Before Hasselhoff drove an ‘82 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in Knight Rider, before Stallone bought a ‘79 in Rocky II and before Burt Reynolds made the car famous in Smokey and The Bandit, there were VINs #001 and #002.
Those are the vehicle identification numbers for the first two production Pontiac Firebirds ever built — back in 1967 when the car debuted. Both of these rare birds, a red convertible and a silver coupe, are for sale as a package deal … on eBay.
As of 1 p.m. Eastern, the highest bid is $190,300 (out of 112 bids) and the “Buy It Now” price is $285K. But the hidden reserve has not been met, meaning the cars will not be sold at this price even if the time runs out on the auction.
Of course, auctioning off iconic vehicles for hefty sums is common practice, but how’d they end up online instead of at an event held by a venerable automotive auction company like RM Sotheby’s or Barret-Jackson?
Actually, they already tried that course. As Jalopnik notes, the latter company attempted to auction them off in Las Vegas in 2016 but the reserve was not met. History may repeat itself here.
That’s not to say these cars aren’t worth the damage; the convertible packs a V8 and a three-speed automatic transmission for cruising around on lazy summer days, while the coupe runs on a 326 high-output motor and a four-speed manual transmission for running and gunning.
You can read more about the cars here before placing a bid of your own. But if you miss your chance this time, don’t worry — they’ll probably be back on the auction block soon. Until then, here’s a video of them undergoing restoration back in 2014:
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