Europe's fastest street-legal car is... a 252 MPH Pontiac Trans-Am?!
Click above for high-res image gallery of the Polly Motorsport Trans Am
"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!
Gallery: Polly Motorsports Pontiac Trans-Am
Photos by Camilla Smistad Tofterå
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.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
bobby 4:10PM (12/22/2008)
Wow, What could these guys do with a new Camaro?
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James Iovino 4:19PM (12/22/2008)
I wish we knew why they picked the Trans Am.
Jason 4:25PM (12/22/2008)
I think his mullet explains why he chose the Trans-Am
Doug A. 4:33PM (12/22/2008)
The Aerodynamics on the 3rd gen's are really pretty good even for their boxy look.
joe 4:52PM (12/22/2008)
@ Jason: The love of the 'hoff in some parts of europe might also be part of it.
Andrew 7:24PM (12/22/2008)
Oh, please, give it a rest, Jason and joe, we don't even like the Germans and we hate Hasselhoff. He's *only* popular in Germany, and we think their taste in music sucks. All your comment says, joe, is that you don't know squat.
Anthony 11:17PM (12/22/2008)
What could they do to a new Camaro? Make it look like one.
Phillip 2:25AM (12/23/2008)
The early 3rd gen Trans Am's were very aerodynamic even by todays standards. Their Cd. was 0.29 in certain trim options.
For this reason Trans Am's were always very popular cars for Bonneville racing teams, having set numerous speed records.
Ray 5:19PM (12/29/2008)
...not much Bobby, Firebirds are ALWAYS tougher and more powerful than Camaros--I've owned 6 of them from the SOHC 6 on up, dream on!
SPF 4:11PM (12/22/2008)
Holy $h!t!!!!
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SPF 4:16PM (12/22/2008)
0-100KM/H 2.23 secs
Again, holy $h!t!!1
Mattwood 6:42AM (12/23/2008)
0-100KMH is slow, even an old Vauxhall Victor can out do that ! top speed is it's low point a tiny 183MPH 0-60 in 1 sec FTW
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blackcountry/content/articles/2006/11/09/redvictor_feature.shtml
CoNFuZeD 4:14PM (12/22/2008)
Im Scared...
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giantkiller06ss 4:19PM (12/22/2008)
Oh man, only to have been there to see the faces of those snooty AMG engineers drop when this classic example of well modified American iron eclipsed 400km/h. Small block Chevy.. FTW! And you know this thing still probably get better gas mileage than what a Bugatti Veyron could only dream of.
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Mike 4:28PM (12/22/2008)
It's not a small block chevy, there is nothing chevy or GM under that hood whatsoever. Donovan big block with Dart heads, custom grind cams, procharger, etc.
http://www.pollymotorsport.no/index.php?mapping=2
Rick 4:30PM (12/22/2008)
Did you read any of the text??? 8.9 liter engine. Hardly a small block. More of a semi-like displacement engine.
Jason W 4:28PM (12/22/2008)
To make it perfect, some hair metal should have been blasting from the TA.
why not the LS2LS7? 4:32PM (12/22/2008)
Okay fine, so it's not a small block, it's a Hemi (real hemi, not this new fakeroo).
Mark 4:36PM (12/22/2008)
I don't think 543ci is considered small block. But awesome nonetheless.
giantkiller06ss 4:43PM (12/22/2008)
I didn’t read the entire article.. just a quick glance. This sort of power can easily be made with a turbo charged small block Gen IV LSX motor though. Small block.. big block; both are not too far from the same family tree. The Veyron has always impressed me as a over-priced plaything for the super rich and a little b-tch car. I would much rather be driving around Europe in this instead destroying everything in my path.