Jim Wangers' 1969 Trans Am Ram Air III found in Alaska | Barn Find Hunter - Ep. 50

seven or something like zero zero seven or something it's a very low number car so someone worked for the government it's the Department of Defense of the United States of America uh interesting yeah it has weeds growing inside it Oh, through from the

trans

mission hole, so this was a floor shift, was it a stick I have? I have no idea, I can tell we just bought it, yes it has a clutch pedal so it probably could have been a four speed I guess, or certainly a three speed, okay what else do we have? I'll follow you and here's a 67.

LeMans too, so yeah, so this one had a step up. I guess an engine that was an overhead cam six, this is a right 326 and this is a paper, yeah, it's a hardtop, yeah, now it's an aftermarket car, uh, it's in the middle. it's like you could go either way with it, huh, this one here is a rare ride, it's a 67 Catalina station wagon with a 428. Wow, how rare? Well I'm a truck guy, it's a solid car it's been sitting on. Alaska, as far as I can

find

, I still don't have the PHS to

find

out the history and stuff like that, like did you do the history on your 428 truck with the 4 speed, yeah, yeah, so that's interesting.

Pontiac and Ford had 428 in the same mistake, huh? Well, yours is 67 years old, that's the same as mine and that's not America. I guess so and it has power seats. It has a lot of unusual options, so Dad called Jim Wangers and said, "Hey, what's the story on these big wagons?" he says it was a little weird having a 428 somehow again, yeah can you open that hood? Is he there? I don't know if I've ever seen a 428 and a Pontiac, so what was this called the Bonneville? Okay, oh. man it's intact so it's a very low option without air conditioning what is your intention for this car?

Well, we bought it because our friend has an Oldsmobile truck that he says we'll race for food, so it's pretty upgraded, so we were going to do it. Same thing, so you're going to fix this car up with a pretty solid body. Yeah, he's a little excited. You don't see that it's riveted there, so that factory thing isn't that interesting. It looks like an emblem of the defender. Do you remember what you paid and the guy just gave it to us? It's not that good, okay, you're interesting, that old thing, just take it off, yeah, they had trees around it, so now trees are growing around it and you have. a title with it, no title, so we have to link it.

Okay, the police have to come inspect it or the soldiers mm-hmm, okay, that's a cool car, I mean, we were talking about enacting to make a rainbow 5. before that, it's going to be a blast, it's a good car, man, then I bought another one for you two in the garage, you never guess what's in this garage, what do you have here? This is a 69 Trans Am Ramar four, we bought this from him. Jim Wangers personally, oh wow, so he was in the Pontiac motor division, right, yeah, so, wow, it's an original car, yeah, wow, and we gotta keep its Detroit plates, ma'am, so no He bought this in Alaska, obviously, no, we bought it from him. him in California so tell me about this 69 Trans Am yeah 400 it's a 400 ram air for bran so is it a hard tub?

Yes, I still don't have the million dollars to buy the knot that has been

found

well. Is this a four speed car is it automatic huh that's original paint another original took it to Pontiac and had it redone Pontiac Wow so you're the second owner of this car not sure maybe third or fourth Lo I know because Wangers may not have been the original owner, no, that's okay. Wow, geez, so you bought it like that, I haven't had to do anything, yeah, I haven't done anything, it hurts, we want to get it out and drive it right.

You know, it just takes a few things, we just have to put the pins in and we'll go out and get some nice curves, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Do you want me to take out this star? Okay, I feel like I'm 14 years old. years of returning to driving cars that I admired in magazines of all the excellent cars they have here, this would be my favorite and I would leave it at that. I mean, this is a real time capsule and I think the Torino are kind of underrated. I think the Cougars are starting to be appreciated.

The Torino's are the next car because Mustangs are so prolific it's a good car to have right now because I think it's value will always go up, it's a hard car to find. High School Fart Spoiler I was on the cross country team, if you're a sports team in high school you had to go home, your parents had to pick you because there was no bus, so I used to hitchhike home every day. After school and a 69 Trans Am picked me up. I got in this car and told the guy who gave me a ride. I think it's a fiber.

What kind of car is this? It's a Trans Am car. I had to build a lot of them. to make it legal for Trans Am racing, since it was 500 to homologate the car, but I have never driven to Warren. I have completely assembled one. I see the air filter is up here on the broken hook at the top. It looks good, we have something good. cars thanks yeah I'll be back in about a month boy it's nice. Thanks, okay Terry, I'll take it. I just have to live out a high school fantasy of driving a 69 Pontiac

trans

-am.

This car was purchased from Pontiac executive Jim. Jim Wingers, who was in the high performance program and it's interesting, sold it to Preston and here it says Hi Preston, you are the perfect owner for my special 69 Trans Am, take good care of it. Jim Winger is that amazing, I mean, it's touching. Let's talk about the value of this car. Haggerty has this car listed in good condition, good condition, OK, at 127 thousand dollars, so even if it's not a very good condition car, 127 Grand in good condition, condition number three will be one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, number two. excellent condition two hundred and six thousand and then in concours condition $262,000 so this car to be a conquest car has to be perfect perfect perfect and this car is not perfect so if we subtract it it becomes a number two car excellent capable to win at a local car show, but if you add things like Jim Winger's ownership of the car and the fact that it was restored before Jim at Pontiac, it actually became remanufactured, so it would fall somewhere between number one and number two, it would be anywhere from hundreds of thousands to maybe higher than that.

I think a lot of people would overlook a concours car to own a car that was factory restored for the executive who oversaw the construction of these cars when they were new and he was the most previous owner of this car, so It's an incredible, amazing piece of history, an incredible car that drives like new and looks like new. This has been a great morning with Preston and Terry, this father and son sports car collecting team, I mean, and what I love to do is walk around looking at people's backyards and if they said they'd covered all the roads in this section of Alaska, but you know, here we are in Alaska, it will be 82 degrees that you would never imagine.

If you live in Ohio or Alabama or something, it's hot here, but it's also really cold, but I want to thank these guys for not only letting us see their car collection, but you know the fantasy of driving an early Trans . The transient fiber on my car is just amazing, so thank you from me, thank you for reaching out, it's been awesome, it's been awesome, thank you, yeah, I understand that you're happy to hunt. Haggerty estimates the value of this car as a 2-door sports roof 428,335 horsepower four-barrel Cobra jet in good condition twenty-six thousand seven hundred dollars in number three good condition thirty-eight thousand seven hundred in excellent condition 59504 Edition eighty-two thousand eight hundred and of the cars here, the cars that are here in the

barn

, this would be my favorite to drive home on the east coast