1991 Pontiac Firebird and Trans Am: A New Face and a Convertible Again

The face-lifted 1991 Firebird brought a factory convertible back to the line, this record's own overview states: 950 Firebird and 555 Trans Am convertibles in MuscleCarClub's table. The option printout counts 2,915 GTAs, the key fact this record leads with, a figure the GTA source page attributes to an extended selling period. MuscleCarClub's total of 50,454 Firebirds carries its own caveat, recorded in this record's own production notes, that the table has no separate GTA row and does not state whether GTAs sit inside the Trans Am figure.^1,2

Those model rows split 38,956 base coupes, 950 base convertibles, 5,549 Formulas, 4,444 Trans Am coupes and the 555 Trans Am convertibles. Within the GTA's own separately scoped printout, 1,861 carried the 5.7 L98 against 985 with the LB9 5.0 and 69 with the L03 5.0 TBI, and by geography 407 were exported and 476 carried Canadian-specific equipment; by transmission, 250 of the 2,915 GTAs were five-speed manual.^1,2

This record's own price section documents a mid-model-year price history unusually thoroughly: the first of three 1991 Selling Facts booklets, issued in calendar 1990 because the restyled Firebird had arrived in early February that year, priced a base Firebird at $12,444, a Formula at $15,069, a Trans Am at $17,191 and a GTA at $23,934, all with a $459 destination charge. A second booklet raised the Trans Am to $17,999 and the GTA to $24,999 with a $469 destination charge, and the third and final 1991 booklet raised them again to $18,020 and $25,020 with a $490 destination charge, the figures this record's own price notes trace step by step across all three issues.

That same final booklet is the only one to price the new convertibles: $19,649 for the Firebird Convertible and $23,470 for the Trans Am Convertible, both with the $490 destination charge, since the earlier two booklets predate the convertible's availability in this pricing series. Four engines are documented: the L98 5.7 TPI at 240 hp and 300 lb-ft, the LB9 5.0 TPI at 225 hp and 295 lb-ft, the L03 5.0 TBI at 170 hp, and the LH0 3.1-liter V-6 at 140 hp, all four spanning Firebird through GTA availability as this record's own engine table states.¹

This record's own unpublished leads section holds one figure explicitly not used: a Wikipedia claim that 27 SLP Firehawks were ordered and 25 built for 1991, 21 of them red, rated 350 hp at 5,500 rpm and 390 lb-ft, against MuscleCarClub's own count of 25 Firehawks across 1991-92 combined. The lead is held out because Wikipedia's article itself cites no source, and this record's own note states that any SLP conversion count needs SLP's own records to confirm.¹

Paint that year ran six colors from 188 Medium Gray through 764 Black, the most common shade, and this record's own interior table carries six trims from 254 Black cloth up to 920 Camel leather, the most common of those. What the record documents in full is the facelift's convertible-return year: five body-and-model rows, a three-booklet price history tracing two mid-year increases, four engines, and a 2,915-car GTA total whose relationship to MuscleCarClub's undifferentiated Trans Am figure this record leaves explicitly unstated rather than assumed.²