

Bidding stopped at 35k.

 

Another TTA with 18k miles got to $21,000 before bidding stopped without a sale.

Although a really nice White 87 IROC Auto 5.0L with only 320 Miles sold for $32,000!

 

There are just to many of them for prices to be moving up. IMO

 

Dana ghost bid the car to 35k - two friends of mine were there to watch it and there was no real money for it in the room.

 

That's Dana for ya!

 

IMO... As much as I would absolutely love to have it, I think that's all the money for that car. The owner is fishing for a whale

I am pleased to see the 87 IROC pull $32k! Especially being a 5.0L automatic... It has paint flaws on the bumper caps (the white discoloration) too. One of these days I should probably pick up the one I know hiding with 400 miles on it...

 

Yes you should!

 

Haha, GO AWAY '50s!

 

Kicking myself for ever selling my hardtop/cloth TTA, #1322. It had 800+/- miles on it and basically still in the wrapper when I sold it to a guy way up in Canada. I never heard about the car again. It was 1 of 14 production TTAs remaining in existence (1 was known to have been destroyed in a fire). Coulda, woulda, shoulda........

 

^^^^Yup Still in Alberta...Jarred I believe........with only 928 miles. Maybe he'll sell it back to ya???

 

I thought I remember his name being Dean. He had a few other GM turbo vehicles like a Typhoon and a Syclone...

 

AFAIK Jared does still own the car. He has other collectibles as well.

 

Dean sold it to Jarred Soon