Greg Marietti builds things, whether it’s through his general contracting business or his sleek 1983 Pontic Trans Am. The general contracting stuff pays the bills, but Greg’s true passion is working on stuff that makes horsepower. Greg’s Trans Am has lived an interesting life, and now it’s being transformed into a six-second street car.
The relationship between Greg and his Pontiac began back in the 1980s while he was attending The Ohio State University. Greg found the Trans Am’s for sale ad on a bulletin board at JEGS in Columbus, Ohio. It turns out that the car was actually being sold by Troy Coughlin of the Jegs family. Greg purchased the Pontiac and did what made the most sense, took the car to National Trail Raceway and started making hits.
Eventually, Greg drove the car from Columbus to Memphis, Tennessee to compete in one of the first Street Car Shootouts. During the event, Greg managed to rip off an 11.14 pass at 124 mph thanks to the 400 cubic-inch small-block that powered the Pontiac. Back then, that was a big deal and was even more impressive considering he drove the car to the event.
The Trans Am saw a couple of different engine combinations and ended up running deep into the nine-second zone on a healthy hit of nitrous. Greg saw that people were building next-level cars and he wanted to work on getting his business off the ground, so the Pontiac was pushed into a corner of his shop for many years.
One night, Greg happened to see an episode of Street Outlaws and got the racing bug again. He dug the Trans Am out of storage and got to work. Drag and Drive events really captured Greg’s attention, so he decided that would be the plan for his car. Greg built the double frame rail chassis for the Trans Am in his home shop, stuffed a big-block under the hood with twin turbos, and re-did the suspension with shocks from Menscer Motorsports, along with a rearend from Merillat Racing.
We’re going to be working with Greg on getting the Trans Am ready for the strip and the streets. You can follow along on the Street Muscle Magazine YouTube channel as we document everything that goes into finishing a real six-second street car.
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