Donna and Jeff’s 1978 Pontiac Firebird Esprit

Back in August 2014, Jeff and I were watching tv and saw a 78 Pontiac Firebird Esprit and it got us talking about that era and how much we liked the cars back then.  We both love the look of the front end of the 78 Firebird and how much style those cars had.  After a little discussion we decided to try and find one at a reasonable cost and fix it up.  Maybe go to a few car shows and cruise ins.  It took me about a month to find one online.   The owner did a Facetime call with me and did a walk around of the car.  Cranked it up.  All looked and sounded good so we purchased it and had it shipped from Arizona to Leeds AL.  

We couldn’t wait for it to arrive.  A week later, here it was in our driveway.  Couldn’t wait for that first ride.  As usual, a car that old is going to have some noticeable issues.  It needed new brakes badly and definitely a “sprucing up”.  We put her in the garage and I went to run some errands.  When I came back, the nose was off and both front fenders.  I was so shocked! As Jeff was checking on the brakes, he decided to do some cleaning as he went along.  As time passed, it slowly turned into a full restoration.  We did hours and hours of research to make sure every part we touched, every part we restored was factory correct.  After a year of restoration in our garage, we sent it off to be painted.  When it came home I was so excited to start going to cruise ins and car shows.  It’s not a hot rod so it didn’t get much attention at first.  Most people want to see a Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am or a hot rod type vehicle, but that wasn’t what I wanted it to be.  I wanted it to look like it just came off the assembly line in 1978.  Eventually, the World of Wheels came around in Birmingham and it was accepted to be showed. It won 1st in Class!  Our first big major show!  From that point, it started getting noticed.  

At a show in Tennessee, we met someone that told us about AACA and thought that our car would show well with them since everything appeared to be correct on it.  We checked out AACA online and thought we would give it a try.  Our first show was in Mobile AL and we won our First Junior.  From there we went on to other shows and eventually won our 1st Senior Grand National and we have never looked back.  We were just in Bettendorf, IA and received our 3rd Repeat Senior Grand National.  We really enjoy our Firebird and everyone at the AACA shows seems to enjoy seeing it too.  The 70’s was a great decade for beautiful cars and we are proud to show ours and talk to other car enthusiasts around the country.