Jay Leno Investigates the Pontiac Firebird From the Rockford Files

Television has made a lot of people famous, but only a handful of cars have tagged along with a show’s protagonist to lasting fame. One such example is the pairing that rose to a lasting stardom is the 1977 Pontiac Firebird Formula and James Garner as the stars of The Rockford Files. While Garner passed just over 10 years ago, the gold Firebird is primed to live forever thanks to one superfan and his years-long restoration of the star car, and Jay Leno got to hear the story and take it for a spin.

The gold Formula—which was retrofitted to look like an Esprit trim level—fit a private investigator like Garner’s character, Jim Rockford, who flew a little more under the radar than some other TV PIs of the era. the Formula (not to mention the Esprit) wouldn’t typically be a restoration candidate, or at least would be left for the Pontiac die-hards to restore. Pat McKinney is both a dyed-in-the-wool car person and also a Rockford fan. This is his second Rockford Files screen car, and he never believed he would be able to find and acquire the real Firebird that was used on set, let alone restore it.

The car popped up on eBay while he was searching for a good candidate to build a tribute car. After some haggling, McKinney was able to bring home the very tired but well-documented ‘Bird, making it worth the work that was needed. And it was a lot of work. McKinney stripped the car all the way down to a bare shell which was when he found the holes that were drilled for microphone connections and cables, further solidifying the history, as if one needed anything more than looking at the custom paint to know what this Formula is.

According to McKinney there are likely at least 15 cars that were used one screen, three per season, so this is not the only one that might be around, but it is certainly the best one from what we’ve seen. From the 403 V-8 under the hood to the narrow white wall tires this car is authentic, and when Jay and McKinney take it out on the street for a cruise it’s hard to not picture them sleuthing about Los Angeles as private investigators out to solve the next automotive mystery. Seems like the right team for it.