Kansas. It's an original 1981 Trans Am Daytona Pace Car with the
Recaro interior. There were only 2000 of these cars made but
since owning this one, I now know of three which were scrapped
so there are no more than 1997 left. I actually bought a DVD copy
of the original 1981 Daytona 500 race so it's kind of cool to know
that this car could be one of the ones on the DVD.
The car was complete but didn't run right and it had some rust on
it. The engine had a serious knock in it so I pulled it out only to
discover that it wasn't the original engine. The car originally came
with a 301 Turbo charged engine. The engine that was in it was a
301 NON-turbo although someone had reinstalled the turbo on it.
I just tossed this engine and decided to just build a strong 400 for
it w/o the turbo and keep the rest of the car looking stock.
This first pic is the car when I first received it and after I took off
the hood. The carpet didn't come with the car. lol
although the original Recaro seats are beginning to fade from
sun damage and the interior door pulls are missing.
The dash is in excellent condition and is probably the most
valuable thing on the car. I have seen black dashes in this
condition top $2k on ebay. The "Bandit Edition" (or "SE") Trans
Am restorers put these dashes in pretty high demand.
curiosity I sanded down one of the sail panel posts to see what I
had to deal with. I found three layers of paint and primer. This
should be fun to strip to bare metal.
