'71 LS-6 "TireBird"
I would like to introduce John Motroni and his ’71 LS-6 Trans Am. John recently contacted me through the LS-6 Registry inquiring about his engine block stamping T0417CRR. To those that recognize the car and it’s magazine articles, this is one of the replicas of the actual race cars that BF Goodrich built and was known as the “BF Radial Tire Bird”. It was used in their add campaign for exhibition, parades, car shows, TV commercials and as a test bed for their tires. Later it was purchased from BF Goodrich by the late well known engine builder and Dry Lakes Hall of Famer Tom Senter. Tom started to return the car to it’s original roots and opted to repaint it Ferrari Fly Yellow during the restoration of the then 3 year old, 16,000 mile car. Fortunately, the then $1000 Minilite magnesium wheels were still on the car when Tom acquired it and he opted to retain them. After an unsuccessful attempt at buying a 455 Super Duty from Pontiac, Tom in 1975 elected to do a complete LS-6 swap using a warranty replacement crate engine purchased from Berger Chevrolet for $750! This swap was also featured in several articles.
Enter 2004 and John Motroni. Last year while reading a Good Guys magazine, he saw an add for ’71 Trans Am with “L56” engine. Knowing that looked odd, John called the add only to find out it was in fact the “Tirebird with the warranty LS-6 that the then current owner had stored in a barn since 1983! The previous owner was able to supply John with copies of all the car’s magazine articles and other documents. Satisfied it was the real deal, John took home his new Addition. John is a retired consumer news writer for ABC Television. Having always loved and owned fast cars, his latest was a 63 Corvette convertible with a Dino Frey race 350 engine, a ’69 original engine Z-28 and an ’86 Grand National with an upgraded turbo, intake and exhaust. His latest addition of course being the ex-BF Tirebird. This car was discussed some time ago on this site. I am pleased to welcome John and his Trans Am to the site. Hopefully John will chime in and add more to this unique car and automotive history.
Thanks to Belair and Jeff Chlupsa for their help in resizing the photos. Thanks John for your patience. I am not real handy with the photo gallery yet. For that reason, these are on as attachments instead of actual photos. I did not copy all the magazine pages that were sent to me as they are too small to read.
Rick
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05-31-2005, 06:33 AM
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