92 PHR Reader Projects

'71 Trans Am Lee Hooten • South Jordan, UT When he bought this '71 Trans as a project, Lee Hooten thought he had a good solid platform to work from. Unfortunately, once he started stripping it down he discovered loads of shoddy bodywork and a severely rusted roof. While some would have cut their losses and walked away, Lee cut the roof off and replaced it with a solid one. Now that's impressive dedication. When the body was finally ready for paint, Lee rigged up a booth in his garage out of plastic and a bunch of home furnace filters to spray the five coats of House Of Kolors Majestic Blue Kandy and five coats of clear. To get modern driveability, a '98 GMC gave up its engine and trans, and Lee created a custom harness to connect to a '01 Express van 0411 ECM. After a little tuning with EFILive, Lee says it runs beautifully.

'91 Trans Am Domenic Pirroncello Queensville, ON, Canada As a lifelong Pontiac fan with a half dozen or so others in the family over the years, Domenic Pirroncello was ecstatic when he found this '91 TA with the WS6 suspension package in 2005. By that time most third-gen F-bodies were beat and abused, but this one had a mere 21K on the odometer, racked up by the retired couple who bought it new. Not bad for $2,100 bucks. Five years later the TA now has 55K, but it's just as immaculate since Domenic considers himself a caretaker of a piece of history now that Pontiac is gone. Now he has to figure out how to walk the line between preserving originality and having a little hot rodding fun.