The Birth of the Beast

Before this goes any further, I believe it to be necessary to tell a little bit of the backstory of my Pontiac Firebird. It all starts in 1989 with an elderly man, who owned a car dealership in Massachusetts. He had a deeply rooted desire to have his own “blacked out street brawler.” And so, although his dealership sold Mazdas, he managed to pull some strings with a neighboring dealership to be able to order a black 1990 Pontiac Firebird, with every performance option available checked off, without any gaudy graphics or excessive luxury amenities. It arrived soon after, sporting all black paint, two-tone delete, a black interior, a v8 engine displacing five liters, as well as performance suspension and brakes. The Firebird was the exact car he wanted, and he managed to drive it once before his life turned upside down. His beloved wife was diagnosed with cancer and the car was sold with less than 100 miles on it, in order to pay for medical bills. For four years she fought against this cancer until finally it took her life, leaving her husband all alone. And to her husband’s amazement, after taking tons of time off from his work at his dealership, he went back to work, where the girl who had bought the car returned, to trade it in for a new vehicle. That very day he bought his “blacked out street brawler” back.

He kept the car for almost 2 decades, racking up close to 120,000 miles. But by then his age had caught up to him and the car’s low ride height made it borderline impossible for him to climb in and out of it. The car sat in his garage at his retirement home in Lewiston Maine, where my dad drove by everyday, even going so far as to take me for a ride to go see it with him, until finally we gathered the courage to knock on the door and ask about the car. The old man talked about his “blacked out street brawler” as if it was his second wife. He told the full story of the car, how he bought it, how he once got it going 110 miles per hour, and how he just couldn’t get himself in the car. We pleaded with him to sell us the car, until finally he gave in, only asking $2,500 dollars for it.

We took the car home, and enjoyed everything about it, from it’s menacing physical presence, to its straight line speed, to its hold-on-for-dear-life handling. But soon we realized that the car needed to be a little bit more impressive, to hold it’s own against today’s high-tech performance cars. And so the updating began, first a full exhaust system, to give the car the sound its engine deserved to make. Then an updated air intake, to make the car louder, faster, and more efficient. And finally there came the full rebuild of the car’s rear-end, where the gears were lowered to a 3.42 ratio, and a Detroit Locker was installed, for better traction and harder launches. This brings us to where we are today. My Firebird is ready for the next steps, which are adding more power by installing updated internals to the engine, and increasing the car’s handling, with updated suspension, projects which will be recorded, alongside some adventures with the car, right here, on a future installment of this blog.