A friend found a deal on a clean 1980 Indy Pace Car edition Trans Am, literally in a barn in a collection that has been with the current owner the last 20 years. It has a 350 Chevy motor in it but comes with the original 301.
So the problem is the VIN tag on the dash reads *2K87TAN1xxxxx".
The second digit should be X, not K, K is Gran Prix. But, a tag on the door (of some sort) the VIN matches in all ways except for the K is an X there, it's an X on the title also. He sent me a picture of the dash tag and it's definitely a K.
Was thinking we should take the fan off and see if we can see the stamped VIN on the firewall and see if that matches anything. Presuming it can be gotten to with just the fan off and not pulling out the entire heater box.
If something hokey was done, it was done more or less before the internet era, and prior to the current owner. Supposedly came from New Jersey, and they're tough on titles, so it's not hard to see someone doing a tag swap if they had to to get it on the road. But what are the odds of finding a tag that's correct in every aspect except one digit? Could GM have goofed stamping it? It doesn't look fake to my eye.
It doesn't look like a bad car otherwise, no major rust, complete, could probably be detailed and shown as long as you kept the hood down. .
I'm not a big Trans-Am guy, the only one I had was a parts car, so I thought I'd see what I could find out online.
For what it's worth, he also has a basket case 10th anniversary T/A we can compare things to.
