Welcome to the August 2000 installment of the GTA
Spotlight!
The
feature car for this month is
Tony Jeffrey's 1989 BRIGHT
RED Trans Am GTA
That's right..... You're NOT seeing things, folks. That actually
is a BRIGHT RED GTA on the page above. How 'bout that..... no black feature car
this month!
Next month, now.... who
knows.....?
Actually, this is such a nice GTA
that there's no way it couldn't be featured in the Spotlight. Tony and I
have been conversing back and forth for a few months, but it has taken this
long to get his car in the lineup for a feature..... All those dang black GTAs,
you know.....!
Tony and his car is a great story,
so I'll let him take it from here.....
"Frank,
I have really enjoyed all of this year's Spotlights and would like to share my
story about a jewel I found in Miamisburg, OH. A little background story
first...... I was going into college when the GTA's came out. At that point in
time there was no way I could have afforded the car. I had all the literature,
magazines, etc. and I had test drove several, but never signed the papers.
Well 11
years later, time passes on, I got a job, got married, have 2 kids, started
building a new house..... "The American Dream". Then time seemed to
repeat itself. On January 9th, I stopped by the local service station to fill
up, and while in the checkout I picked up a Muscle Car Trader and was flipping
through the pages when I saw an ad for an 89 GTA for sale. Needless to say all
the feelings came back......
So I
purchased the magazine and when I got home I called about the car. I figured it
had high mileage, and was worn out. A really nice lady answered the phone.....
and began to tell me about the car. She said her husband bought her the car in
the early 1990's and they really never drove it that much. She hated to sell
it, but her husband had passed away a few years back and she had no use for it
anymore. The car had 18,788.6 miles on it.....
She went
on.... "adult driven and looks like new". At this time I was getting
very interested. She went on.... "it has power locks, windows, leather
Lumbar seats, and everything works." So I got directions to go check this
car out. The only problem was they had 2' of snow at that time. So I waited a
week to see if the weather would improve. I stayed in touch with her to get road
conditions, etc..... I new no one else could get there, either. So I wasn't too
concerned about someone else buying the car. Besides, I wasn't in the market to
buy a car anyway! Meanwhile during that week, I got really familiar with all
the options available for this model year, thanks to the GTA Source Page. I was
prepared..... or so I thought.
It took me
6 hours to get there and they still had 17" of snow on the ground. There
was so much snow I passed her driveway up. But I made it. I introduced myself,
we talked a bit and then she took me out and showed me the car. She pulls the
cover off the car and it was like stepping back to 1989. The car looked Brand
New....! I went all over the car. It still had the original factory paint, no
door dings, the only outside damage I could find was a starburst chip on the
back spoiler..... easy to fix. The car still had the original tires, the engine
was clean, and everything looked original. The interior was one word:
immaculate! No rips, stains, or anything.
All the
options worked. But I found one problem that really had me disturbed. On the
SPI Code label in the glove box, it did not include the Y84 code for GTA. At
that point, I was really down. I knew that there were a lot of counterfeits out
there and for the money she was asking, I wanted the car to be all original.
She did get me to laugh, though, when she asked me if I wanted to take it for a
test drive....? There was 6" of packed ice in front of the garage door. I
told here maybe next time..... I explained to her about the SPI code and told
her I needed to do some research on the car before I could make the investment.
I had brought a digital camera with me, so before I left I took photos of the
SPI Code label, the car, and I also wrote down the VIN #.
It was a
long trip home. But the next day I called a friend that is a Finance Manager at
our local Ford garage (I apologize for using the F-word, but I had to use it to
give you the full story) and he ran a Lemon Check on the car. Unfortunately it
didn't authenticate the car, but it did tell me the car had been titled 2 times
and it was never recorded as being either totaled or flooded. But this wasn't
good enough..... I then contacted 3 different Pontiac dealers. The first dealer
(my local dealer) was very helpful, but unfortunately their database did not go
back that far; the other 2 dealers were very rude and did not want to help me
because I was not buying the car from them.... and now I never will! That night
I was looking at the photos and noticed on the SPI code label that there was a
code "R6A" which stands for a GTA option package. Which got me
excited..... So I sent an e-mail to Frank with the question: Would the SPI code
R6A authenticate a GTA? And on February 10th, the next day, I got my
answer......
"Any GTA should have the Y84
code on the SPI label; personally I'd be leery of any car that didn't have it.
Y84 is the only code that the GTA ever had."
GEE,
DID I SAY THAT....? In fact, the GTAs from 1988-1991 were available with the
R6A Option Value package, which combined the leather seat trim with T-tops. For
1992, the R6A option moved over to the Trans Am Convertible and was not used on
GTA models. So if you, by some chance, have a 1988-1991 "GTA" without
the Y84 code listed, but it does look like one..... and the RPO list does
include R6A and your car has leather seats.... then it IS a real GTA.
Sorry
about that, Tony.....
He then
advised me if I was serious about this car to contact Pontiac Historical
Services. For a fee, they could research the VIN # and would send me a packet
on the car. The only problem I might have is the car could get sold before I
receive the information. So that night I called the owner and told her what I
was doing, and she was so sure the car was original that she agreed to hold it
for me until I got my information from PHS. And the rest is history..... I got
the packet on the car and it was authentic! The next weekend I headed to Dayton
and, to my surprise, all of the snow had 
melted
off and everything was dry & sunny. I test drove the car and it really
surprised me of the power it had. Just as a precaution, I took it to a local
garage and had a mechanic to check it out and everything looked good to him. So
I took the car back and I rented an auto hauler through U-Haul because I didn't
want to run the miles up on it. I loaded the car, wrote the owner a check, and
headed for home. It took me 5.5 hours to get to Miamisburg, it Took me 7 hours
to get home to Logan, WV..... but it was well worth it!
I really want to thank Frank &
PHS for all of their help..... and congratulate Frank on the work that he has
done by putting The GTA Source Page together. It really is a work of art and a
GTA owners dream......"
Glad that the Source Page could be
of help to you, Tony, in authenticating your new GTA there. It's always great
to hear that the information here on the Page is useful to someone in their
search for the perfect GTA..... for them, anyway.
Tony's 1989 GTA is one of the 1,475
Bright Red GTAs built for '89 (17% of 1989 production). In addition, a total of
1,743 cars (or 20% of production) were made with the Medium Dark Gray
leather interior.
I hoped you enjoyed this month's
Spotlight feature..... An extraordinary story here, folks, and it shows that
good cars can still be found out there sometimes..... if you're in the right
place at the right time! Congratulations again, Tony, on such a great GTA you
have......
Until next month, then
everybody..... but will it be another black GTA.....?
Oooooo, the suspense.....!
Spotlight & Comments Courtesy of Frank. Rider and The
GTA Source Page!