The Pontiac Firebird Type K Is The Coolest Station Wagon General Motors Wouldn't Sell
There are concept cars, and then there's Pontiac's Firebird Type K. It's bizarre — the kind of vehicle whose creators get a "what were they thinking?" It's also perhaps the coolest American concept car that was never made ... but should have been. We say American because only in America would this kind of car ever come to fruition. It's as All-American as spray cheese, the Hulkster, and Nathan's annual hot dog eating contest.
Like many concept or prototype cars, the backstory can be just as interesting as the car itself. Such is the case with the road not taken — American poet Robert Frost, for the win! — by the Firebird Type K. The "K" stands for "Kammback," which sounds goofy but actually has a special history of its own that stretches back to 1938.
In simplest terms, "Kammback" refers to a tear-drop car body style where the roofline sweeps down towards the car's rear and abruptly comes to an end, a feature that reduces aerodynamic drag. It's the perfect description for Pontiac's car since it looks like someone literally lopped off the back end with a giant knife.
The legend of the Firebird K starts in the late 1970s, when Pontiac desperately attempted to revitalize its fading F-body lineup of cars. Gerry Brochstein, under General Motors executive David R. Holls, came up with a vehicle that basically took the front end of its famous Firebird Trans Am and merged it onto the back end of a station wagon.
The Kammback hoped to add sportiness to the family truckster
Brochstein started by tossing out the old-school rear tailgate found on the back of most station wagons. Instead, he strolled yet another path never taken by doing away with the tailgate completely. In fact, nothing on the back of this car opened, including the rear window that stretched across its entire width. His solution to this odd design choice was to double down on another and install two massive gullwing windows on either side, giving plenty of access to the cargo area. In theory, people could reach in and grab groceries, stuff in a Christmas tree (albeit a tiny one), or let the kids climb through.
Oh, and there wasn't a second set of passenger doors for folks to get into the back seats. You either had to climb through the previously mentioned gullwing windows or bend and twist your way behind the front seats. This two-door station wagon had to keep its sporty vibe and not stink like a conventional family truckster.
In 1997, Pontiac mocked up a concept and showed it to Bill Mitchell, VP of design at the time. He was so impressed that he ordered two full models with all-steel construction be built, not in the good ole US of A by his company, but by renowned Ferrari designer Sergio Pininfarina. Over in Italy, of all places. Why? Because Pininfarina and his team were experienced in making cars with short production runs. Plus, it had the "Ferrari" cachet.
One of the concepts had a gold exterior with a matching beige interior, while the second was painted a lustrous silver and came with a bright red interior (via Story Cars). Stop gagging... it was the '70s.
Where there's smoke there's the flaming Kammback
These two Kammback's rose like a phoenix from the ashes of a '78 Firebird Trans Am. They even had the same hood scoop and hood decal from the Trans Am. Yet, they weren't powered by its engine. Designers opted instead for a 403 cubic inch, 185 horsepower V8 Oldsmobile engine.
GM sent these two fiery birds onto the car show circuit and were met with glowing reviews, so they ratcheted up plans to mass produce them. One idea was to let Pininfarina and his team build them in Italy, which would have been cost prohibitive. The lower-cost idea was to make them in the United States under Pininfarina's direct supervision.
And then the rubber hit the road. When all totaled, the final MSRP on the Firebird Truckster would cost about $25,000. GM was hoping for a price around $16,000. At the time, a base model Firebird was only $4,753, while a base Trans Am was $5,889. Heck, the MSRP on a 1977 Ferrari 308 GTB was only $28,580 (via Auto Week). Needless to say, the Type K went down in flames.
The silver concept appeared in two episodes of "The Rockford Files" in 1979 (after getting updated with a '79 Trans Am nosecone) and is the only one still around. According to one source, the other "was destroyed by GM for an unknown reason" (via Auto Week).
Wonder what kind of movie "Smokey & The Bandit" would have been if Burt Reynolds was tooling around in this thing instead. The world will never know.