Pontiac Firebird Sky Bird : 1978

The 1978 Firebird Sky Birds were essentially direct copies of the show car, but the Blue Bird Body Company of Georgia refused to allow use of the original name. The number of Sky Birds isn't available, but the package has some extra appeal to modern Firebird collectors and seem to be getting scarce.

New for 1977, and based on a 1976 show car called the Blue Bird, was a W60 Sky Bird option package for the Esprits. The decals on the Skybird were also unique and a BIG departure from normal Firebird practice. These decals included royal blue double pinstripes, two-tone bird decals, "Sky Bird" scripts, and a two-tone border around the bottom accent color and tail panel.

With no reason to mess with success, the 1978 Firebird and Trans Am basically carried over from the '77 except that there were a lot more "special editions" like a gold Trans Am with brown accents and blue "Sky Bird" and red "Red Bird" Firebirds. America snatched up 93,341 Trans Ams and 93,944 other Firebirds for an astounding total of 187,285 - the best sales year ever.

The Sky bird package contained many unique featurs such as:
- Two-tone blue finish, medium blue upper - dark blue lower
- Blue trimmed snowflake wheels
- Medium blue grille liners
- Blue-accendted taillights bezels
- Sky Bird sail panel decals
- Bodyside tape stripes, in graduating tones of blue
- Blue Custom interior
- Blue Formula steering wheels
- Blue Custom seat belts

(source: pontiacpower)

This featured 1978 Sky Bird is essentaily the same as the pervious year but with the updated interior for 1978. This car was found on Ebay a few months ago. It sold for over $12,500. The special edition Firebird had only 4,000 actual miles and had never been titled.

The car was still on the original factory M.S.O. (Manufacturer's Statement of Origin). Dingman-Hatch Pontiac in Ocala Florida sold this car on January 13th 1978 to Polly Jane Burris who kept the car for 21 years. Polly and her husband owned Cardinal Motors in Ocala and therefore simply reassigned the M.S.O. and never titled or registered the car, on the rare occasion when the car was driven they did so on their dealer plate.

The car also had all the original documents like the window sticker, bill of sale, packet of books and owners manual, dealer inspection sheet, sales brochure and Manufacturer's Statement of Origin. (interior shown).

When the Skybird debuted in 1977, it had a ton of unique features. First among these were the colors. The top color, Code 21 Lombard Blue, was borrowed from the Astre (translation: Vega). This color wasn't used on other Firebirds.

The lower color wasn't used on anything else. Its paint code in 1977 is obscure, but was 58 in 1978 (shown). It's the same color in 1977 as evidenced by the listing of accent colors on the 1977 chips. (The gold color given in the table is for "Bandit" Trans Ams.) These are both really beautiful colors. The lower color is so bold it might look strange on a whole car.

This 1978 advertisement at right shows all three Pontiac Firebird Sky Bird packages together (the gold T/A shown is not quite a special edition). These are the Sky/Red/Yellowbirds.

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Pontiac Firebird Sky Bird : 1978

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