Rare Firebird Rises from the Ashes

This is a pretty rare Firebird find. Rob Youngblood gave us a call to see if we had any information on his 1983 Pontiac Firebird, which happens to have a Banks legacy of sorts. “I’ve known about this car for about 30 years and bought it when I had the chance,” explains Rob. “It’s a 1983 Pontiac Trans-Am Daytona 500 Special Edition. They only made about 2,500, and of those only 520 were manual transmissions. This car is an ultra-rare Stage 2 Banks 600 horsepower twin-turbo small block and was prepped by Gale’s American Turbocar Corporation. ATC prepped these F-bodies in 500, 600, and 700 hp configurations. Check out this link for more. Tom Foster of Foster Farms was the original owner of the Trans-Am, who was a gearhead and loved NASCAR.” 

“I bought this car to restore it. It has only 17K miles on the odometer! There are so many modifications by Banks on this car. Including a Ford 9” rear end, Koni shocks, a bigger radiator, and even an 8,000 RPM Banks tachometer and 200 mph speedo. (The speedometers are actually hand-screen print here at Banks). About 25 years ago a state-of-the-art Holley Commander port-fuel injection system was put on it to replace the carburetor.”

A BFFF (Banks Foster Farms Firebird) would be a legendary car to own. Good find Rob! Indeed, we love to know when someone finds a rare Firebird or any of the Banks Builds!