Tennille Mather walked into her local Pontiac dealership 24 years ago and left with a brand-new 2001 Firebird convertible, a car that remains with her to this very day.
Tennille was always a huge fan of the famous Pontiac pony car, mainly because her father Terry Morris Sr introduced Tennille to Firebirds when she was just a kid.
Jim Sutherland
Terry owned a 1976 Trans Am that influenced Tennille because she grew up with the car and even got to drive the car to high school. Tennille recalled her childhood days riding in the ’76 Trans Am with her brother (Terry Jr.) and playing a game of “Camaro-or-Firebird?” with him.
The Firebird brand has always been a part of Tennille’s life so it should be no surprise that her previous car was a 1994 Firebird equipped with a V-6 and a T-top roof. However, Tennille’s ultimate dream car was a Trans Am model, so she purchased her convertible before the curtain fell on the iconic Pontiac pony car model.
The 2001 Trans Am convertible became Tennille’s daily driver for the next four years, a time frame that included the birth of her son in 2003. The car became part of her son’s babyhood because she calmed down the little guy with rides in her Firebird when he was upset.
Tennille also taught her son how to use a manual transmission when he was a teenager because her Trans Am convertible has a six-speed stick in it. It also has a powerful LS1 small block engine that is chipped and churns out plenty of horses.
Another interesting part of Tennille’s history with her 2001 Trans Am occurred when she moved to Florida and parked her convertible for seven years back in her home province of Alberta Canada.
The storage years were not kind to Tennille’s car because it was parked outside and subjected to weather, dirt and mice issues over that timeframe.
Surprisingly, Tennille’s TA fired up with a boost from a Bobcat skid steer and drove onto a trailer with no difficulty after its seven-year hiatus. The brakes were good, and the only mechanical issues were a minor exhaust leak and a water pump leak.
However, Tennille spent plenty of time with a toothbrush and Q-tips scrubbing every nook and cranny in the car because of issues with tree sap and dirt. The mice aroma also required a major scrub down before Tennille was able to meet her high standards of cleanliness and remove the rodents’ malodorous legacy in the Trans Am.
Tennille wanted to give her car a distinctive look with a custom fiery bird of prey on the TA’s front clip, but her custom painters chose to create a fiery inferno pattern on her convertible. Tennille was unsure about the flame graphics, but they have grown on her over the years.
We at MyStarCollectorCar liked the fiery look the first time we saw it and believe the flames give Tennille’s 2001 Firebird Trans Am a very distinctive style.
The happy ending to this story is “girl meets car-girl loves car-girl keeps car forever”. It doesn’t get any better in the car hobby.
Jim Sutherland
BY: Jim Sutherland
Jim Sutherland is a veteran automotive writer whose work has been published by many major print and online publications. The list includes Calgary Herald, The Truth About Cars, Red Deer Advocate, RPM Magazine, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Windsor Star, Vancouver Province, and Post Media Wheels Section.
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