A National Firebird and Trans Am Club featured car is the 2000 Pontiac Firebird Formula WS-6 of Andy Cain from Biloxi, Mississippi. Here is the story:

This is our 2000 Pontiac Firebird Formula WS-6. The build date was January of 2000 and my wife and I are the original owners.

From the numbers I can find it was 1 of 233 Formula WS-6’s built in 2000, 1 of 151 with the 6-speed manual transmission and 1 of 23 in bright red. The car was a daily driver until 2010 and currently has about 91K miles on the odometer. It was ordered from the factory pretty much loaded with leather 6-way power driver’s seat, 6-speed manual with Hurst shifter, traction control, t-tops and the Monsoon Sound System with the cassette player. The car has since been upgraded to the Monsoon Sound System with CD player and trunk 12-disc CD-changer. The engine mods are modest, I’ve swapped out the LS1 intake manifold for a LS6, installed a ported and polished throttle body, coolant by-pass mod, oil catch can and SLP Cold Air Intake with a K&N filter. To stiffen up the frame I installed the strut tower brace, sub frame connectors and Detroit Speed Fender Flange kit. I had to replace the t-top sail panel band due to an issue with the glue bleeding through and bubbling the paint and leaving black streaks on the band. I had the MAGG Performance replacement sail panel installed and it fits and looks great. As far as suspension goes I upgraded to Bilstein shocks and slotted and dimpled rotors when the time came to replace them. I purchased the car to replace my 1994 Firebird Formula because I was concerned Pontiac was going to close down the Firebird line soon. Of course they didn’t do that until 2002, but they did stop producing the Formula WS6 after 2000.

I’ve been a Pontiac guy since my high school days and as you can probably tell, I really enjoy this car. One of the strange things about the car that I’ve never been able to figure out is the paint in the engine bay is clear coated. I thought initially it was due to the car being a WS6 with a different hood so they clear coated the engine bay as it went down the line and then installed the WS6 hood. But after seeing many Trans Am and Formula WS-6’s without clear coated engine bays. I am not so sure. If you know the answer please let me know.