What if the Pontiac Aztek, one of the most widely ridiculed vehicles ever built, was reimagined with a little flair from one of the former brand’s more legendary cars?
Well, it turns out that someone not only came up with that idea, but followed up on it. And so, we present to you the Pontiac Aztek Firebird Trans Am, uh, trim package?
It’s not real, of course, but it comes from Abimelec Arellano, an Hermosillo, Mexico-based car designer with too much time on his hands who goes by the name Abimelec Design. Arellano redesigned the midsize SUV’s wimpy front fascia to surprising success by simply adding widened fender flares and perhaps modernizing the headlights. He also went all-in embracing the Aztek’s abrupt, flattened rear end by removing the rear bumper lip, adding a slightly more aggressive rear spoiler to boot.
Elsewhere, the dominating and cheap-looking gray plastic under-cladding is gone in favor of body-color panels. Arellano also added some probably larger Pontiac Snowflake wheels with gold accents that really make them pop and play well against the signature Firebird decal dominating the hood.
Commenters generally fall into one of two buckets. As one put it, “I never thought the Aztek could look this good.” Others implored Arellano to do a version with a T-top. Or as one Autoblog editor put it, “So it turns out the reason the Aztek was a laughingstock failure is that it didn’t come in a Smokey and the Bandit Edition. Somewhere, a dude who got shouted down in a product-planning meeting years ago is vindicated.”
Sold between 2001 and 2005, the Aztek arguably reached the pinnacle of its notoriety as the metaphor for the drab, underachieving life of Walter White in AMC’s meth drama, “Breaking Bad.” It came equipped with a 3.4-liter V6 that made 185 horsepower and sent it through a four-speed automatic to the front wheels, with an all-wheel drive version also available.
The Aztek may have the last laugh, especially if it gets a screaming chicken.
“The fact it was a controversial design and didn’t sell well will make it an object of curiosity from a historical standpoint many years from now,” McKeel Hagerty, president and CEO of classic-car insurer Hagerty Insurance, told Autoblog back in 2016. He also called the Aztek “an excellent entry-level vehicle for someone interested in standing out at car gatherings.”
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