Motion Phase III '75 Trans Am!

[mahoy78spyder]

Yep... no kidding. I didn't believe it either until I read about it. I was browsing through an old Nov. 75 issue of CARS magazine and found a 5-page article on this car. It seams a NY Pontiac dealership called Mr. Rosen, telling him that an order just came through for a 455 HO Trans Am. A NY lawyer, ordered the car for a client of his who worked and lived in Tehran, Iran. But wait!... it gets more bizarre... This oddball conversion broke the mould of what a typical Motion Phase III car would have been. For starters, the owner did not want it BB Chevy-powered, but rather wanted to keep the HO 455 and have Joel hop it up in the same manor as the BB's. Also, the owner wanted to retain the factory A/C, automatic transmission, and also have full power accessories, but still have a car that would run in the 12's. The other "familiar" mods, appearance-wise, to this car I can see are the Permacast Turbine wheels on all four corners, side pipes, L88 hood, motion decal on the chrome valve cover, and of course, the Motion "arrow" paint scheme down the side of the car, originating from a center point on the tail section, much like the "SS" Camaros did. (not the split stripes of the Z28 models) This particular car appears to be either white, or yellow, with a darker-colored (but not black) Motion stripe painted down the side and through the center of the car, to include through the L88 hood.

The real beauty in this car, though, comes from the engine and drivetrain mods Joel made to it. Much "new" development went into making the "Pontiac-specific" mods for this car, to include a custom-ground cam. The heads were milled, special-tuned headers were built to work with the A/C, 10" converter, shift kit, 4.10 posi added, traction bars, trans-cool pan, Torker intake w/ Holley 850cfm vac sec (mainly because was auto)... the list goes on....

Anyway, I thought this was a pretty interesting find considering I thought the last "super car" he built (no offense to the Stinger Vegas or the Turbo Z) was the Silver 73 or 74 (can't remember) BB Phase III Chevelle that was for sale recently. I thought the govt. had long since shut his factory-offered operation down by 1975, but I guess in Iran you didn't have to be concerned about US smog laws!... *smile*

Hope you found this as interesting as I did... has anyone ever heard of this car or know any more about it?

Ken