This 1991 Firebird Trans Am GTA is a Risen Phoenix Done Right

During the mid-to-late 1980s, Detroit was rekindling the flames of a conflict that had been smoldering since the early ‘70s. Like members of an automotive fight club, tough American pony cars roamed the streets looking to prove their mettle from stoplight to stoplight. Ford rolled out its light and quick, five-oh (5.0-liter) Fox-body Mustang. GM settled scores with its F-bodies: the famed IROC-Z Camaro and venerable Firebird Trans Am. These three V-8 performance coupes were equally matched. But when it came to bragging rights, the Pontiac’s X-factors were its superior handling and unmistakable style. That flame perhaps burned brightest with the Trans Am GTA of the early 1990s.

By 1991, the Firebird was in the swan-song years of its third generation, refreshed with design cues from the 1988 Pontiac Banshee IV concept car. The top bird of the bunch was the Trans Am GTA (Grand Touring Americano), first introduced in 1987. The GTA was option-loaded and came standard with the brawniest engine available: a 5.7-liter (350-cubic-inch) V-8 with an iron block and heads. Assigned the RPO code B2L, the V-8 made 240 hp and 340 lb-ft of torque.

However, the GTA’s real calling card was the WS6 Performance Enhancement Package. The WS6 included beefier stabilizer bars (36 mm front/24 mm rear), specially tuned shocks, a performance limited-slip rear axle, faster-ratio steering (12.7:1), four-wheel disc brakes, a dual catalytic converter exhaust, and an engine oil cooler.

Around this time, 19-year-old Carl Melendez—a born and bred Brooklynite—was in the market for a hot ride. He wanted to cruise under the elevated train tracks and roll up to L&B Spumoni Gardens on 86^th Street to get a Sicilian slice (or three). Carl said he wanted something that would let him fly above the crowd. Back in the day, you saw one or two Firebirds for every half-dozen Mustangs and Camaros. The ‘Stangs were cool and the IROCs pumped the “Heartbeat of America,” but in its day, a GTA Trans Am brought serious “Excitement.”

Carl’s first GTA was a pre-owned 1988 model, painted black with a tan interior and T-tops. He was keen on accentuating the pony car’s positives, so he upped its corner-carving abilities with a Hotchkis strut tower brace and front/rear sway bars. He also improved the stance with Eibach lowering springs and let his V-8 growl through a Flowmaster catback exhaust. Carl loved the “black sheep” aspect of his bad bird and the GTA’s “cream of the flock” status.

Carl’s first GTA had personal significance, as well. It was his steed when he met his girlfriend, Katherine, who later became his wife. Then, after seven years of ownership, life dictated that Carl part with his ’88 GTA. It wouldn’t be his last.

GTA 2.0

It’s amazing how time flies—how things change and stay the same. By 2021, Carl was a husband, father, and had been in the detailing business for 35 years. During the last twenty of those years, Carl built a small automotive empire on Long Island, called 631 Coatings. Even though his thriving venture and continued passion enabled him to build an impressive car collection, he yearned to acquire a coveted piece of his past. It was time for another GTA.

Carl scoured the internet for months, describing his search as reaching “desperation mode.” With desire overriding discouragement, he eventually found a candidate on eBay, north of the border in Quebec, Canada. It was not an ’88 GTA like the one from his youth, but rather a 1991 model, also black, this time without T-tops. Proving its Canuck history, the gauges featured “liters” and showed 15,000 kilometers on the odometer—an incredibly low 9300 miles.

As Carl did his due diligence, he realized why no one had snatched up this clean, low-mile, and rare GTA. It seems that the original owner’s Carfax info was botched with a significant typo; the document listed 88,000 miles instead of 8000 miles. Needless to say, Carl won the auction with a $19,000 bid and scored an under-10,000-mile, one-of-2035 1991 Trans Am GTA.

Unfortunately, this sale took place at the height of the Covid pandemic, adding a layer of complexity to retrieving his GTA. Instead of going to pick it up himself, he hired a shipping company to haul it down to New Jersey, and that turned out to yield an excruciating two-month wait.

When Carl and Kat finally laid eyes on the GTA as it backed off the trailer, Carl was surprised to see the original Goodyear Gatorback tires still wrapped around the gold cross-laced wheels. They were a real blast from the past: the old tires looked cool but had, of course, lost their bite. Carl recalls almost losing control of the car on the drive home.

Man with a Plan

Being in the car business for as long as he has, Carl was prepared for a costly restoration on a rough car. The plan was to do a full resto-modification: body, interior, engine, transmission, the works. Carl remarks how lucky he was to have found such a nice, low-mile car with its original drivetrain still running strong. That foundation allowed him to focus his efforts and money more explicitly to evoke his original ‘88. Now he had the means he lacked at 19, he wasn’t just going to simply enhance the GTA’s ride and handling prowess. He was going to take it to the next level.

Still living in the twilight zone that was the pandemic, it took Carl eight months to gather the components for the build. Even while the car was stuck in transit from Canada he was ordering parts and fine-tuning his vision. It wasn’t until late 2022 that the ‘bird arrived at El Gato Engineering in Port Washington, New York, where the lion’s share of work ultimately performed.

Chassis and Suspension

All of the GTA’s chassis components came via the F-body experts at Detroit Speed and Engineering. Up front, Carl went with the outfit’s Speed Kit 3 suspension. It includes tubular lower control arms, a 35-mm sway bar, relocation bracket/end links, a wonder bar, stiffer bushings, single adjustable JRI struts, and adjustable (weight jack) ride height springs. Under the hood, a tubular 3-point brace sits between the strut towers.

Down the sides, El Gato joined the GTA’s subframes and strengthened things considerably with a pair of (through-the-body) subframe connectors. The welded-in boxed steel pieces essentially become the rockers, creating a supremely rigid structure.

At the rear, there is now a QUADRAlink kit with adjustable JRI shocks and ride height springs. The rear system deletes the factory torque arm setup and replaces it with the modern and precise geometry of a four-link system. Doing so required some underbody modifications; pockets were necessary to form in the rear floor pan, behind the seats, for attaching the upper links. To give the GTA a more aggressive rear track, the axle tubes were trimmed by 1.25 inches on each side, and shorter Moser axles were installed in anticipation of the deep-offset rear rollers Carl had on order. The factory 10-bolt rear differential and 3.23 gears remained, albeit with an upgraded aluminum cover.

The larger wheels allowed Carl to fit big Baer brakes. In front sit six-piston monoblock calipers and 14-inch drilled/slotted two-piece rotors. At the rear is the SS4+ kit, with 13-inch drilled/slotted two-piece rotors and four-piston calipers. After two and a half months of fabrication and installation, Carl brought the special-order rims to El Gato for mounting: Budnik Matrix, 18×9-inch front and 18×10-inch rear. Carl wanted to stay with the classic Trans Am theme, so he chose a Cerakote Gold finish for the snowflake-style wheels. Wrapping the wheels are Continental ExtremeContact tires, 275/30/18 front and 315/30/18 steamrollers out back.

As he had done with his ’88 GTA, Carl swapped the factory exhaust for the classic sound of a Flowmaster system with a two-chamber muffler.

For the cockpit, Carl maintained Pontiac’s ‘80s style but added a Sparc Industries Muscle Series “Truss” steering wheel with a custom laser-etched “Firebird” logo. The wheel design mimics that of a modern Porsche 911. Carl also brought the GTA into the 21st century by installing a Kenwood audio/navigation infotainment system with a touchscreen and Bluetooth/Apple CarPlay.

Last, but certainly not least, Carl applied his decades of experience and skill by comprehensively detailing the exterior. He lightly wet-sanded and polished the GTA’s black cloak to a better-than-new gloss.

Meeting Carl’s Killer Canuck

It was the summer of 2023 when I met Carl at a Long Island, New York, Pontiac show. I had just finished telling a buddy of mine how rare it is to see a nicely done third-generation TA. As I finished that statement, my gaze was drawn to Carl’s GTA glistening in the sun.

By that point, Carl had put a little over 3000 kilomoters on his GTA’s Canadian clock, or around 1800 miles, mainly weekend cruising and going to shows. He says he is planning on putting it through its paces on track for an SCCA event one of these days. When asked if he will ever part with this GTA, Carl answers without pause: “No.”

Pontiac and its beloved Firebird may have flown away with the winds of time, but with guys like Carl reviving iconic Trans Ams like the GTA to the next level, they will never be forgotten.

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