1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 455 Is Our Bring a Trailer Pick of the Day

• This gorgeous green Firebird was a witness to the end of the age of the muscle car.

• With collector-grade mileage and in nearly flawless condition, it's a time capsule—and a match for the hero car of a forgotten John Wayne movie filmed during the actor's own twilight era.

• The Bring a Trailer online auction ends on April 17.
  

In the 1973 movie McQ, a 66-year-old John Wayne slouches onscreen with little of his former authoritative charisma. The laconic hero of many a western was ill suited to a hard-boiled detective flick, particularly one that seemed made to cash in on the success of Dirty Harry, released two years earlier. But the old Duke still had grit. And when he climbed behind the wheel of a dark green '73 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, no more fitting ride could have been picked.

Up for auction today at Bring a Trailer (which, like Car and Driver, is part of Hearst Autos) is a Brewster Green 1973 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 455 with the desirable four-speed manual transmission. Yes, this isn't the most famous screaming fire chicken of the breed; that'd be the Bandit's preferred ride. But as the last hurrah before the first of the 1970s fuel crises hit, it's a heck of a good-looking bookend to the age of muscle.

This particular one is collector grade, painted its factory color, and showing 250 miles though true mileage unknown. Fitted with 15-inch Rally II style wheels, it has been thoroughly gone over by Restore a Muscle Car (RAMC) of Nebraska, a specialist shop that has handled plenty of Pontiacs, Bandit-style 1977 models among them.

There's a brutish elegance to this era of Firebird. An SD-455 was tested by Car and Driver in May 1973 and was declared, with a certain amount of sadness, "the last of the fast cars." This 455 couldn't match the Super Duty's performance when stock, as its L75 7.4-liter engine was rated at just 250 horsepower when new.