Hitman's Pontiac Trans Am Site
The Second Generation Trans Am Information Site

Who is 78ta.com?

A Brief History of 78ta.com

The History of 78TA.COM, from 2000 to Present

Key Points

Official GM Licensed

78ta.com does carry an Official GM License Agreement. As part of the business, 78ta.com reproduces many of the GM Pontiac Service Manuals, Fisher Body Manuals, and Pontiac Parts and Illustration Catalogs form 1967 to 1981. In a lengthy process, an agreement was reached between General Motors and 78ta.com to allow the conversion of the Pontiac Service Manuals, Parts and Illustration Catalogs, and Fisher Body Manuals to .PDF format. GM only issues license agreements after an intensive process to assure that each licensee adheres to stringent and specific GM standards. 78ta.com has carried this GM license agreement since the start of 2004.

Recommended by Pontiac

Back when Pontiac was still in business, if you contacted Pontiac about your older Trans Am, they basically stated that they do not have that information, but you could visit other "GM Approved" links of which 78TA.COM was one of the top links provided.

Trans Am Specialties

For 8 Years during this time, I also restored and sold over 100 Trans Ams and sent them to all parts of the US and even places all over the globe such as Japan, Germany, Ireland, UAE and more.

Areas of this site

www.78ta.com

The main pages of this site contain all the information you could ever want regarding the Second Generation Pontiac Trans Am. Over 80+ pages of information that has the answers to all your questions.

78ta.com Store

Make sure you visit the Store to find and save some money on your Trans Am restoration project. Here you can save on items such as decal kits, seat covers, door panels, headliners, carpets, manuals, license plates and more. Check out this page of why to buy from this site :

About Store

78ta.com Forum

You also want to check out the Forum. It is a great place to meet other fellow Trans Am enthusiasts from all over the world, there are over 7,000 members. You can also post questions if you are having any problems with your car.

Forum

A bit about how it all started...

It all started with the purchase of my second Trans Am back in Summer of 2000.....

Back in 2000, I was working for an Internet company who was releasing a "build it yourself" website program. In order to demonstrate to the customers how easy the program was to work with, I decided to build a website about my Trans Am. As I performed regular maintenance on my car, I would document the process and the next time I was demonstrating the web-program to the customer, I would upload the information about the work performed on my Trans Am. As I learned more information about production numbers and model changes, I would again, upload it to the website. It was about at this point in time, I decided to go out and register an official domain name for the website which I first picked www.hitmantransam.com. Since that name was a little too long to type in, I went out and registered 78ta.com to make it easier to get to and type into the Internet browser. That is how 78ta.com got its start. I kept on adding more and more information about the Second Generation Trans Ams, and got deeper into the maintenance and care of the car. And overtime, as I would do something new or learn something new, it went right up to the website. Once the site started to grow, so did the amount of visitors coming to the site every month. In 2000 it started at about 2,000 people a month who would visit the site for information. That climbed to 10,000 in 2002, in 2008 the website pulling over 93,000 visitors and 3.2 million hits a month and in 2016 the count was up to 6.5 million hits per month from places all over the World.

Commercial Recognition

Over the past almost two decades, 78TA.COM has been recognized and asked to consult in one way or another for many books and print media, Television shows, Documentaries, and movies.

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My Classic Car

Worked with Dennis Gauge from My Classic Car on a show about the Pontiac Trans Am. They actually traveled out to Mentor, OH for the series.

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Smokey and the Bandit

In 2007 when they came out with the 30th Anniversary release of Smokey and the Bandit on DVD, they contacted me to provide the Trans Am for the cover shot for the release.

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No Reservations

When Anthony Bourdain came to Cleveland to shoot an episode of the Travel Channel's series "No Reservations", they contacted me to use my Trans Am for a drag racing scene between Anthony and Chef Michael Symon.

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Car Crazy TV

Berry Meguiar from Meguiar's Car Care products hosted a TV show on the Speed channel. When they needed some information and photos for their quiz on the show, they contacted my to supply all the questions, answers, and photos.

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Ultrasuede

The story of Richard Halston, famous designer from the 70's and 80's, was being shot in New York and was a Documentary on his life. They needed an iconic car from the 70's that represented that era. I was contacted to supply such an Iconic car in the 1978 Pontiac Trans Am.

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Pontiac Firebird

"Pontiac Firebird: The Auto Biography" by Mark Cranswick published in 2003. Mark himself contacted myself to supply photos for some of the images in this book.

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