A recent post in the "NICE! AWOL TrimTag?" thread brought to mind my vote for the most overpriced option in '68.

Option 731, Air Cleaner- Heavy Duty aka Air Cleaner - Dual Stage, cost $9.48 ($52.45 in 2005 dollars.) To the best of my knowledge, it consisted of adding a piece of sponge-like foam around the paper filter element and putting a different lable on the aircleaner housing. GM may have also sprayed a little oil on it. The last time I purchased a new AC A279C filter it came with both the paper and foam and cost $6.11.

I think GM's margins were pretty good on this option.

No post by me would be complete w/o a picture:

Great info. I thought dual stage meant dual snorkle, DUH! That must be for desert driving? Looks like something for an ORV?

I don't think the dual snorkle was ever offered for the Birds in '68. I think the term HD or heavy duty grabs a lot of people to purchase. My '68 had the option.

firebirds never came stock with the duel snorkel.only the gto.but i see firebird owners spending lots of money buying them all the time.they will swear up and down firebirds came with them

Jim and Terry are right. This seems to be something that is not well known as I've seen more than my share of birds with the dual snorkle air cleaners, and this subject has come up many times... and not too many seem to know that the birds had the single air cleaner housing only.

In 67 there were two styles, for most of the country and one for California cars. Then in 68/69 for the most part there was the standard and the 400 assembly with the chrome lid. Then of course the RA set up etc.

Interesting topic Jim... I bet there are quite a few "options" that were like this?

Brett!

This IS interesting, although we all can see the simplistic minor-ness of this particular "option", whether it be offered by the factory or by your local dealer. GM cars and sales were getting wacky in late 1968 at the dealerships.

I went there with my Dad (I was eight and loved cars and knew specific cars by sight) and I do recall showroom arguements and challenges for JUST the right car that my Dad wanted (a Cutlass, but the event was generic to all during that year). We were not there for 1-2 days, we went back and forth there for 2-3 weeks!!

I know for a fact, AS MANY OF US DO, that your local dealer could offer just about anything he could get his hands on, even if it was not for a Pontiac or specifically for a Firebird. If you wanted it and paid for it, he'd find a way to install it on your bird in many cases. Hence the birth of many supposed "one-of-a-kind" FGFs, Camaros, Mustangs, GTOs, etc etc.

At the time, visiting and buying in the showroom was a mundane fact of life, but now we see how exciting it truly was in the late '60s.

Didnt they offer electric seat(s)? I think I saw some supposedly originals on eBay awhile back and they were advertised as being for Birds (and were fetching quite a few dollars). I wonder what they wouldve added to the sticker.

Sales Code 564 UPC Code A46
Power Seat - Bucket, L.H. only.............$73.72

I take it that's just for the power components? The regular manual seats cost more than that.

Which of these options was the bargain?

Sales Code 362 UPC Code G94
Special Order Axle..............................$2.11
(this was a 3.90:1 ratio)
Heavy Duty Safe-T-Track added only..............$63.19

Sales Code 388 UPC Code U58
Radio - Stereo - AM/FM w/Man Ant................$239.08

today's prices or yesteryear's

had to have been the radio, right?

No doubt! If you bought the amplified AM/FM and an 8 Track you would have been half way to spending what a ram air IV costs!

Think about that $239 price. In today's dollars that would be a $1,230 option. Or, calculated a different way, it would have been about 8% of the base price of the Bird.

And the 8 track was $133!

Electronics were pricy back then.

Yah, and they usually went 'belly up'! I couldn't get any of my stereo equipment to last in the late 70's early 80's. My older brother came over a while back and caught me working on my car stereo. He says, "Jim, this looks like exactly what you were doing 25 years ago!"

I made a few trips to the tube tester machine in town.

Nash points out an interesing issue. The cars didn't come with a dual snorkel. Back then, they would give you whatever you wanted. If you looked at the goat with the dual snorkel and said, I would like a dual snorkel on the bird, they would have bolted on a dual snorkel, and they would have bolted it on for free if that's what it took to make the sale.

(They still do it: I said, "You have a $54k sticker price on this car, and you're telling me that I have to pay an additional $110 for an ashtray? " They said that the ashtray would be no charg, it had to be ordered, will be in Tuesday, and I could swing by and wait in the install because it only took a few minutes.)

The thing that sheds interesting light on the possibility of the cars leaving the dealership with a dual snorkel is covered in the 69 factory service manual. It clearly states that the cas wasn't offered with a dual snorkel breather.

Why would the book state what the car didn't come with. Technical manuals don't go into what the car doesn't have. For instance, if you crack the Yugo service manual, it doesn say: "Yugos are not offered with a V8 engine," simply they don't list things that cars don't come with if they never came with it. And unless I have overlooked it, this is the only case, whereby the service manual goes into detail about what the car doesn't have. That seems to be a signal to the technician that while doing new car warranty work that they may encounter something that wasn't offered, meaning that the dealer chunked it on in order to make the sale. The end result would be the interperation that it came with a dual snorkel because it left the dealer's lot with one.

Right on target, Merv! Back then most techs and service guys at the dealerships had good reason to beleive the cars sold at their dealerships would come back to them for services! That was just the way it was then. That allowed for a wee bit of "authorized" local mods and upgrades.

I am certain local dealerships did many mods and upgrades to all new cars with little supervision or reprisal worries. If the buyer said he wanted it, he probably got it.

I wish I had been a buyer between 1966 and 1970!!!