How The Pontiac Trans Am Went From Iconic Movie Car To Extinct

While the fourth generation may have hit a sales slump, horsepower finally returned. The first Trans Ams of the final generation ditched the Tuned Port Injection 350 V8 in favor of the new LS1 V8 seen in the Corvette a year earlier, which gave it an extra 30 horsepower over the previous model, per Hagerty. Finally, in 1998, Trans Am received the legendary LS V8 and gave it the ability to bring back the power of its glory days without the noxious emissions.

Fourth-generation cars also received the option of the WS6 package in 1996. This would transform the car from a good-performing car with 285 horsepower back to a real muscle car with 305 horsepower and 335 pound-feet of torque, cracking the 300 mark for the first time since 1973. The WS6 package added the Ram Air intake and hood along with suspension updates and larger wheels with Z-rated tires (via Hagerty). The later WS6 cars are fast in a straight line but also handle curves adeptly and they are the most sought-after of the last Trans Ams. In the final year of production, Pontiac built perhaps the best of all modern Trans Am models with the 2002 Trans Am Firehawk, which tuned the LS1 up to a healthy 345 horsepower backed up by a 6-speed manual transmission (via Zero260). The Pontiac muscle car had finally returned.

[Featured image by Elise240SX via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]