In the ’70s, Pontiac Put a Firebird on an RV to Mark Its Territory

It was the spring of 1976 when General Motors Design vice president William L. “Bill” Mitchell strolled into John Schinella’s Pontiac #2 Design studio to review future Firebird proposals. On his way out, he presented John with a challenge.

As most know, Mitchell was the colorful, strong-minded genius who had GM leading the auto industry in styling throughout his near-two-decade reign as GM’s Design VP, and his rare level of creativity extended beyond styling to include ideas for promoting GM products. He also had, as Schinella today puts it, a “soft spot” for Pontiac.

Mitchell knew of other enthusiast brands hosting trackside parking areas for their customers at races and events—Porsche Parks, Corvette Corrals, Datsun Z Zones—and thought Pontiac should have one as well. “Why doesn’t Pontiac have special parking for Trans Am owners?” he asked, according to an article by Scott A. Scheel in the June 2016 issue of Pontiac Smoke Signals magazine. “You need to put a program together and pitch it to Pontiac!”

When Schinella shared Mitchell’s wishes in a meeting of the designers in his studio and challenged them to come up with a name for it, Bill Davis, his assistant chief designer, quickly suggested the first thing that sprang to his mind: “Trans Am Territory.” So obvious. So perfect! And when John went to Mitchell’s office to propose that name, Mitchell said, “Get it done, kid.”

Schinella then pitched the idea to Pontiac general manager Alex Mair, who eagerly embraced it. Mair reached out to his counterpart at GMC, suggesting that lending one of GMC’s unique motorhomes to serve as Trans Am Territory’s mobile hospitality center would be great exposure. And when he asked Pontiac Public Relations Director Stan Richards for PR help, Richards gave the assignment to Jill Rogers, a hard-working young woman on his staff who was also a Trans Am owner and enthusiast. And as one of the very few women in the male-dominated field of automotive PR at the time, if not the only one, she was also a ceiling-busting pioneer.

“In 1976, a new assignment was added to my responsibilities—coordinating Trans Am Territory at Sports Car Club of America races,” Rogers related in a 2012 interview. She heartily agreed with Mair and Schinella that such an effort “would be a great way to help promote Firebird, specifically Trans Am, among car enthusiasts attending those races with a special parking area right next to the track.”

Trans Am Traveler

Because of its size, the GMC motorhome—which they named “Trans Am Traveler”—was set up in the truck studio, and Schinella had his team create a stunning silver/red/black paint scheme and some Trans Am-type design elements for it, including wing graphics, simulated snowflake wheels, and front and rear spoilers. Dave Dorn, a Trans Am enthusiast from Chicago, came in and spent the weekend at Schinella’s home to install a set of Trans Am instrumentation into it, which he had already done to his own GMC motorhome.

Schinella’s studio also worked with Pontiac Graphics to produce promotional items for the program. “Hank Tarr designed a logo consisting of the right half of a bird (looking somewhat different from a Trans Am hood bird) blended into an open square box on the left-hand side,” Scheel wrote in his Smoke Signals article, “inside of which was the Trans Am Territory logo. The logo would be printed on signage, decals, shirts, iron-on T-shirt transfers, pewter belt buckles, and jewelry to be sold or distributed to Trans Am Territory participants. A large aluminum sign was constructed to serve as a gateway to welcome participants.”

According to Scheel, the motorhome was painted in the GM Design paint shop, but the night before it was due to depart for the July 24, 1976, inaugural Trans Am Territory at Road America near Elkhart Lake, WI, its decal application and striping was not yet complete. So, Davis and fellow Pontiac #2 studio designer John Folden finished it that night at Davis’ home.

At each track, Rogers and (when available) Schinella met with officials to negotiate the location for that weekend’s Trans Am Territory. At Elkhart Lake, for example, they reserved the area outside the track’s final right-hand turn, where the cars all charged full-throttle out of the corner and up the hill past the start/finish line on the long front straight. The big entrance arch, banners, and signs designated the cordoned-off area where Firebird and Trans Am owners were invited to park, watch the races, and visit with fellow enthusiasts. “Also, Jill and I worked very hard to have Pontiac signage painted on the bridge across the track.” Schinella relates.

Inaugural Territory

That first Road America event was significant because it celebrated the Pontiac marque’s 50^th Anniversary and because the SCCA had designated a black-and-gold 1976 Limited-Edition Trans Am as its official car for the 10-race 1976 Trans-Am Championship season.

It was so successful that the effort soon expanded to other tracks, including Michigan International Speedway, Daytona, Watkins Glen (NY), Pocono (PA), Road Atlanta (GA), and even Mosport, Ont., Canada. While the original intent was to stage Territories at SCCA Trans-American “sedan” Series (“Trans-Am”) races—those memorable 1960s-70s battles among American pony cars driven by the likes of A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney, George Follmer, Mark Donohue, Parnelli Jones, Sam Posey and other big-name shoes of the day—for which Pontiac’s hottest Firebirds were named, they eventually extended to a variety of racing events. At times, they hosted more than 300 Firebirds and Trans Ams, and west-coast PR contractor Eric Dahlquist even staged TA Territories at some Riverside and Laguna Seca, CA races.

Rogers’ responsibilities included sending invitation letters to area Firebird and Trans Am owners, driving that big Trans Am Traveler motorhome to and from each track, and setting up and managing the area and events once there. Sometimes Schinella or someone from his staff would come along to share the driving and help her (and local Pontiac Zone people) set up with signage, stanchions, ropes, and the impressive entrance arch, which broke down into long sections that barely fit inside the motorhome. And sometimes, when no one else was available, she made those trips alone. Dave Dorn decorated his beige GMC motorhome with Trans Am Territory graphics and often drove it to the events to provide a second rolling office and help however he could.  

Rogers would arrive on Fridays before each race weekend, set up the area, and coordinate Saturday and Sunday activities. Then, at the end of the day Sunday, she (with whatever help was available) would take everything down, load it up, and drive the motorhome back to Pontiac headquarters (northwest of Detroit) to be back at work first thing Monday morning. 

“On Sundays,” she said, “a favorite event of Trans Am Territory participants was a parade lap around the track prior to the start of racing events. When John was there, he suggested we do the parade by color, which was quite a challenge with close to 100 Trans Ams and other Firebirds, but we did it.” After two Trans Ams had a minor collision with each other while parading (a bit too aggressively) two-abreast at that first event—the owners fortunately saw the damage as Road America badges of honor—they were lined up and paraded single file.

“The second year, Pontiac purchased the specially designed GMC motorhome, and I was responsible for its care and getting it to the various tracks,” Rogers said. “We had a special guest—GM Design VP Bill Mitchell, an avid sports-car racing fan—drop by on his custom motorcycle at one of our early events. Another time, we had a special GM concept car, the Pontiac Banshee III, on display, and it served as the pace car for the parade lap.”

Unfortunately, one element missing from Trans Am Territories was the thrill of watching factory backed Firebird Trans Ams race against their Chevrolet Camaro, Ford Mustang, Mercury Cougar, Plymouth Barracuda, Dodge Challenger, and AMC Javelin competitors. After popular Pontiac driver and magazine editor (and 1967 Trans-Am Series Champion in a Shelby American Ford Mustang) Jerry Titus was tragically killed in a 1970 practice crash at Road America, then-Pontiac general manager Jim McDonald withdrew all support from those races. 

Tales from the Territory

Trans Am Territories became personal for this writer In October 1977. I was covering races at Road Atlanta as a journalist, Jill was there doing her thing, and we spent some time together and became friends. I was impressed by how professionally she organized and ran the event, then by her driving that big motorhome back to Detroit, and we soon began dating.

From that point on, I traveled with her whenever I could to help set up and run her Trans Am Territories, and Schinella and his then-girlfriend sometimes came along. We worked hard, but these trips became fun double dates, and we often camped out in the motorhome to avoid hotel room costs. It was a little tight but accommodated the four of us reasonably well.

“Schinella recalls that most Trans Am Territory events were a festive party atmosphere,” Scheel reported, “with most participants enjoying the cars and racing and generally behaving themselves. The expensive plexiglass parking signage did tend to be taken as souvenirs from early events, prompting Pontiac to replace it with much cheaper cardboard versions.”

And the big aluminum entry sign was stolen one night at their first visit to Watkins Glen after the rowdy crowd in the Glen’s infamous “bog” area scared off the security guard. It was replaced and more securely guarded after that, and on the next visit to the Glen, Jill and I stayed in the motorhome at the track hoping to keep anything from being stolen. And it rained Saturday night and Sunday, so the grass we were parked on was wet.

That is when we learned that the front-wheel-drive motorhome (its powertrain borrowed from the front-drive Oldsmobile Toronado of the time) had zero traction on wet grass on even the slightest uphill slope. Since every direction from where we parked involved at least some uphill grade, we had a very difficult time getting out of there at the end of the day on Sunday. It took a lot of frustrating maneuvering, but we finally escaped and headed home. Lesson learned.

Some may recall that movie star Paul Newman was SCCA racing at the time, and on one Trans Am Territory visit to Road Atlanta, Schinella—who had previously met Newman—arranged for Jill to meet him. Jill was thrilled for the chance to talk Pontiac with the famous actor/racer and remembers giving him a little kiss on the cheek.

On one Road America visit, I was thrilled to drive Schinella’s Banshee III concept car to lead the Trans Am parade lap, forgetting that I had put a pair of scissors in my back pocket after doing some cutting during set-up. The scissors poked through my jeans and tore a gash in the car’s custom driver’s-seat upholstery. John was not pleased, and we knew that Mitchell would be pissed when he saw that. Thankfully, I had been writing speeches and letters for Mitchell at the time and had a good relationship with him, so my blunder went unpunished.

Supported first by Mair, then new Pontiac general manager Bob Stempel, Trans Am Territories continued through 1979 before Stempel’s successor, Bill Hoglund, decided that the money would be better spent to boost Pontiac’s product reputation in other ways. But for nearly four years, Pontiac made its performance known at tracks around the country with a field full of Firebirds and one large, bird-badged motorhome. As for Jill and me, we married in 1982 and moved to Southern California shortly thereafter for her new assignment there.