It is for a fact that the cars in the 80s were terrible, there was no muscle at all. So when looking at this turbocharged 1981 Pontiac Trans Am V8 we can see a lot of stickers and not too good paint on it, and you would think that it is not fast. In the contrary, this is a real muscle car with real performance engine under the hood.

Have you ever seen the movie “Smokey and the Bandit”? Who hasn’t, what we want to say is that this movie made the turbo Trans Am popular. This is a two hour commercial for the car and the people after seeing the movie they wanted to drive one of those. The 1981 Pontiac Trans Am Firebird is the muscle car that put the sign on the 80s, no other car came from that age. And that’s why this is one of the favorite cars of the host, and for many people as well. Actually the 1981 Trans Am was featured in the Smokey and the Bandit 2 but from all the fuss from the first movie in the 1977 the heat was there and the people loved the new edition of the Trans Am.

There were smog regulations laws in the US that just strangled these muscle cars. From the early 70s when the car got 400 HP, then in the late 70s and early 80s with the smog regulations the engines went down to 150 HP. See the drop? That’s why the muscle car was killed there, with no power for drifting, only street driving. What the host says about this car is that the turbo Trans Am is not fast. He had to admit it and we can see it too, it is launching slow, low acceleration and no burnout at all.