I worked with Pontiac technician who did warranty work on new firebirds. I might do a more detailed post at a later time, but for now, here is what he said about the D-80 option.
As we all know, Firebird sales were dismal and almost went under if not for the t/a. Factories are already geared up for production of x-amount of cars for the year. As customers became aware that Pontiac would do almost anything to get rid of Firbrids, one of the many options that customers used was to order the car with the D-80 option. After the car arrived at the dealership, the dealer would "convert" the car to a t/a, usually for next to nothing, and sometimes for free if it were a hard sale.
(You see, the profit comes into play based on volume of vehilces, not a percentage of the collected money. I don't know how it works because it relates to numbers. The thing is that volume of vehicles sold, not the amount of money they collect from the sale is the important thing for dealership profit.)
Once the car arrived, the dealer would add on the t/a components. T/A was a cosmetic package and had nothing to do with perfromance. One problem with the conversion was that the r/a components ran out quickly or were never availible to the dealer. As a result, many of the dealer built "t/a"s had r/a delete in the scoopes.
One would think that "deler invoice" would show the conversion. Then again, maybe not. If you know the insides of the dealership, you'll know that the dealer and factory are anythying but buddies. In fact, there is quite a lot of rivalry between the orginizations.
I don't recall whether I read it in the D80 article that I wish someone would fish up, or read it somewhere eles, but I recall a mention about documented t/a's, yet the r/a components are missing, with r/a delete in the scoops. The completation was whether or not the r/a components were removed. The problem is that it defies logic as to why one would remove the components. More important, after knowledgable personal inspected the car, it appeard as if the r/a components were never installed on the car.
How these new-car make-ready cars come into play with documentation of the t/a is anyone's guess. I think that it's in the article about the D-80 that makes mention that there are more t/a's around then--wich was now--than they were when they were built.
I think that the book is scrapped, but I had a Kovel's collector car price guide from 1980. It listed 49k as the total production of 69 Firebirds, but current information makes this number an incorrect production number.
The Firebird mistery is fasinating. It makes me mad when a money grubber like PHS tries to pretend that such a mistery doesn't exist. I understand: If they admitted the mistery, how tf are they going to convince you to send them 35 bucks?
