Terry Wright’s Restored 1968 Firebird

In 1964, Ford introduced the Mustang. Originally, it was kind of intended as a replacement for the Falcon, but it didn't take long before the performance enthusiasts figured they could make a sweet, little ride out of this. Of course after they sold a million Mustangs in the first two years, Pontiac had to have us answer to that challenge and they introduced the Firebird. Firebird had incorporated all those things that were iconic with the muscle car, with the long hood and the short raised deck lid, kind of Coke bottle styling that the Camaros and the Firebirds had back then made it an instant success. And this great example is owned by our friend and you've seen him on some of our videos, Terry Wright. Terry, great car. Finally! We've heard so much about it in some of our talks. That's right. Great to see it in person. It actually exists. It actually looks really nice, and true that everything we know about you and the way you build cars. This sucker's bone stock, but it looks like it just rolled off the factory. And that's what I was going for. I don't know why, but I've always just leaned towards what was available at the time. There's not even any day two things on there you know, Cragars or Holleys and Edelbrocks, things like that. No, it's the way I could have got it from the factory. This one is my third Firebird. It's my first '68 Firebird. And I mean, I got it, I had a little period where I didn't have any cars and I had a teenage son that was getting old enough to know, to understand about cars. And I talked my wife into letting me get another car for a project, you know, a father son project. And I wanted a '68. I had a couple '69s and I liked- there's something about '68s I liked. So I thought I'd go for a '68. I did send out for the Pontiac Historical Society documentation, so I knew it was an original 400 Firebird. Okay. It was original 400 Firebird four speed. I received it and I, first thing I did is I looked at the VIN number on the engine just because, and sure enough it was the original block that came with the car with numbers matching. With numbers matching too, huh. So I was like, "Whoa, I got lucky there. I got the original motor." So it did have like a Edelbrock manifold and Holley carburetor and a competition Hurst shifter, things like that that I immediately put back to stock. I sourced parts. And those were all common upgrades back then. Oh, very common. The day two stuff, right? But it was, so I started sourcing parts and trying to start collecting the things that I needed to get for it. One year I did the interior and but I wanna still drive the car. And I think that's admiral. A lot of guys, you know, they get a car they wanna restore and they just tear it all apart into pieces and now they can't enjoy the car. It's just work and keeping the car running while you're restoring it is a big advantage. It gets your family on board with it 'cause you can hop the wife and the kids in the car. You can go out and cruise and you know, sure maybe it doesn't look perfect yet, but it will. You know when you look at a lot of performance cars especially at car shows, you know, what they are isn't necessarily what they began life as. But the great thing about this car is it's got its original body, engine, transmission. All the parts are 100% as it came with. That's almost like a needle in a haystack nowadays. Hard to find. If you get a chance, check out Terry Wright's '68 Firebird. It's time well spent.