With upgraded graphics and up to an additional 125 horsepower, the Macho Trans Am lived up to its name. The fact that there’s no evidence of Macho Man Randy Savage ever owning or promoting one seems like such a missed opportunity…
I think they stopped and cornered okay, but anything can if it lacks the power to actually go fast before trying either of those activities. Smokey and the Bandit made the 1977 car look impressive, but the actual specs were pretty terrible, not to mention the fact that they dubbed in a more muscular exhaust note from an old 454. I often wonder what those cars would have been like if the governments of the world hadn’t convinced everyone we were running out of fuel in the seventies and even where we’d be today.
Thankfully, performance has made a comeback, and it comes with both efficiency and emissions compliance, so it might just be here to stay. It also forces the aftermarket to raise the bar and make better and better parts for both new and old technology. I always stop and look at these disco Trans Am cars when I see one in the wild, as they’re no longer necessarily slow. If it were up to the Mecham brothers from Arizona, not one Trans Am would have been slow, even off the showroom floor.
Mecham Pontiac in Glendale, Arizona, was the birthplace of the Macho Trans Am. Dennis and Kyle Mecham ordered up twenty-six 1977 Trans Am cars from their father’s dealership and opened up shop, making them perform as good as they looked.
They tossed the factory exhaust system in favour of a pair of Hooker headers and pipes that ran the length of the car, muffler free. They also added a catalytic converter, one on each pipe, to reduce restriction, both for emissions compliance and to take a bit of the edge off the bark that straight pipes make. They also tweaked the four-barrel carburetor, re-curved the distributor, and re-routed the air intake through the hood scoop. It may not seem like much, but it took the car from 200 horsepower to 250, and I’d bet it made more torque across the whole spectrum, as well. If that wasn’t enough, and we all know that 250 horsepower isn’t, they soon added an optional turbocharger to the mix, pumping the numbers up to 325 horsepower. That may sound weak for a big block, but at that point in time, it was miles ahead of what any automaker was offering. Underneath, they added lowered springs to the front and Koni shocks all around, over and above the factory-upgraded WS6 package.
In three years, they modified 325 cars into Macho cars, very few of them being turbocharged. Nowadays, if you were to get your hands on one, the sky is the limit with modifications. A modern four-barrel, hi-rise intake, aluminum cylinder heads, and a big roller cam could make one of these cars really macho on top of the already decent modifications.
Makes a guy want to say OOOOOHHHHHH YEEEAAAAHHH!
