#3 Hot Bird

Hot Bird

         The only image one can have when seeing a Hot Bird casting is that black and gold Pontiac Trans Am jumping over a river to evade the sheriffs who is in hot pursuit. Even though it is not necessarily a good example to keep in mind per say, it is an iconic part of the late 70s / early 80’s car scene that helped influence car movies and TV shows. This is also a casting that has stood the test of time and is still cast to this day. That is why it earned a spot here.

       

        It has always been a good casting. The t-tops of the era are perfectly cutout of the roof line, the hood scoop to mimic that famous shaker scoop, the shape of the front bumper and headlights, all the way to the rear bumper and the taillight embossing. Every line of this casting is spot on and the interior is one of the better interiors of its early days. It was released in 1978. [1] It has been fitted with almost every wheel type starting with the basic blackwalls, hot ones, 5 spokes and even with a white letter tampo on plastic wheels in the classic series. It was also featured as a treasure hunt in 2008 in a satin gold with 5 spoke rims (basic treasure hunt).

           Hot Wheels have done a great job keeping this casting in the lineup and have been good to the Trans Am overall with almost every body style getting a casting. The Hot Bird castings are fun to collect as there are so many variations, almost every year has a version in at least the mainline and many specialty series have one as well so there is something for every type of collector to find in the Hot Bird. Quite possibly in the running for the most variations of paint jobs for any casting, it has been depicted in that recognizable black and gold, stars and stripes and many other versions. There is even a glitter paint job with a bright pink interior that was released in the early 90s. I only mention that because it is very far from the rest of the paint jobs that have been on this casting though the years and is one of the variations to not have that iconic bird on it. I have collected many of the hot birds over the years both loose and carded, these only represent a small portion of the Hot Bird lineup.

        So what of the real life version? Well, it is an interesting part of automotive history for sure. This car was on the roads in my youth and I always turned my head to check one out. It began alongside the 67 Camaro in the early days of the pony / muscle cars. It ventured onto the race tracks, then made its name at the drag strips. In 1976 it would be Pontiacs 50^th anniversary and they celebrated it with a special edition Trans Am featuring a slick black paint job with the gold bird and gothic text to top it off. It was a mediocre seller at first. In 1977 the Trans Am had a name but it would go through a major redesign and morph into what we see in this casting. In 1978, the car did not change aesthetically but Pontiac brought back the black and gold version to celebrate 10 years of the Trans Am. Later that year, a movie that would imprint this car into every car enthusiasts’ brain. Like them or not, you know what it is when you see one. When you do see one, you probably get that same image I described earlier. There have been rumors that the main actor of the movie hinted to hand assigned the inside of many of the production cars and it remained quiet until recently. I have personally owned 2 Firebird / Trans-Ams and still have one to this day. The Trans Am made it all the way into 2002 and made several other marks in the automotive industry along the way but I am going to save those notes for another casting to be featured at a later date. There are only a few select cars to this day that have a certain look and paint job that sets them apart from the rest and creates a connection between hollywood, young boys dreams and a passion for the experience of the open road and this is one of them.

           

              

      

And until that next post, take that there black beauty east bound and down, just remember to keep an eye on the sky and the pedal on the floor as you race to the state line on the orange track of destiny while doing what they said cant be done. 

[1] https://hotwheels.fandom.com/wiki/Hot_Bird

As always, although I own the actual diecast pictured in these posts, all artwork, logos, car names, paint descriptions and wheel descriptions in regard to the Hot Wheels versions are copyrights of the Mattel toy company.

Pontiac, Firebird, Trans Am are all trademarks of the General Motors corporation.