From musclecar clones to famous movie vehicles, we love us a tribute build around these parts.
But what about a tribute build for something that never existed in the first place?
Like—what if Pontiac made a Trans Am pickup truck?
Well, thanks to our pal Kyle Kaiser and his Sioux custom, we found the answer during the 2025 Goodguys Summit Racing Nationals.
“It’s started off as a 1994 GMC Sonoma,” Kyle tells us. “It was a $300 totaled truck, it had the nose knocked off of it.”
A paint-and-body guy by trade, he reveals that the original plan was for it to be his sister’s first car. But then he got the itch to turn it into a custom sport truck—starting with a grille pulled off an Oldsmobile Bravada.
Thanks to that unique front end, a vision for the project came into focus.
“I’m like, well, I can put a Pontiac emblem on it,” he chuckles. “And then I cut the verticals out of it and put honeycombs in the grilles.”
But the Firebird concept really began to snowball during a random parts run:
“We went for some parts for one of my Dad’s cars, and there was a Shaker hanging on the wall at the place,” Kyle grins.
“I betcha I could make it fit this truck.”
The truck spent its early years as a running, driving project, continually evolving as Kyle introduced more and more ideas to the build.
“I drove it all through college in white primer, with pinstriping like a Bandit car, a set of Turbo Trans Am wheels, and the Shaker,” Kyle continues. The functional hood tach was added around this time as well.
During this initial stage, he also custom fabricated the tonneau cover and added the rear wing.
“It’s all hand made from scrap aluminum,” Kyle explains. “And when I graduated, I tore it all back apart and started the process of painting it.”
It was during that teardown that Kyle really leaned into the truck’s Trans Am transformation—right down to the fender vents.
“Those are real Trans Am fender vents,” he says. “They’ve been cut into eight pieces, shrunk down, and then all glassed back together.”
Kyle also swapped off the Turbo Trans Am wheels in favor of a clean set of second-gen Trans Am reproduction wheels—complete with “PMD” center caps.
Under the hood is the GMC’s original 4.3L V6, but Kyle tells us that he’s got a TPI 350 V8 built for it too—when he’s ready to tear into it again.
Future plans also include a set of Recaro bucket seats.
Suffice it to say, Kyle does very, very good work—and that’s not just us talking.
“When it was unveiled in 2020, it won its class at the Detroit Autorama,” he smiles.
“It won awards at other shows,” Kyle continues. “It won the Goodguys ‘All American Sunday’ truck award and then next year, they changed the entry cutoff year, and it won the ‘Young Guys’ class too.”
“It was a fun truck to build,” Kyle says, but he’s also eyeing other projects—so he’s not sure how long he’ll hold onto his Trans Am tribute. “If the right money comes along,” he quips, “it may go away.”
But all told, it’s an incredible glimpse into an alternate reality, where Pontiac had a performance truck lineup.
At the very least, perhaps someone from GM will see this Sioux and it sparks a desire within General Motors to resurrect the storied performance division?
Fingers crossed…
Very nicely written and great picture…..kinda partial as he is my son, and we work on all his and my stuff together
Hey, Thanks – glad you got a chance to see it. I forgot to get an email address to send him the link when it published.
I showed him and he knows about it.
Hi there my first thought was trans Am truck that’s just wrong but you proved me wrong what a beautiful truck all the detail work you put into it really shows. I hope someday in the future I’ll read about you putting that 350 into the trans Am. On a closing note have you ever thought of the putting a supercharger onto it.