1978 Pontiac Trans Am MACHO T/A

#102 of 203 Produced

 

 

1 of 1

Ultra - Rare

Fully Restored

PHS Documents

Documented History

Only Two Documented Owners

 

AWESOME CONDITION INSIDE AND OUT

 

This is a very rare opportunity to own a piece of automotive history.  MACHO T/A's are extremely rare, they are all unique in their paint schemes, color combinations and various performance modifications.  No two are alike making this MACHO T/A a true ONE of ONE car.

 

Being that there were only 203 MACHO T/A's produced in 1978, you have to ask yourself a few questions.  How many actually come up for sale?  How many only have had TWO documented owners in 40 years?  How many still have their original drivetrain?  How many have been very well "used" and wasted away?  How many have rotted away?  How many have been wrecked?  How many look like this?  These are the questions you have to ask yourself when making an investment in a numbered car.

 

 

No TWO MACHO T/A's ARE EQUIPPED THE SAME!

 

Yes, they made 203 MACHO T/As in 1978 and EVERYONE of them is uniquely equipped.  They came with a wide variety of paint schemes, color combinations, engine modifications, suspension modifications, and some interior modifications.

 

In 1978, General Motors produced 93,341 Trans Ams. Only 203 were converted into MACHO T/As.  In perspective, the MACHO T/A only represents less than half of 1% of all the Trans Ams produced.  Thats RARE!

This particular MACHO T/A lived in Arizona with its original owner until 2003 when it was shipped to New York to its second owner.  It was fully restored to its former glory in 2006.  Attention was paid to how the car was originally delivered to the original owner.

 

This MACHO T/A is mechanically sound.  It starts, idles, drives, stops like it looks!  This is hard to convey how nice a car functions from just pictures and a short video. The paint scheme including the "screaming chicken" is how it was presented to the original owner.  The paint is stunning.  The undercarriage was treated with sound deadener.  This is NOT undercoated.  The sheet metal on this car has ZERO rust issues, pitting or soft spots.

 

The W72 TA 6.6 engine roars to life and runs strong.  It features Hooker Headers and dual catalytic converters just like the original MACHO T/A systems had.  The converters served as mufflers as they removed for the MACHO T/A conversions.

 

The second generation Trans Am's are screaming up the collectibility charts in value and demand.  Documented Ultra-Rare Numbered cars such as the MACHO T/A's lead the pack.  They rarely ever come up for sale, here is your chance to own a piece of history.

 

 

A little history on how the MACHO T/A's came to life.  Back in 1977, Dennis and Kyle Mecham built 26 performance-tweaked Trans Ams that they dubbed MACHO T/As and initially sold through their family's Pontiac dealership, Mecham Motors, near Phoenix, Arizona. The modified Trans Ams were a hit and the fledgling company, DKM Design, Performance sold all they could build, so they ramped up production in 1978 and marketed the cars through other Pontiac dealers. Sales of the warmed-up Firebirds soared to 204 units. But, uh, what of that oh-so-Seventies name?

"At that time, macho was the 'in' word in the Southwest," said Dennis Mecham, now president of Mecham Design, Performance. "Everything was macho. In desperation, I said, 'Why not call it MACHO T/A?' It was almost tongue-in-cheek. It may not be the best name, but how can you forget it?"

Buyers certainly approved. Mecham recalls a leasing company that wanted to purchase several of the cars sans the Macho lettering. But at DKM's urging, they purchased three without the decals and three with. Customers greedily snapped up the lettered cars first.

The recipe for the MACHO T/A was straightforward: DKM would purchase new Trans Ams, perform its modifications, and resell them as used cars to Pontiac dealers. Under the hood, DKM would richen the jetting of the stock Quadrajet and change the distributor's curve to bring in 36 degrees of advance at 2,500 rpm. DKM also opened up the sealed shaker hood scoop, increasing airflow to the stock airbox, and installed screen over the opening. A set of off-the-shelf Hooker Headers were bolted up and plumbed up with a 2.5-inch dual exhaust with a crossover tube and two catalytic converters eliminating the restrictive stock system.

"No mufflers or resonators are found, though the exhaust remains reasonably mellow," Hot Rod magazine wrote in its July 1978 review of a MACHO T/A. "In fact, a decibel meter may disagree, but to the human ear, a MACHO T/A sounds no louder than a stocker, which runs one converter and a pair of mufflers."

DKM also dropped the front end by 1.5 inches, installed Koni adjustable shocks at all four corners, and put 60 series tires on the factory rims. Color combinations were left up to the customer's discretion and, while there were two dozen interior/exterior color combinations listed in the DKM brochure, an additional $150 allowed that customer to choose a special color. Add another $150 and the graphics would be applied using DuPont's Imron paint.

"If it sounded reasonable and the guy wanted it, we'd do whatever they wanted," Mecham said.

The young Mecham stumbled on the idea of building a post-factory Pontiac super car (at least by late-'70s standards) quite by accident. He was running a weekly newspaper that his family owned and driving a late-model Pontiac Catalina when the urge to act his age became too strong to ignore.

"I thought, if I don't stop driving Catalinas, pretty soon I'll be old enough that I'll actually want one," Mecham said.

Mecham and his friend Mike Garrett began tinkering with a 1975 Formula 400 HO. They managed to wake the car up by fattening the lean factory jetting, opening up the airbox and working some advance into the distributor. Mecham did more of the same mods to his new 455-powered 1976 Trans Am--a car that his father, the late Evan Mecham, took a liking to and saw some sales potential in.

"My father came down and I had the 455 T/A in my garage," Mecham said. "He took it for a ride and said, 'I wish I could sell a car like that to our customers.' "

So as an experiment, the brothers Mecham added headers and aftermarket wheels to their list of Trans Am mods and put a fresh example on the showroom floor. It sold in three days. Working part-time in 1977, they built and sold 26 cars, making a tidy profit on each.

Thus, one of the few Disco-Era performance legends was born. In fact, it would've lived on for many more years had Pontiac not installed the 301 in the Trans Am, an engine that simply didn't have the latent potential that the 400 and 455s had.

"We stopped making them in 1980 because the car was no longer viable," Mecham said. "If you got any real horsepower (out of the 301), you were rebuilding a hand grenade."

Throughout the 1990s, the cars of the 1970s were regarded disdainfully by collectors, but something funny happened one day on the way to the car show--'70s machinery, particularly Trans Ams sporting black paint and gold eagles, became not just collectible, but hot.

Riding the tail feathers of this trend are DKM's Macho T/As. Mecham's warmed up 'birds have attracted a cult following among collectors who fondly remember the days when clothing and furniture manufacturers were vying with the Bee Gees to see who could sell the most vinyl.
 

Call NOW to put this MACHO T/A in YOUR driveway!