(first posted 3/12/2017) When I look at this Firebird, I see…a Camaro, with a different front end. Well, externally that was pretty much it, as well as the rear plate that covered and divided the tail lights. Did you know that these front fenders interchange with a Camaro? So was the Firebird just a badge-engineered Camaro? Well, that definition is a bit malleable, as one look at Wikipedia’s list of badge-engineered cars readily attests. Some are obviously so, but the Dodge Durango is a badge-engineered Grand Cherokee? That’s a new one, as well as quite a few others on the list. Platform-sharing and badge-engineering are not the same.
Back to this Firebird: is it a badge-engineered Camaro? Well, if it weren’t for its Pontiac-exclusive engines, it would be, in my book. But proof of its uniqueness is right on the hood scoop, where the red numbers “428” boldly sit. No Chevy ever wore those badges. But then neither did any ’67 Firebird from the factory. This Firebird has been badge-engineered in more ways than one.
The biggest engine offered in this car at the time was the 400 cu.in. (W66) Pontiac V8, standard in the Firebird 400 model, and rated at 325 hp. In every respect but one (see below), it was the same engine as the 335hp standard GTO engine. Optional was the L67 Ram Air, which had functional hood scoops, open-element air cleaner, better-flowing “997” cylinder heads, stronger valve springs, a hotter cam, and low-restriction cast exhaust headers. Power: 325 hp. Yes, all that extra money and hot parts still yielded 325 (gross) hp; supposedly, although now at 5200 rpm instead of 4800. How does all of that that work?
Easy: a slightly modified throttle linkage kept the secondary butterfly valve from opening all the way on both of these engines, in order to meet GM’s then-standing rule that its cars could not have better than a 10:1 weight-to-hp ratio. A twenty-second fix to unleash full hp in both of these engines involved manhandling (literally) a slight bend in the linkage. Horsepower-engineering.
But it’s pretty safe to assume that a genuine 428 sits under the hood of this one. And for those of you unfamiliar with that rear facing “scoop”, it’s actually the tachometer. Yup; one of Pontiac’s dumber ideas.
I say it’s pretty safe to assume it has a genuine 428 because this particular car exudes the vibe of someone that’s not into pretense. It’s understated and honest, right down to the torn seat, yet it’s in very well kept condition overall. Just the way I like cars to be. This one really talked to me.
One of the subtle but interesting touches on this Firebird are the optional Pontiac-style Rally wheels instead of the more common Rally II wheels (mag-style). The brochure says that the Rally (not II) wheels were available only with the optional disc brakes. Another positive mark for this car.
Actually, these wheels look like they’ve been widened from their original 6″ rim width, although I think it’s still a 14″ rim. I should have checked. But again, the look is understated business. Not even any chrome exhaust tips or the ubiquitous big rear-exit straight pipes.
Yes, from the side and across the street, the first impulse is: Camaro. But there’s more than meets the eye under the Camaro’s skin.
Good catch you have there Paul and can anyone read the vanity plate? I assume this Pontiac has been repainted since Cali’s climate is harder on vehicle paint than the Willamette Valley. I assume that hood mounted tachometer is prone to breaking and collecting rain water.
I always thought the hood mounted tach looked cool, but I don’t recall ever seeing one that worked. Granted, that was 10 or 12 years after they were built. Most guys back then just installed a Sun tach on the column and called it good.
I have one of those hood tachs on my ’69 GTO and it works fine.
The concept of a hood tach is a good one. Theoretically its easier to look at the road and glance at a hood mounted tach. Its closer to your line of vision and requires less eye movement and re-focusing to glance at the hood tach than one on the dashboard.
However, the execution was not so great. The tach itself is a bit small and has a 90 degree sweep – less useful than the traditions 270 degree sweep. This means although its easier to glance at, its a bit harder to read – negating the value of its positioning.
But its a cool piece of styling not seen elsewhere.
It’s uniquely Pontiac. But I think it would look better to either have a flat hood with a tach or two scoops forward without the tach.
I always saw those tachs as a primitive precursor to HUD. As unideal as they may be, there were a lot of nearly illegible poorly located tachs in dashes during the era too.
Teddy:
The plate reads “OHC BIRD”. I believe the only OHC engine in the ’67 Firebird was the 250 cubic inch six-cylinder, so the “428” on the hood may be bogus.
I found an article about a couple of dealers (Myrtle Motors on the East Coast and Michigan’s Royal Pontiac) who built 1967 428 Firebirds (http://firstgenfirebird.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=280125) , but given that this one looks fairly stock otherwise, I wonder if this is simply a six-cylinder OHC Firebird convertible with a hood from a Myrtle or Royal 428.
As for the paint, it depends on where in California. We have a lot of climates and micro-climates. If you look closely at the hood shot and where the rear deck meets the rear window, you can see the paint isn’t all that terrific.
The first personalized plates were offered in California in 1972. Blue plates were phased out in 1983, so the car’s been registered in California between 34 and 45 years.
I bet one previous owner was proud of the OHC roots and got it a vanity plate, and a more recent owner swapped it out for a 428 but wants to keep the blue plates on it regardless of what they say.
OMG, I can’t believe I didn’t notice the plate. So much for “truth in badging”!
The irony is that I’ve been desperate to find an OHC Pontiac six to do a full story on it.
But then I wonder if it still has its original six.I hear not many survived; they did have some issues. And I wonder about the shifter; what it’s connected to. Since this presumably not a Sprint (hopefully not, because to undo a Sprint would be a crime), in which case it would have come with the base 1 barrel six. I suppose someone could have ordered it with that modest engine and also a four speed. But one would more likely expect a base six to have an automatic, if not the three-speed, which was presumably on the column.
Now I’m very intrigued about this Firebird. Next time I’m down in the Bay Area, I can probably find its owner because I’m pretty certain he works in the high-end restoration shop across the street. Unless it’s a client’s car…
Thank you all for the info.
This is exactly how I like to see vintage muscle cars, because this is what they looked like ca. 1980 when no one but us gearheads cared about them. This would have been considered an exceptionally nice one back then since the quarter panels aren’t rusted out and the “beak” isn’t bent.
I’ll bet this thing is a handful when you nail the throttle. ’67s used a monoleaf rear spring that wasn’t really adequate, and resulted in almost unbelievable wheel hop under hard acceleration. I suspect this one has had multi leaf springs installed from the stance. Still, that much torque in an early F body would make for a wild ride. Love it.
It’s great to see a car like this being used and enjoyed, and not just another over restored trailer queen with numbers matching air in the tires and date coded coolant, with an owner who’s terrified to drive it around the block. Hope it stays real!
I never thought the Camaro and Firebird sheetmetal to be the same, although as I’m not a GM fan (except for second-generation Corvairs, and some 1960s B-O-P models) the similarities escape me. I always thought the Firebird was more sensuous. There isn’t a square inch of sheet metal on a Firebird that doesn’t look just right. Its front fenders have the perfect compound curves wrapping around the front wheels up to the front end, although that bumper could be more understated.
The Camaro…meh.
Nice find, thanks for the pics!
+1.
Really; you thought they had different exterior bodies? That front fender with “the perfect compound curves” is identical to the Camaro’s.
You are correct the 67-8 Firebird fender is different than the 1967 Camaro fender.
It’s only different in extremely minor details regarding the Camaro’s bumper attachment and side marker lights, And these are readily filled over (or created) in a swap. Folks have swapped fenders between them. It’s the same basic stamping.
He said that they “looked” different to him. So he’s not correct.
The fact that Pontiac fitted different engines and has a slightly different transmission selection than the Camaro made it a bit more than badge – engineering.
In hindsight, we can see that GM’s maintenance of 5 divisions long after it became impractical led to much true badge engineering and wasteful redundancy. For example, GM offered 4 completely different 350 V8 designs, all of which did virtually the same thing,.
But at the time, there was some effort for true distinction between Chevys and Pontiacs.
Of course GM’s sometimes – overbearing edicts actively reduced the distinction between brands and increased redundancy.
To me the “threshold” indicator of badge-engineering is the dashboard. And (to my knowledge) the ’67 Firebird was the first Pontiac ever to share a dashboard with another GM marque. Of course this can be attributed to the rushed nature of getting the Firebird to market as a 1967 1/2 vehicle, so perhaps it was excusable.
Not so excusable was how unsafe these cars were to drive, the nose-heavy V8 versions in particular. Fifty years later it’s possible to have fun in a smallish, highly powered car and not risk your life. In addition to active and passive safety technology, that modern car will have better fuel economy, much cleaner tailpipe emissions, and more power all at the same time; no one in the 1970s or ’80s would have believed all three were possible in the same car.
(Finding something good about the state of America today, car-related or otherwise, is admittedly a coping mechanism, but a necessary one.)
“Not so excusable was how unsafe these cars were to drive,”
Almost everything was less safe back then – aircraft, machinery, food, medicine, etc. Safety standards are progressive, and cars are no different.
I will agree that GM did not make cars as safe as they could with the technology of they day. They resisted including many safety devices available to them (dual hydraulic brake systems, collapsible steering columns, door reinforcement, shoulder seat belts, padded dashboards etc) until the Feds forced them to do so.
But safety was also cultural. How much should we condemn GM’s lack of safety standards when the vast majority of North Americans refused to wear the seatbelts that are already there? Even today, many people do not take simple steps to protect themselves (ie wear helmets, seatbelts etc) on a principle of personal freedom. I admire principles, but freedom from being told to wear a seatbelt is not something worth dying for, imho.
The ’67 GM cars did have collapsible steering columns for the first time, including the Firebird. But they and the equivalent Camaros were a great deal less safe than they could have been. Consider what Volvo, for example, was offering in 1967 – three-point belts, crumple zones, and four-wheel disc brakes all as standard equipment.
Consider also the way that GM introduced optional driver and passenger airbags in some of its full-size Buicks, Oldsmobiles, and Cadillacs in the mid-1970s, only to drop them after 1976 because of low demand for a technology that was (of course) little-advertised and high-priced. How many lives might have been saved if airbag technology went through its decades of refinement starting in the 1970s instead of decades later?
A customer that survives an accident in your vehicle is a customer that may be able to purchase a replacement vehicle from you…
Why are the Firebird and Camaro singled out for this? Volvo was safer, of course it was. They were also in polar opposite ends of the market, not to mention their actual vastly separate global origins. Were these worse than Mustangs or Barracudas? That’s the answer that matters.
I was just trying to make the point that the technology existed. GM wouldn’t have had to invent it. Of course I know that big-engined Mustangs and Barracudas weren’t materially different, but GM controlled 50% of the U.S. market at the time and could have led in passive and/or active safety; instead GM put up some of the most vigorous resistance to federal standards.
I also know that people have gotten injured or killed in Volvos.
Interesting to hear GM’s Pete Estes pleas for the public to step forward and stop all those nasty regulations the government was forcing General Motors.
The crooked mustache of Estes and the crooked glasses of PW Bowditch fit in well with this theme.
If customers aren’t willing to buy/pay for it, then GM would have found itself spending resources on unwanted technology. Doing that too many times results in bankruptcy. Wait…
For an OEM to avoid becoming price uncompetitive with leading edge technology, the government should mandate all OEMs to equip the technology. In order for NHTSA to do that, NHTSA must be able to prove the technology’s effectiveness. Ah, but we now know in hindsight, air bag technology was not ready for safe use until sensors were added in the new Millenium to adjust the force deployment for different size/different positioned occupants… and even then, we tell customers to put their kids in the back seat (where they are forgotten and subject to hyperthermia). Whew, what a run-on sentence!
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the Firebird and Camaro criticized for their safety here recently, so it stands out to me seeing it again. Obviously a point is attempting to be made but frankly it sounds more like vendetta.
GM had huge market share, yes, GM also had an expansive(and expanding) lineup of different cars through multiple divisions, as opposed to Volvo’s one brand and one(sometimes two) models that essentially never changed. There were safety aspects GM and American automakers were most definitely lacking in – most egregiously IMO in the braking department – but others like crumple zones and even seatbelt design I think were victims of both having non interchangeable platforms on staggered design schedules(safety features aren’t one size fits all) and, of course, not invented here syndrome. GM using existing technology by definition means they aren’t innovating – Look at Cadillac today, they make cars with all the best existing technologies, possibly making better BMW fighters than actual BMWs these days, but they aren’t innovative, and they aren’t selling. They’re poseur German cars to brand snobs – As much as we critique NIH, there is a point to that mentality at times, unfortunately GM took the truly dysfunctional approach of doing nothing and even fighting it, rather than coming up their own viable alternative. Which could have been done(early air bags were sort of that, since early on they were to replace, rather than work with, seatbelts), no invention or innovation is the “right way”. Volvo found what worked for them through their own development, but because few others were interested in selling safety, Volvo’s practices became the defacto safety features in everyone’s minds. And some Volvo owners drive like maniacs and get injured or killed because they are empowered by the mythos.
Also I firmly believe that success =/= social responsibility. Whether it’s a top 10 band whose singer lectures their audience about a cause from their “platform” on stage, or a business that is successful must lead the pack. GM was competing just like everyone else, and despite all the assumption that their dragging of their feet on safety/efficiency/emissions caused Ford and Chrysler to follow suit, doesn’t explain the occasions where GM would play catch up when Ford would release a car like the Mustang. If the if Volvos moved 400,000 units in 1965 for their safety you better believe they’d all be following suit in the same manner that made the Swede that popular.
Back in the “good old days”, it was “bad luck” to talk about car accidents and how to prevent tehm. And seat belts? The myth of “better to get thrown from the car” persisted.
Enthusiast rags also resisted safety and emission standards, saying they will “make cars slow and boring”.
So, can’t put all the blame on Motown.
Actually, I think you could pinpoint this car as one of GM’s biggest steps on the slippery slope of badge engineering and blurring the lines between divisions. While the 1961 Buick, Olds and Pontiac compacts had shared a fair amount of sheetmetal, they still looked pretty unique. Inside, instrument panels had some commonality but each division added unique touches. Motors were different, though, so each car had its own personality even though they were clearly related. That was probably as far as The General ever should have gone…
The Camaro/Firebird was just too close, with too much shared sheetmetal, shared instrument panels, etc. It was the start of a long slide…
” It was the start of a long slide…”
I would argue that slide started in 1959 when all GM divisions shared the same body shell.
Agreed.
I know ’59 was the year extensive platform sharing took place between all the GM divisions, but at least they worked hard to differentiate the styling between all the cars, inside and out. Dimensions were different too, as were the engines.
With the Camaro/Firebird, the cars were much more similar. GM probably thought it didn’t matter, since it was a “hot” category at the time so they could get away with it–which they did. The notion of “put a Pontiac nose on a Chevy and it will sell” would come to haunt GM, starting with the Ventura II.
The slide was on before then, just at a much lower angle. Even with the basic bodies in style A, B, and C, they were shared among all GM brands. The difference was in the fact that the divisions would create their own engines, transmissions, and other items separately. GM started taking parts from one division and using them in another, and it was not a matter of Cadillac items moving down the hierarchy.
Me, I look at a 1946-54 Pontiac and cant tell it from a Chevy other then the ‘silver streaks’.
The whole “cars look alike” is generational.
I had a 1970 AMC Rebel “Machine”, that had a tach out on the hood. In 2005 it was still working. I thought it was so neat to have the tach out there in the line of sight. Also looked so cool at night lit up. …….damn I miss my AMC’s.
About that 428 mystery, seem then some folks did some special editions for the Firebird just like the various Camaros offered by Dana, Nickey, Baldwin-Motion and Yenko who made some Camaro with the big-block 427 engine. One of them was from Myrtle Motors.
https://myclassicgarage.com/social/posts/116567-forgotten-myrtle-motors-428-firebirds
https://firstgenfirebirds.wordpress.com/dealer-modified-special-edition-early-firebirds/
Wouldn’t it be something if that was an authentic Myrtle Motors car? Given the low-key way musclecars used to be created back in the sixties, it seems entirely plausible that it’s a dealership transplanted 428 with the only way of knowing the hood emblems.
Given that the rear license plate says “OHC Bird” I don’t think that’s any too likely. I hadn’t noticed that before, but a commenter did.
This car is a great example of how muscle cars were “done” in the late ’70’s – 1980’s time period. Remembering that at that time no one knew what a build sheet was – or cared, the term “numbers matching” was decades away from anyone’s consciousness, and that the -yet to be- classic muscle cars were just fully depreciated old cars.
Enterprising hot rodders, interested only in performance, used whatever resources and parts which were available, to assemble the hottest rod possible.
Hopefully, someday these mongrels will be appreciated for their great contribution to the advancement of hot rodding, and the skill building of their constructors.
The Firebird’s design looks so much more finished than the Camaro’s anynomous face so I can’t help but proclaim it as an example of badge engineering done right in my book. I’m not nearly as cynical of the practice during this time period since the features colors and stylistic kit added on are so distinctive to Pontiac, unlike later efforts by the 1980s where there are no real details – really would a 6000 not pass itself off as an Oldsmobile if you didn’t know any better and there were no badges? I may see Camaro’s in profile with these Firebirds, but the hood, scoops whole front end treatment and taillight signature are all unmistakably 1960s Pontiac.
There used to be a 67-68 “Camaro Z/28” that I’d see at local cruise nights when I was younger that had the Firebird stakes in the quarters behind the doors, didn’t occur to me until later that the owner probably just bolted on the Camaro’s pieces to pass it off as the more popular sibling(or maybe those were the only parts he could find). I wonder now if it had Pontiac power, or if it was ever restored back to Poncho attire.
Ugh. The worst kind of classic car counterfeiting. PRETENDING to be just another Chevy.
Not the first time I heard of converting a Firebird to a Chevy.
I also recall a late 80s “10 best ” Car and Driver, where the theme was 10 best “wild things” aka freaks. Someone had bolted the whole front (wheelbarrow handles and all) of a 74-76 Trans Am to the body of a 68 convertible like this. The results were….interesting.
I think the Firebird was better looking than the Camaro and I am a Chevy lover. as for the 428 emblems they could easily have replaced the 400 emblems that all 400 equipped birds had, lesser motors had smaller scoops on the hood.
sweet car but even with two factory traction bars and monoleafs a 428 would be a handful in a Firebird convertible, and I want to drive it!
If it was mine and had a 428, I’d have 326 emblems on it.
First things first – Volvo for 1967 included the 122S models which weren’t four-wheel-disc, only the first brakes. I think the poster was thinking of the brand new 140 series. Personally, the 1967-68 Camaro and Firebirds were homeruns each, I personally like the Firebird convertible version, but a school chum of mine bought an almost new Camaro SS350 with RS option, and it looked killer to me, too. I can’t say the same for the 1969 Camaro/Firebird. To me, the Firebird wins the prize easily, the Camaro, to me for some reason, comes off cheap-looking and like Chevrolet didn’t spend enough time tweaking what they were handed. I’ve never warmed up to the ’69 Camaro, even with a good female friend who bought a new one. Finally, yes, what was with the meatheads who bought cars with standard seat and shoulder belts, and refused to buckle up. Even this year, we hear of people, unfortunately new, young drivers being thrown from their car upon a collision, and not surviving, simply because they weren’t buckled up. How many buzzers and idiot lights, fines, and mandatory sentences to viewing ER wards will it take to end this stupid practice of driving unrestrained.
i like firebirds. i once owned a true ’68 400 convertible. now my cousin and her husband own it.
badge engineering? yes, but there are more subtle differences than gm became known for later. remember that although the frame and parts of the body (doors, front quarters, trunk) are interchangeable the rest is not. especially the rear quarters where pontiac took the chevy rears and restamped them to add the chevrons between the doors and the rear tires. the hood and front valance are completely different. where the firebird hood comes all the way tot he front and overhangs the grill the camaro is squared off and has an additional metal piece in front that does not rise with the hood. the rear valance of course is different as the rear lights are different. recall too that pontiac lowered the firebird slightly to give it a different look, that required different leaf spring rates in the rear (not certain about the front). and the era of drivetrain sharing was not upon these first genneration f-bodies so each division had their own engine, transmission and rear ends. so, badge engineering yes, but not badge engineered as gm was wont to do by the late 70s where chevy engines ended up in oldsmobiles etc.
what is going on with this car in particular? hard to tell but the most common ‘upgrade’ from that time period was to swap out the old ironing board hood for a 400 hood with the two scoops that we see here. that was very common and i had many people offer to buy my hood or swap mine for their stock one…….
“c’mon dude it would be such a sleeper with that motor you have to do it.”
” ah, no i don’t.”
the 428 badging was common on bonnevilles and it did not take much to replace the 400 with the 428 and add a bit of gravitas to your ride. but this car likely did not come from the factory with any 400 option (400 or 400ho or 400 ram air). those cars had a different front bumper and grill. the bumper had a grey and black pontiac emblem on the snout and the grill inserts had an extension of the center trim bar towards the front of the bumper (see attached). in addition they had a 400 emblem on the lower right corner of the trunk lid. this car lacks all of that.
how did an original ohc look? these had the stock ironing board hood with the wording ‘overhead cam’ along the edge. the ohc ho, or sprint version, typically had color contrasting stripe running between the tires just above the rocker (see next comment below).
so my guess, and it’s only a guess, is that this car came from the factory not as a 400 but, if the license plate is to be believed, as an ohc with likely a 1 barrel carb. the hood would be a replacement and the 428 emblems replaced the original 400s.
ohc hood for comparison. view from cowl to nose.
Was that horrible console a production item or a transplant ?
the console between the bucket seats was an option. it could be ordered with either the standard or deluxe interior. most cars i have seen did have it. only a few did not. the one you see there is stock from the factory. believe it or not it was considered an upscale touch.
Nowhere as dramatic as a T-Bird console but functional, and the lid looks to be fully intact, something you’ll never find in a 90’s Camaro/Firebird
Back in 1973 a friend of mine bought a ’68 GTO that was a bit beat-up but ran like a scalded dog. The owner, another friend and I used to tinker with it and we ended up pulling the cylinder heads and replaced them with a supposed upgraded pair. It was at that point we realized the engine was a 428 C.I. and not a 400 thus the reason for its prodigious power. The new cylinder heads raised the compression ratio to the point that the engine would barely start, knocked like crazy and sounded like a B-29 when it finally did fire.
Officially, there were three different 400’s available in the ’68 GTO (350 standard and 265 or 360 h.p. as options), no 428. So was this a switch done earlier? Probably but we didn’t know enough about matching numbers etc. to figure that sort of thing out – and it didn’t matter.
Owing to the fact that the owner lived on a farm and the car was usually covered in mud with straw et al clinging to the underside, three of the four wheel covers had taken flight (no rally wheels here) and the hide-a-way headlights were stuck in the open position – it was a great car for hustling others with more substantial looking cars and making a few dollars on the side – truly a blast to drive.
The radio knobs aren’t original – they appear to be 1971 or later (with the symbols for volume and tuning).
Also, Paul, judging from the green street sign in the background – was this picture taken in San Mateo, CA?
Yes. My SIL lives there. We get down regularly.
if this really is a 6 i’m no less guilty of Walter Mitty call outs. i duplicated “390” tape stripes on the rockers of my 302 Galaxie XL. more shame. screwing a fake exhaust tip to the bumper to give me dual exhaust. if the bird is really a 6. maybe this owner just didn’t t stoop to my level on that.
it will be interesting if i, and CC is still around in 20 years to read comments about how unsafe our cars were back in 2017. “you mean they actually let human beings control the trajectory and velocity of a relocation module?!!”
Camaro with a nose job.
Yes, but…
I have always liked the Firebird better than the Camaro, especially the 2nd gen. I have a Peterson’s Engine Swapping book from 1975, and one of the swaps covered is a 454 Chev into a ’71 Firebird. It is NOT a bolt in, the front sub-frame is completely different from a Camaro. And a few other things are different as well. Not a difficult swap, mind you, but not the bolt in you might think it is.
You’re wrong; same subframe on Camaro, Firebird and the NOVA cars. Maybe different motor mounts, but same basic subframe. And they are commonly swapped, replacing a bad one on a Camaro from a NOVA or Firebird junker.
Firebirds benefited from some engineering lessons learned too late to affect first-year Camaros, since they went on sale some five months before Firebird’s February 1967 debut. The most notable were engines were set further back for better front/rear weight balance, and standard rear traction bars to minimize axle windup under hard acceleration., Also a 400 Pontiac motor weighed about 50lbs less the a Chevy 396. Pontiacs’ were generally quicker when equally equipped
When I went through a brief period of insanity and bought a new Firebird in 1981, I specifically picked the Pontiac and not a Camaro because of some minor equipment differences. That year only, the 4 speed California cars both had identical 305 SBC motors, but Pontiac offered a WS6 option with higher effort steering, larger diameter sway bars with urethane bushings, 8” wide rims (vs 7”) and four wheel discs, none of which were available on the Z28 Camaro.
The first Firebirds were a bit of a rush job in terms of styling from the Camaro. The factory added the Pontiac split grille and beak, and the slotted tail lamps were another identifying touch. Engines were different, and gearheads were not only a fan of their specific marque, but of their specific engine. A Chevy fan didn’t want a Pontiac. A Pontiac fan didn’t want an Olds or a Buick. or a Cadillac. The engine was a big factor in brand identity. That’s probably hard for someone to understand that grew up with corporate engines. GM’s divisional engine fans were still fiercely loyal at this time.
It wasn’t Pontiac’s choice to do this. They had wanted to produce the Banshee from 1964 but GM brass nixed that idea. I’m glad they did make the Firebird though because it was a great car!