Car of the Week: 1974 Pontiac Trans Am SD

When it comes to 1974 Pontiac Trans Ams, John Friske is pretty good shape.

Fifty years ago, John and his wife Connie, who reside in Verona, Wis., bought themselves a new 1974 Trans Am. Brand spanking new, Admiralty Blue, 400-cube V-8 with an automatic. Pretty sweet car for a couple of newlyweds.

“I’ve always wanted a Super-Duty, and I wanted a Super-Duty back then,” chuckles John. “But we were just married, so we had to be a little more practical. She wanted the automatic transmission, I wanted the four-speed, of course, but that didn’t work out.”

Nearly five decades later, when he least expected it, John finally got his wish. And it was worth the wait.

“I’m in the farm equipment business, and I was on Facebook looking for farm equipment parts, and all of a sudden this car pops up,” he says, admiring his fabulous 1974 Buccaneer Red Super Duty 455. “I thought, ‘Gee, this is an original car, too, and it’s a Super-Duty!’ So I called the guy up and he had consigned it to a restoration place in a suburb of St. Louis. I called the up and they said the guy is having some health problems and his kids don’t want it, but it’s been sitting for a long time in a warehouse — at least 20 years.”

Not that he needed much convincing, but once Friske learned a little bit more about the red T/A, he quickly pulled the trigger. For starters, it had just 17,000 miles on the odometer.

“We talked a while and they told me some history on the car. It was originally sold in Cedar Falls, Iowa and the guy moved to St. Louis, a Grandpa kept the car, his dad. He took the car in and got the oil changed every year, for about eight years, and put five miles a year on it. Five miles and then the oil got changed, ever year. We got all the records and of course the original window sticker and the Pontiac POCI information and all the original paperwork.”

“When I got it the original tires were still on it! They were all rotted, and I replaced them, but I still have them and the original spare it still in it.”

The Friskes hung onto their original blue Trans Am and today is a wonderful survivor with only 30,000 miles on the clock. John couldn’t believe that he had stumbled on another ’74 with even a fewer miles — and it was a Super-Duty to boot.

“I’m just a stickler for originality,” he says. “That’s just the way I am. This was an all-original, numbers matching car. Somebody had switched the vacuum tubes up and kind changed some things around, so I put all that stuff back. It’s got the Super-Duty, Turbo 400, air-conditioning, all numbers matching. I rebuilt the alternator with new parts inside, but with the original case, so the numbers match… I had be Ziebarted, so you can see a little bit of that stuff. And it’s got an AM/FM radio in it.”

About the only things on the car that weren’t original when Friske brought it home were one of the front fenders and maybe the front bumper. 

“When the car was only two years old he got into a fender-bender, and they were gonna fix it and he said ‘I want a new fender,’ and I think they replaced the bumper, too,” Friske says.

PONTIAC KEEPS THE PEDAL DOWN

The golden age of muscle cars may have been sputtering to a close by 1974, but Pontiac Motor Division was determined to go down kicking and screaming. The company probably knew its hot-as-a-pistol SD 455 power plant wasn’t long for the world, but it made sure to put the still-lethal V-8 in a car with looks to match.

Extensive front end styling revisions and a jump in showroom sales made headlines for the Firebird in the American muscle car marketplace in 1974. The base Firebird ($ 2,895), the fancier Espirit $ 3,295), the Formula Firebird street machine ($ 3,276) and the racy Trans Am ($ 4,204) models were all carried over from 1973, and the Super-Duty 455 mill remained in limited availability for the Formulas and Trans Ams.

The new front end created by well-known Pontiac designer John Schinella introduced and integrated “soft” bumper treatment, which was repeated at the rear of the F-cars. The front of all Firebirds carried a new slanting “shovel-nose” grille cap and an “electric shaver” grille insert made up of slanting, vertical blades. Black rubber bumper-facebars were featured. An air-scoop-like front valance panel contributed to a more massive overall look. Slimmer, wider front parking lamps without chrome protective guards were used. They carried textured, amber-colored lenses.

The Trans Am model options included a Formula racing steering wheel, rally gauges with a clock and a dash panel tachometer, a swirl-finish dash panel trim plate, a full-width rear deck lid spoiler, power steering, power front disc/rear drum brakes, a limited-slip differential, wheel opening air deflectors, front-fender air extractors, a dual exhaust system with chrome extensions, Rally II wheels with bring trim rings, a special heavy-duty suspension, dual outside rear view sport mirrors, F65-15 white-letter tires, a four-speed manual gearbox and a 400-cid/225-hp V-8.

The regular 455 215-hp V-8 was about $ 55 more than the regular 400, and the big SD 455 was $ 578 extra.

The 455 Super-Duty was a special engine and perhaps the hottest power plant still available on new cars for 1974. It had been a spin-off of Pontiac’s small-block racing program of 1970. PMD had put a lot of effort into developing a powerful small-displacement engine that would be legal under Sports Car Club of America sedan racing rules, which had a 305-cid limit. Only a few of those engines were sold on an in-the-crate bases. However, much of the racing technologies embodied in them was then transferred to the RPO LS2 455-V8.

For ’74, the SD 455 was installed in 212 Trans Ams with four-speed manuals and 731 with automatics. It featured a special block with reinforced webbing, large forged-steel connecting rods, special aluminum pistons, a heavy-duty oiling system, a high-lift camshaft, four-bolt main bearing caps, a special intake manifold, and upgraded valve train components. It had an 8.4:1 compression ratio and a reported 290-hp rating.

The engine was popular with reviewers and enthusiast magazines from the era, who pointed out that the SD 455 ‘Birds were slightly faster than the Corvettes in 1974. A year earlier, in 1973, Hot Rod magazine wrung out a SD Super Duty 455 T/A and clocked a 13.54 quarter-mile at 104.29 mph. Car and Driver magazine managed a 13.75 elapsed time at 103.56 mph.

TWO T/A’S AND COUNTING …

Friske has three cars to turn to these days when he needs some nostalgia. In addition to his pair of pristine 1974 Pontiacs, he and his wife have an equally authentic 1964 Chevrolet Impala SS. 

“My wife’s mother bought that new, and I restored it in the late 1970s,” he notes. 

Still, he has found time to put at least 500 miles a year on his red T/A, and about the same on its blue running mate. Together, then still are shy of 50,000 combined miles. The red one sat idle for probably 20 years at one point in its life, and the Friskes are going to make sure it keeps moving as long as they have it around.

It drives great — a lot of power,” John says. “A lot more power than the other car has. I can’t believe the difference. The car is rated at 290, and the other car is rated at 250! It seems like a lot more than that. When I had the original tires on it, I could break them free real easy. These tires don’t break free as easy, but it’s still got a lotta torque!”

One feature on his Super-Duty 455 that still has Friske scratching his head a bit is the original owner’s choice of black bucket seats. The rest of the interior is all red, aside from the steering wheel, gauges and some trim pieces. The decision to go with the black buckets was a bit of an unusual call.

 “You’d think they should be red. You could white seats or red seats,” he points out. “The [ID] tag says ‘200’, and 200 was the red interior with black buckets… It’s not my favorite, but oh well — it is what it is.”

Friske knows he is a lucky guy to have two such low-mileage gems to enjoy. He is quick to point out his good fortune in having a wife who let him hang onto the first one, and then the stroke of luck to stumble on a second one that needed a home. Still, he can’t help but dream a little bit about acquiring a third.

“They made them in red, white and blue,” he says. “I’ve got the blue car, I got the red car, if I could find the 400 four-speed car in white, then I’d really have it. That’s my goal!”

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