Can't for the life of me figure it out

I was riding to Panda Express with a friend the other day and we saw a car that neither of us had ever seen before. That surprised us because both of us are pretty into cars. This thing had a rear end that was reminiscent of the 2nd gen Camaro, but it was way shorter than a Camaro and had a squashed looking front end with square headlights.

Rear looked like this:

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Monza?

2nd gen Pontiac Trans Am

I was thinking Monza, too. Or it could have been a Monza clone--Oldsmobile Starfire, etc.

P71 wrote: Monza?

That's it! Knew I could count on someone here to figure it out.

I had read in PHR many years ago how to turn a Vega into a mini Camaro. The article also included Twin turboing a K car and reversing the rear windows in a Gremlin

Do I win a cookie?

P71 wrote: Monza?

Maybe... i don't know how they differed from year to year, but i can pick out at least 8 differences at a glance between the pictures....

http://jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2008/06/orphan_AMC_Spirit_AMX.jpg

Could have been one of these? (also)

My older brother had a light blue one just like that when I was a kid!

We had a red one when I was a kid. Replaced the Gremlin. My parents didn't pick the best cars.

SBC's came standard on some models. 400's bolted right in. With a 750 double-pumper, double-hump heads and headers, these were as bad as you could get in 1982.

Jesus jumped up Christ, I hate those cars. >:(

I had to do spark plugs on a 262 (under)powered Monza. I had to loosen the left engine mount and jack the damn motor up to get the last two plugs on the drivers side. I dumped that girl like yesterday's coffee because I did NOT want to work on that car ever again.

We had the Starfire--V6, five-speed, even. Aside from the mags, it looked like the car in that photo.

Had a red Pontiac Sunbird as my first car that I didn't have to share with my twin sister. Mom contributed money so she had too much say, as I would much rather have had the '79 Celica 5-speed that I test drove. The Sunturd was a horrible piece. Underpowered 4 cyl motor, 3 speed auto that lost 2nd mere weeks after mom bought it off her "trusted" mechanic. Drove it like that for almost a year until the motor blew up. Went to the local junk yard and sourced the 6cyl motor and trans from a Monza and paid the guy to install it. He was a good guy, stuck to his quoted price even after he swore he'd never do that again - it should have been a simple swap but turned into a lot of fabrication he said. Eventually gave it away to charity when it was leaking oil faster than I could put it in and I had a Nissan Sentra hatch to replace it with. Worst 2 years of my automotive life. A buddy with a V8 Monza loved his though.

A friend of mine had one of those in highschool, and sold it to a mutual friend. It def screwed and yes the spark plugs were a pain (although I believe a holesaw through the inner fender was employed...) the 262 V8 never had an easy day and just kept going and going......

Monza= Vega

EricM wrote: http://jalopnik.com/assets/resources/2008/06/orphan_AMC_Spirit_AMX.jpg Could have been one of these? (also)

That is delicious! Never seen one of those.

And no one even linked to photos of the REALLY hideous Monza.....the 2 door notchback? It looked like a "dressed up" Vega...the same way a tuxedo T-SHIRT makes a guy look SOOOOOO formally dressed.