2002 Pontiac Firebird and Trans Am: The Last Model Year

2002 was the final model year, this record's own overview states, with Pontiac's own 2002 brochure describing the Firebird, Formula and Trans Am lineup as the catalog endpoint registered in this corpus. MuscleCarClub's table gives an all-model total of 23,330, but this record's own conflicts note leads instead with 30,690 worldwide, the key fact this record's own dek carries, since that figure reconciles across an uncited production page's own model and color tables while the 23,330-car VIN-database count is one its own compiler says lacks about 7,360 cars.^1,2

That 30,690-car total splits 8,423 Firebird V-6 coupes and 1,498 convertibles, 901 Formula coupes, and Trans Am totals of 16,174 coupes and 3,694 convertibles, the last two themselves summing a non-WS6 block (3,962 coupes, 998 convertibles) and a WS6 Ram Air block (12,212 coupes, 2,696 convertibles). This record's own production notes state these five model rows partition the 30,690 total directly, with the Collector Edition, WS6, NHRA and engine rows carried as subsets rather than added on top. By engine, 20,769 cars carried the LS1 V-8 against 9,921 with the L36 V-6, and 5,192 were convertibles across every model.²

The Collector Edition Trans Am, the model's send-off package, reached 2,391 cars, 1,349 T-top coupes and 1,042 convertibles, 2,000 shipped to the US and 390 to Canada, with one of the 1,349 logged coupes noted as scrapped at the plant. This record's own conflicts note sets that 2,391 figure against a competing VIN count of just 1,723, 1,066 coupes and 657 convertibles, a known undercount for the year, and states that 2,391 leads since the Pontiac Trans Am Page independently gives the same figure.^2,3

A separate NHRA special edition (RPO 1SH) reached 534 cars: 62 six-speed and 85 automatic Formulas, 136 and 189 Trans Am coupes, 16 and 46 Trans Am convertibles, against a CompNine count of only 339 the record treats as a lower bound. This record also carries market-scope rows outside ordinary production: 4,454 sold-to-customer orders and 721 fleet orders. This record documents two 2002 prices from a buyer's-guide database that does not name the body style, $32,095 MSRP and $29,367 dealer invoice for the Trans Am.^2,4

Because Firebird production ended with this model year, this record's own sales rows carry calendar-year US deliveries into the sell-off period: 20,613 Firebirds delivered in calendar 2002, falling to 920 in 2003 and just 109 in 2004, the last of these figures a GM December 2005 table's own accounting of remaining 2002-built stock reaching buyers years after the line closed. This record's own unpublished leads section holds a Pontiac Trans Am Page listing of 9,822 WS6 coupes, 1,501 WS6 convertibles and 1,334 Firehawk coupes explicitly not used, since its labels are visibly shifted in other years and its rows do not reconcile with the all-model total.^5,6

What the record documents in full is the closing model year at its most fully worked scale: 30,690 cars worldwide against a 23,330-car VIN lower bound, a 2,391-car Collector Edition send-off this record's two independent sources agree on exactly, and a tail of deliveries running three calendar years past the last car built, this record's own clearest statement that a production total and a sales total measure two different things entirely.²