1978 PONTIAC TRANS AM SPECIAL EDITION Y88 400C.I. FOUR SPEED AC WS6 BUILD SHEET!

1978 Pontiac Trans Am SPECIAL EDITION

WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO WATCH VIDEO Pontiac Motor Division surely got the buying public’s attention in late 1977 with the first Y82 Special Edition Trans Am selling like five cent hot dogs at a baseball season opener. Every young North American male knew exactly what a Bandit, a Blackbird or a Georgia State Special was. Pontiac decided that a few changes were in order for 1978. The headaches involved with Hurst Hatches made Fisher Body’s engineers decide to make their own version of removable hatch panels, bringing the entire process in house. Better quality control and a smoother logistical with production are the immediate benefits. Any comptroller will tell you vertical integration of a process pays you once tooling and set up costs are covered. From Pontiac’s side, hot sales of the hatch roofs made it logical to go in house. Pontiac Motor Division surely got the buying public’s attention in late 1977 with the first Y82 Special Edition Trans Am selling like five cent hot dogs at a baseball season opener. Every young North American male knew exactly what a Bandit, a Blackbird or a Georgia State Special was. Pontiac decided that a few changes were in order for 1978. The headaches involved with Hurst Hatches made Fisher Body’s engineers decide to make their own version of removable hatch panels, bringing the entire process in house. Better quality control and a smoother logistical with production are the immediate benefits. Any comptroller will tell you vertical integration of a process pays you once tooling and set up costs are covered. From Pontiac’s side, hot sales of the hatch roofs made it logical to go in house. The marketing executives decided to go big this year and change up the Special Edition model. If black with gold pin stripes was popular, how about reversing the pattern and issuing a gold and dark brown pin stripe Trans Am? Created as a spring promo model, the first Y88s or Gold Bird TAs were produced in January. The Y88 was the UPC code for the Special Edition option using Solar Gold metallic paint, brown pin stripes on all the same areas the Black SE cars used, plus some new features. Fisher’s Hatch panels were used on the cars instead of the Hurst units. The panels were screened in gold instead of 20 percent smoke gray tint. Inside, the car took on a new level of sophistication with a Formula steering wheel that matched the steering column color. Prior to the Y88 model, ordering a Formula wheel with a tan interior got you a black steering wheel mounted on a tan steering column. It stood out on an otherwise smooth appearance. Pontiac was tightening up their act with specialty models like the Skybird and Redbird, both featuring color matching columns. It was time for Trans Am SE’s to do the same. Only the Y88 Trans Am has this integrated color steering column. Regular Trans Ams still got black Formula wheels mounted on black steering columns. It should be mentioned here that some Y88s had blacked out tail lamp panels and some did not. A running change was made on March 9th,1978. Basically, the Trans Am was issued with black tail lamp bezel trim from March 9th onwards unless the car body color was black or white and a Formula. Those got gold tail lamp bezels. Brett Campbell at has complete dealer bulletins available online showing the dates for the gold aluminum wheel color changes and the blacked out tail lamp running order change. The Solar Gold metallic paint deserves a bit of explanation because many sellers and buyers are confused about the terminology Pontiac used and misconceptions have popped up as a result. When you look up the paint code on the body shop chip books, you’ll see code 50 listed as Solar Gold. However, not every 1978 Trans Am with paint code 50 is a Y88 car. When the Y88 option was cancelled, Pontiac made it a Trans Am color with the same code number! So at the beginning of the year we had a metallic gold paint code 50 which was available on any Trans Am. Later on, the same color was used on Y88 cars as part of their package. It gets even better. The reason the Y88 package was dropped according to Pontiac had to do with warranty claims dealing with poor color matching, green discoloration of body panels and generally poor adhesion of the metallic gold paint! One more detail. The firebird line also has a code 55 gold paint on offer that year. It isn’t a SE color. It’s an accent color and was just used as secondary trim paint. In paint reference charts it’s called Military or Dust Gold, depending on which make of vehicle it’s used on. If you’re confused, don’t feel bad. The whole Y88 model nearly was canned. Pontiac almost pulled the plug twice during development. There was a delay with the hatch roof part of the package. Since Trans Ams with gray smoked Fisher tops were produced by December, 1978, the problem wasn’t structural. It had to do with the gold tinting of glass. A pilot Norwood Y88 car was built January 13th, 1978. Production was done at Norwood and Van Nuys assembly plants. Van Nuys had to use new technology water based paint. Norwood being in Ohio, still used the older lacquer system. The Van Nuys Y88 cars had paint defects. Paint mismatch from panel to panel was notable, as were dull finishes and green tint caused by contamination. Re -sprays and touch ups proved to be too much for Pontiac to stomach so the Y88 package was dropped before year’s end while the original black Special Edition continued to sell unabated. Pontiac was left with a problem, sales of Solar Gold cars were hot but they had to fix the paint problems. Solar Gold was retained on the order books and it returned in 1979. We’ll look at this interesting detail in the next segment of our series. Sales of the Y88 SE package was strong for an aborted mid year introduction; 7,786 cars with the 400 V8 and 880 of the Olds 403 engines rolled off the assembly lines. A sprinkling of the Y88s had manual transmissions, 1,267 according to one source. We know that the 1978 production data has errors in it from research on W72 engine totals, so this can only be considered a rough estimate. The Goldbird Special Edition has an unusual legacy. Without a movie star or any notable promotion, its legend is filled with myths, mistakes and nonsense. It’s common to see every Solar Gold Trans Am being marketed as a Goldbird whether it’s a 1979 hardtop or 1980 turbo hatch roof car. It’d be amusing if it weren’t for all the extra zeros being attached to the price tag! Just remember when you’re shopping it has to be the complete package with gold tinted hatch panels, color keyed steering wheel and column, brown pin stripes, a very large brown and gold hood bird which only was used on that model, plus the additional gold emblems inside the interior. It only appeared from mid 1978 to the end of calendar year. By: Patrick Smith Up for your consideration is a stunning example of a rare 1978 Pontiac Trans Am Y88 Special Edition with T-Tops. This car is loaded with options and documented with the original build sheet and PHS documentation! This Trans Am is loaded with options and powered by a built 400 c.i. approximately 300HP+. The engine is mated to a built four speed automatic transmission with a posi traction rear end. There is power four wheel disc brakes, Power steering, tilt wheel, ice cold air conditioning, power windows, WS6 performance pkg, 15x8 snow flake wheels, BF Goodrich raised whit letter tires, F41 RR stabilizer, upgraded radio and more! * Original build sheet comes with the car> Everything on the car works including the cloc, tachometer, power windows, brake lights, tail lights, wipers, horn, blinkers, ICE COLD air conditioning and the radio! This car runs and drives fantastic and straight down the road with authority! Call 314-594-1404 to purchase or with questions. 314-594-1404

• Condition: Used
• Make: Pontiac
• Model: Trans Am
• SubModel: SPECIAL EDITION
• Type: --
• Trim: SPECIAL EDITION
• Year: 1978
• Mileage: 69222
• VIN: 2W87Z8L167094
• Color: Gold
• Engine size: 400C.I.
• Power options: --
• Fuel: Gasoline
• Transmission: Automatic
• Drive type: SPECIAL EDITION
• Interior color: Tan
• Options: --
• Vehicle Title: Clear
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