Europe's fastest street-legal car is... a 252 MPH Pontiac Trans-Am?!
12-22-2008, 05:20 PM
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Europe's fastest street-legal car is... a 252 MPH Pontiac Trans-Am?! Europe's fastest street-legal car is... a 252 MPH Pontiac Trans-Am?!
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/europes-fastest-street-legal-car-is-a-252-mph-pontiac-trans/
by Dan Roth on Dec 22nd 2008 at 4:01PM
"Have fun with KITT," sniffed some AMG engineers when a group of Norwegians showed up at Germany's Papenburg test track with a 1987 Trans Am. The smug smiles were quickly wiped off the faces of the Mercedes tuner crew when the ancient Pontiac's practice laps were as fast as the AMG cars, and the F-Body wasn't even working hard. Once warmed up, the 8.9-liter V8 unleashed all of its 1400 horsepower on the circuit, delivering a startling 407 kph (252 mph) also known as Bugatti Veyron fast. Better still, unlike the Bug, the Pontiac's lap is official.
Needless to say, there's not much stock underneath the skin on this particular Trans Am. The car is the work of Polly Motorsport of Norway, and there's a wealth of top tuner expertise beneath the mostly stock exterior. We're sure even in its heightened state of tune, the Polly Trans Am is infinitely less expensive than the $1.6 million you'd have to cough up for a Veyron, and its creators say it's still street legal. Hit this link for some videos, which would be even more entertaining if we could understand what they were saying. Props to reader Mitka who provided the synopsis that we've posted after the jump!
Subject: Fastest street legal official road car in Europe!
A 1987 Trans Am fastest official street legal road car in Europe!
Paul brought his Pontiac to the Papenburg car testing track, one of the newest and most advanced test tracks in the world. Mercedes where testing their new AMG sports models the same day as Pal was going for his personal speed record. Some engineers from AMG team criticized the optimistic Norwegian team for bringing an 80's trimmed American car to this super test track for the advanced European supercars. But what they didn't quite comprehend is that Pal Arvil Blytt and his Polly motorsport team from Norway works at a motor tuner garage in Godvik Norway and most important of all nothing more than the shell of this car resembles the stock Pontiac. With a brisk 8.9L V8 producing a whopping 1407 HP, Pal was soon doing AMG top speeds of 300km/h in his warming laps. After driving a couple of rounds around the track, Paul felt ready to see what his road machine would do! And after pressing the pedal to the metal the ARP technician Christoph Tharrey came over with his laptop computer with a big grin. Here we have the official numbers: 407.134 km/h
You may say well the 9FF team drove 409km/h in an extremely rebuilt Porsche 911 at the same track; this speed was recorded with their own equipment and therefore can be fixed and therefore is not recorded as an official speed record. Bugatti Veyron 407km/h is also recorded with their own equipment.
As the Papenburg track is to small for the Pontiac to reach its potential top speed of 435km/h and Volkswagen's test track costs 25.000 Euro an hour to rent. Paul is bringing his road legal car to the US in 2009 to challenge Shelby supercars official record of 412km/h.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/22/europes-fastest-street-legal-car-is-a-252-mph-pontiac-trans/
by Dan Roth on Dec 22nd 2008 at 4:01PM
"Have fun with KITT," sniffed some AMG engineers when a group of Norwegians showed up at Germany's Papenburg test track with a 1987 Trans Am. The smug smiles were quickly wiped off the faces of the Mercedes tuner crew when the ancient Pontiac's practice laps were as fast as the AMG cars, and the F-Body wasn't even working hard. Once warmed up, the 8.9-liter V8 unleashed all of its 1400 horsepower on the circuit, delivering a startling 407 kph (252 mph) also known as Bugatti Veyron fast. Better still, unlike the Bug, the Pontiac's lap is official.
Needless to say, there's not much stock underneath the skin on this particular Trans Am. The car is the work of Polly Motorsport of Norway, and there's a wealth of top tuner expertise beneath the mostly stock exterior. We're sure even in its heightened state of tune, the Polly Trans Am is infinitely less expensive than the $1.6 million you'd have to cough up for a Veyron, and its creators say it's still street legal. Hit this link for some videos, which would be even more entertaining if we could understand what they were saying. Props to reader Mitka who provided the synopsis that we've posted after the jump!
Subject: Fastest street legal official road car in Europe!
A 1987 Trans Am fastest official street legal road car in Europe!
Paul brought his Pontiac to the Papenburg car testing track, one of the newest and most advanced test tracks in the world. Mercedes where testing their new AMG sports models the same day as Pal was going for his personal speed record. Some engineers from AMG team criticized the optimistic Norwegian team for bringing an 80's trimmed American car to this super test track for the advanced European supercars. But what they didn't quite comprehend is that Pal Arvil Blytt and his Polly motorsport team from Norway works at a motor tuner garage in Godvik Norway and most important of all nothing more than the shell of this car resembles the stock Pontiac. With a brisk 8.9L V8 producing a whopping 1407 HP, Pal was soon doing AMG top speeds of 300km/h in his warming laps. After driving a couple of rounds around the track, Paul felt ready to see what his road machine would do! And after pressing the pedal to the metal the ARP technician Christoph Tharrey came over with his laptop computer with a big grin. Here we have the official numbers: 407.134 km/h
You may say well the 9FF team drove 409km/h in an extremely rebuilt Porsche 911 at the same track; this speed was recorded with their own equipment and therefore can be fixed and therefore is not recorded as an official speed record. Bugatti Veyron 407km/h is also recorded with their own equipment.
As the Papenburg track is to small for the Pontiac to reach its potential top speed of 435km/h and Volkswagen's test track costs 25.000 Euro an hour to rent. Paul is bringing his road legal car to the US in 2009 to challenge Shelby supercars official record of 412km/h.
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12-23-2008, 08:28 AM
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I wonder how they made that thing stick to the track at 252mph. Or did the driver just have a big set. I've gone 165 in a 928s4 and 150+ in a 2nd Gen F-body, I can't imagine 252 in a 3rd Gen.
12-23-2008, 08:44 AM
#14
It's a really cool car!
I posted this in several forums and just wait to see when the first comments come up like "Yeah, but it can only drive straight" or "The Porsche did it faster!!11!" (yes, it did, but not with official equipment) or some other stupid comments
I posted this in several forums and just wait to see when the first comments come up like "Yeah, but it can only drive straight" or "The Porsche did it faster!!11!" (yes, it did, but not with official equipment) or some other stupid comments
12-23-2008, 09:19 AM
#15
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the third gen Firebird one of the friendliest platforms to use when building an all-out speed car? I thought I remember that they were pretty popular out on the Salt Flats...
Either way, great write up on a truly impressive vehicle!
Either way, great write up on a truly impressive vehicle!
12-23-2008, 07:16 PM
#16
Makes for a great platform for projects like this.
12-23-2008, 10:24 PM
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Gotta love it, the Mercedes techs start raggin on the car calling it "kitt" and the car whips their fastest lap as it is warming up!! Gotta love it - 21 year old platform that is not in production just whipped their $80K to $100K car! Going straight and turning! LOL!
I hope GMHTP does a write-up on this as I would like to learn more about this car...
I hope GMHTP does a write-up on this as I would like to learn more about this car...
12-24-2008, 04:04 AM
#20
When the 1982 Trans Am was released to a curious buying public in January 1982, many raved about its beautifully sculpted state of the art body style which had a drag coefficient of .31 making it the most aerodynamic car in the world for 1982. The aerodynamic body style was so modern looking with its pop-up headlights and yet it was muscular looking like past Trans Ams. Many were also impressed with its performance and great handling.