Specialty File
It has come to this. The Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird, two nameplates that heaped glory on GM even when some of its other cars were heaping on much smellier stuff, are now sitting on death row.
They are about to serve the ultimate sentence for poor sales and irrelevance to a market gone mad for trucks. Sometime in 2002, Rick Wagoner or whoever runs GM then is scheduled to toggle the red kill switch at the F-body plant in Ste.-Therese, Quebec. Heads will bow.
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But SLP Engineering of Troy, Michigan, is making sure the Camaro and Firebird do not go quietly into the good night. The independent engineering shop started by former drag racer Ed Hamburger in 1987 currently sells GM the modification work for the stock Camaro SS. It is also turning out yet more of its own special editions of the Firebird and Camaro, including a promotional one-off Firehawk pasted with logos from the X-Men movie.
Not an X-Men fan? Well, with its gold-over-midnight wheels and stripes, the 2001 SLP Trans Am 10th-Anniversary Firehawk could just as easily pass for the 24th-Anniversary Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am. All it lacks -- thankfully -- is a screaming chicken on the hood and a 24-years-older Sally Field in the right seat.
It does seem a little premature to mark 10 years of production only nine years after the first Firehawk hit the market as a 1992 model. However, a half-dozen or so of the earliest Firehawks did escape the factory with 1991 VIN numbers, so SLP believes that chronological protocols are satisfied.
That first Firehawk offered 350 horsepower, hit 60 mph in only 4.6 seconds, and ran the quarter in 13.2 seconds at 107 mph (C/D, June 1991). It blew the factory's 205-hp Trans Am into the dandelions, but it required prospects to fork over another $23,000 to $33,000 on top of the Firebird Formula's $17,000 price. Only 25 people did, a fact that nearly bankrupted the company. SLP eventually recovered by toning down both the package and the price.
Because today's base Firebird Formula and Trans Am aren't nearly so limp, the 10th-Anniversary Firehawk is a relatively minor stretch in performance and price. Just go into any Pontiac dealership and check the box marked WU6 -- not to be confused with WS6, the "factory" Ram Air option package built for Pontiac by another outside supplier, ASC, of Southgate, Michigan -- for the base Firehawk. It costs $3999. Specify the Anniversary package for another $1999, and SLP springs into action.
