Car Of The Day: November 21, 2011

Today's car of the day comes from Firehawk73's collection and is Racing Champions' 1996 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.

The Pontiac Firebird was built by the Pontiac division of General Motors between 1967 and 2002. The Firebird was introduced the same year as the automaker's platform-sharing model, the Chevrolet Camaro. This coincided with the release of the 1968 Mercury Cougar, which shared its platform with another pony car, the Ford Mustang.

The vehicles were powered by various four-cylinder, six-cylinder, and V8 engines sourced from several GM divisions. While primarily Pontiac-powered until 1977, Firebirds were built with several different engines from nearly every GM division until 1982 when GM began to discontinue engines it felt were unneeded and either spread successful designs from individual divisions among all divisions or use new engines of corporate architecture.

For more information and pictures of the real car please visit: Pontiac Firebird

We're celebrating Thanksgiving week with A Flock Of Seagulls Firebirds.  I saw your eyes, and you touched my mind.  Although it took a while, I was falling in love.  Odds are good I run out of A Flock Of Seagulls songs to reference before Paul runs out of Firebirds... but not yet.

The fourth-generation F-body continued the aerodynamic formula initiated by the previous generation, but saw declining sales. As before, the Camaro kept the exposed headlights and the Firebird its pop-up units, with some minor changes. The overall styling of the Firebird more strongly reflected the "Banshee IV" concept car than the 1991 "face lift" received by the Third Generation model.