1976 Pontiac Firebird - Reader Ride

By: Dan Goodsir, Photography by: Guy Allen

Date: 01.02.2019

Dan Goodsir's 1976 Pontiac Firebird

There's a twist in the story of this car: On February 11, 1976, it went brand new from Pontiac straight through to Tokyo in Japan. They left it left-hand drive even though Japan is a right-hand country.

The gentleman in Japan who ordered it must have had a lot of money. It was fully optioned and was one of 496 vehicles that went to there from Pontiac that year.

It’s curious, because Japan has had a reputation for being fairly uncompromising on vehicle regs, but these clearly got through. It has a lot of Japanese labelling and stickers around it – that’s what got me curious about its history.

I bought it from a gentleman in rural Victoria, and he didn’t know anything about the car’s history. So I was fortunate in finding out the story. I started with Pontiac Historical Services, and they located and sent the build sheet.

At the start I was just looking for a Formula 400 Firebird, so 400 cubic inches (6.6lt) with the T350 transmission, and this one popped up. It wasn’t a very good listing and, in the end I had a bit of a win there.

It’s the W50 package, which Pontiac made 9000 of.

It’s only got 60,000 miles on it, and when you get in it feels like it did when it left the factory.

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