Today's Nice Price or Crack Pipe Firebird features custom bodywork named a 'Kamm-tail' after the German aerodynamicist and auto designer who first proposed the turbulence-reducing shape, Wunibald Kamm. You'll need to decide if this Kammback's price will keep buyers coming back.
Not coming back but in the back, that's where yesterday's 1988 VW Vanagon Weekender keeps its motor. In this particular brick's case, that mill was a hot Subaru six, but even that wasn't enough to escape the massive 95% Crack Pipe vote that overcame it like a tsunami of rationality. Apparently paying for that Weekender would take too many weekdays, and so it fell.
Pontiac fell as well, the brand succumbing to apathy, Azteks, and the duplication of models from its more successful sister marques. Before it did however the arrowhead brand established a number of models that would carry at least its memory into the future, and perhaps the strongest bearer of that flame is the Firebird.
The Firebird was a derivation of the Chevrolet Camaro, and honestly if it wasn't for the Trans Am edition, and its staring role vexing Buford T Justice in Smokey and the Bandit, it would today only be known as that other car that looked like the Camaro.
The Pontiac pony had its ups and downs, and honestly by the late seventies the cars were not all that desirable, having lost their balls and possessing the handling enjoyment equivalent to Tori Spelling's Boobs. If you were to attach significant value to one of the later - say a '78 - models, it would have to be pretty damn special.
Well this 1978 Firebird Formula flips the bird at convention as it is some sort of custom Kamm-tail shooting brake. Now, Pontiac apparently thought this might have been a good way to improve Firebird sales at the time, but they only built a couple of prototypes, and this car doesn't seem to be either of those.
Still, despite the seeming lack of access to the load area other than by folding down the high-backed buckets and leaning in as though after a very late white rabbit, it's still kind of a slam dunk as far as styling goes.
The only kind of freakish bit here is the lip that's evident between the rear glass and the tail light panel. That's kind of an awkward styling choice. How awkward? Try non-Armenian 14-year old's attempt at a mustache awkward.
The ad says that the car is one of two and that the other is vacationing in Europe - the lucky duck. It also notes that the car rocks an Olds 403 (largest bore of any modern small block!) and a THM350 3-speed slusher. That engine pumped out 185-bhp in its day and with likely close to two tons to drag around, this custom Firebird is probably more for show than for go.
The seller claims the car to be a total head turner, but doesn't say if that's in the mode of the Exorcist or what. The bodywork looks clean in the limited Craigslist ad pics, while the interior is a mystery, inexorably masked in a shot that's darker than the inside of a well digger's ass.
There are a pair of what look to be aviators on the dash, which as you know makes the car out to be Dirk Diggler cool. But is it worth nearly thirty large? The seller is asking $29,900 for the honor of taking this Kamm back home to meet mother, and you now need to decide whether that's deal or not.
What do you say, is this one-off (two-off?) Firebird shooting brake worth that sort of cash? Or, is this a Kamm-tail priced to make you turn tail and run?
You decide!
Inland Empire Meth Lab Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to Rory Connell for the hookup!
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For $29,900, Baby Kammback!
