Yeah, it was tough duty, alright. Spending 11 days on the road in a one-off 30th Anniversary Trans Am convertible, 6-speed, lowered, with lots of suspension, exhaust, wheel and brake modifications, with over 300 other crazy gearheads. Ya gotta make a livin’ somehow.

Here’s the story. Through the Year One side of our business, we’ve become pretty tight with Jim Mattison of Pontiac Historic Services. Jim’s the guy that sends all the cool original information to vintage Pontiac owners, and he also works with Pontiac’s show cars. Jim knew we were hitting the 1999 Hot Rod Magazine East Coast Power Tour as part of our kick-off campaign for the Next Generation catalog, and he somehow conned the division into letting us take their reverse-color 30th Anniversary Trans Am on the tour. This is the car Pontiac built for the ‘99 Woodward Avenue Dream Cruise, that annual cruise-fest and traffic jam in Detroit.

It seems the car had some down-time between the late-August Dream Cruise, and the early November SEMA show in Vegas, where it would sit proudly on display. So the guys at Pontiac, with some encouragement from Jim, thought it would be good exposure for the car and the F-body line if it went on the Power Tour. Drive the car, they said, have fun, don’t crash it, and try to be as conspicuous as possible without getting arrested. No sweat.

So off we flew to Detroit on October 7th to pick the car up. We made it to TDM (Transportation Design and Manufacturing) in Auburn Hills, where this car lives when not in use. TDM builds and houses a number of Pontiac-GMC show vehicles, and they had the TA ready and waiting for us. Dave Tiura, of Pontiac, met us at TDM, mumbled something about taking care of their baby, tossed us the keys and we were off. We left in a hurry before anyone at TDM or Pontiac came to their senses and threw us out of the place, sans Trans Am.

We spent that afternoon and evening getting used to the car, and shaking our heads in disbelief at our good fortune. It’s not every day that normal Joes like us get to drive around in a one-of-one Pontiac show car, much less drive the car down the coast to sunny Florida as part of the Power Tour!

Friday morning came way too early. We had to drive from Detroit to Fitchburg, Massachussetts, a little over 800 miles, to be at the Power Tour Launch Party on Saturday. We somehow managed to load all our stuff into our prize - it’s really amazing how much luggage an F-body can swallow when you try hard enough - and hit the interstate about 5:30 a.m.

The ride over to Fitchburg was fairly uneventful, although a huge, massive, maddening traffic jam getting onto the Massachussetts Turnpike delayed us well over an hour. Fourth-gen F-bodies make great interstate machines, loafing along in 6th gear, playing with the infinitely adjustable seats, listening to the CD player, and digging the thumbs-up we were getting from all the other travellers. One of the coolest things that happened was when we hit a rest stop somewhere in New York. It seems we’d passed a young lady a few miles back, and she took a shine to the car. She followed us into the rest area to get a closer look at the machine, and proceeded to tell us she had been looking at Eclipses (yechhh), but dug the TA so much she was going to her Pontiac dealer as soon as she got home. Hmmmm, score one for the marketing guys at Pontiac.

Anyway, we rolled into Fitchburg about 9:30 p.m. Although it’s hard to believe, we weren’t too tired after the 16-hour trip from Detroit. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing all the cars in the parking lot of the hotel, but it’s probably got something to do with the overall comfort of the TA as well. We hooked up with our show guys, Sandy Spears and Tony Rowe, who had driven up from Atlanta. As one of the sponsors of the Power Tour, we brought along a tent and some show stuff for the cruise-in at each stop. Sandy and Tony would be doing the tour in the Year One/Next Generation dually, although they made it clear they wanted some seat time the TA also. We’ve only had the car one day and we’re already fighting over who gets to drive it...

The next few days were a blur. We visited a different city and had a cruise-in each night. This was usually followed by some terribly early wake-up call, a frantic packing session, and hitting the road again for another city and another cruise-in. It was great fun, and when it was all said and done we put 3,100 miles on the car. Since it only had 2400 on it when we picked it up, we put more miles on the Trans Am than everyone else combined! We met all kinds of cool F-body people, and generally reveled in the knowledge that we were doing what most other Firebird and Camaro owners would love to experience. If it’s at all possible, make plans to attend at least one stop on the 2000 Power Tour. It’s a blast!

Click on each of the stops listed below for lots of photos and the skinny on each cruise-in.