The Challenge

Sid Tracy wanted his 69 Firebird to retain all the cool lines of its vintage muscle car sheet metal while driving like a modern-day performance car. Put another way, he wanted a 'Bird that handled like a 'Vette. He also wanted a European inspired interior, a "cockpit" with styling cues more Ferrari than Firebird.

What We Did

To make this Firebird an incredible road car, we used a Detroit Speed and Engineering sub-frame that features big brakes, coil-over shocks and SLA underpinnings with optimized suspension geometry. Then we nestled an LS3, Mast Motorsports-massaged engine between the frame rails and hooked it to a Tremec 6-Speed. Inside, we hand-formed every interior panel from aluminum, from the dash to the roof skin, before covering it all in hand-stitched Italian Leather. We tied it all together with a hand-formed, hidden roll cage system that got the leather treatment too. Outside, we retained the classic Firebird lines and accentuated them with road-race styling cues including aluminum side skirts, a rear air diffuser, molded in trunk spoiler and a dramatically altered front end that features a custom chin spoiler, mesh grill inserts and '11 Dodge Charger headlights.

What We Achieved

We think we gave Sid's Firebird a lot more FUOCO! That's Italian for fire. By combining the best elements of Sid's passions- American Muscle car style, Corvette inspired performance and Italian flair, we created something that's unique for its individual elements but also instantly recognizable in its design and presence. And, what seems to becoming true-to-form, we even ticked off a few "purists" along the way: a few Pontiac people (which we kind of expected) and a MOPAR guy who didn't like the fact that we put Challenger headlights in a Pontiac.