STORIES

I woke up to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme back my Bullet's" blasting on the radio. That song and the fact that it was summer put me in a great mood. I was 15 and ready to spend some time at all the cool beaches outside Buffalo NY. We lived in a small town called Elma, on 10 acres of beautiful countryside, 4 boys, 2 girls and my parents. The property was set up for horses with an 8 stall barn and 3 paddocks. My dad was a commercial contractor but his passions were his kids and race horses, so we moved from the city 3 years before and used the new property to board the race horses. Over that 3 years in addition to horses on the property, my older brothers had started to fill up some of that acreage with fire-breathing, pavement pounding Pontiac muscle cars!  Some families collect stamps, some collect comics or art or many other interesting items. My brothers and I were treasure hunters. We didn't wear eye patches, use metal detectors or look for sunken ships with gold filled chests, but we were treasure hunters non the less, only the treasure we were searching for had four tires and high horsepower engines, Pontiac engines to be exact, attached to GTO's, Firebirds and Trans Am's!

It was the third week of June, 1979, I just finished my sophomore year of high school. My love of Pontiac's, passed down from my older brother was in full bloom, and we were about to experience our most astonishing car find ever! Our family stable of Pontiacs already included a 1973 Buccaneer 455 Red Trans Am, a 1969 carousel red Ram Air 3 Judge and a 1973 Buccaneer red SD 455 Trans Am. This fateful morning started like a typical summer day, which for me was making plans to go to the beach with my friends, I had no idea we were about to find one of the most valuable Pontiacs ever made, completely by accident! My 2 brother, myself and a family friend finished up a quick breakfast, when my oldest brother mentions that he has to go into the city to get some insurance cards for his car, so we jumped in his Dodge pickup and headed into the city. This was back in the days when you could ride in the bed of a truck and not cause a giant international incident. So, I was in the bed with our friend and my 2 brothers riding up front. We exited the highway on to the city streets. We slowed down and started up a tree lined side street when our friend Pat yelled from the truck bed to the cab for my brother to stop. 

Three months prior, my brother brought home a muscle car magazine with a 1969 Pontiac convertible Trans Am on the cover. Up until this point we didn't even know they existed. The article stated, erroneously that only 2 1969 convertible Trans Ams were made, actually there were 8 made. We all took turns reading the article and came to the logical conclusion we would never see one let alone own one.
 
My brother slammed on the brakes and asked Pat what was up, Pat said, He thought he saw a 1969 Trans Am in that yard back there (pointing 3 houses behind us). We  backed up and looked through the driveway past the backyard and onto the property on the street behind us! We saw a white Firebird with the tell-tale blue stripes.  We quickly drove around the block to check out this mirage. Just after pulling up and getting out of the truck we could see for the first time that the car was a convertible, and we were all visibly disappointed, assuming it was just a plane '69 convertible Firebird that someone had made into a Trans Am clone. The owner of the car came out and we asked him what the car was, he said "Oh it's a '69 Trans Am, needless to say we didn't believe him. We asked him if it was for sale, he said no, we got his phone number, the vin (vehicle identification number) for the car and left. I can tell you that none of us thought we saw a convertible Trans Am, we discussed the magazine we had read three months prior and that there were only two of those cars made. We didn't give it much more thought over the weekend. Back then, you could actually call up Pontiac Motor Division in Michigan, give them a vin number and the next day they would call you back and tell you exactly what the car was and what options it came with. We made the call Monday morning. Later that day we got the return call that absolutely stunned all of us, we did indeed find a 1969 convertible Trans Am 5 miles from our house..... By complete accident!!! After some intense badgering over a few months time, we were able to buy that ultra rare hidden gem. All these years later it's hard to believe that we found that incredible car just running an errand on a Saturday morning.