DKM Macho T/A What are We Talking About?

DKM Macho T/A What are We Talking About?

About 30 31 years ago I was walking around the swap meet at the old Englishtown New Jersey racetrack. I was looking for parts for my recently acquired 1978 400 4 speed Trans Am. When I came across this pretty cool-looking Trans Am with weird decals on it.

It was in good condition for a car a little over 10 years old, but I thought someone slapped the decals on it to make it more than what it was. Mind you this was years before the internet so I just couldn’t go home turn on the computer and Google Macho T/A. So I went to the bookstore and went through every car book I could find.

A few hours later I found what I was looking for and I was in love, now mind you I wasn’t even 19 years old yet this was 1990 so a car like this was way outta my reach. But man the things I read about this car were amazing, was put on my wish list.

The Story…

In 1977, Dennis and Kyle Mecham built 26 performance-tweaked Trans Ams that they dubbed Macho T/As and initially sold through their family’s Pontiac dealership, Mecham Motors, near Phoenix, Arizona. The modified Trans Ams were a hit and the fledgling company, DKM Design, Performance sold all they could build, so they ramped up production in 1978 and marketed the cars through other Pontiac dealers.

Sales of the warmed-up Firebirds grew to 204 units. Now at that time, macho was the ‘in’ word in the Southwest,” said Dennis Mecham, now president of Mecham Design, Performance. “Everything was macho. In desperation, I said, ‘Why not call it Macho T/A?’ It was almost tongue-in-cheek. It may not be the best name, but how can you forget it?”Buyers certainly approved. Mecham recalls a leasing company that wanted to purchase several of the cars sans the Macho lettering.

But at DKM’s urging, they purchased three without the decals and three with. Customers greedily snapped up the lettered cars first.

DKM would purchase new Trans Ams, perform its modifications, and resell them as used cars to Pontiac dealers. Under the hood, DKM would richen the jetting of the stock Quadrajet and change the distributor’s curve to bring in 36 degrees of advance at 2,500 rpm. DKM also opened up the sealed shaker hood scoop, increasing airflow to the stock airbox, and installed screen over the opening. A set of off-the-shelf Hooker Headers were bolted up and plumbed up with a 2.5-inch dual exhaust with a crossover tube and two catalytic converters eliminating the restrictive stock system.

“No mufflers or resonators are found, though the exhaust remains reasonably mellow,” Hot Rod magazine wrote in its July 1978 review of a Macho T/A. “In fact, a decibel meter may disagree, but to the human ear, a Macho T/A sounds no louder than a stocker, which runs one converter and a pair of mufflers.”DKM also dropped the front end by 1.5 inches, installed Koni adjustable shocks at all four corners, and put 60 series tires on the factory rims.

The color combinations were left up to the customer’s discretion and, while there were two dozen interior/exterior color combinations listed in the DKM brochure, an additional $150 allowed that customer to choose a special color. Add another $150 and the graphics would be applied using DuPont’s Imron paint.”If it sounded reasonable and the guy wanted it, we’d do whatever they wanted,” Mecham said.

Back in 1978, Hot Rod was just as enamored of DKM’s tuned-up T/A, wringing a low 14-second e.t. out of Macho T/A number 3 (All of the Macho T/As bear their series number on the spoiler and lower front fenders.).”What the customer gets is, in effect, a brand-new Trans Am, delivered right from a Pontiac dealer with everything he needs to blow a stocker right into the weeds,” Hot Rod’s Dave Wallace wrote.

“At least, this was certainly the case with 1978 Macho T/A No. 3, which collected a remarkable time slip of 14.29 seconds at 98.79 miles per hour on the best of 17 good runs at OCR. (The very next day we watched a four-speed 49-state ’78 Trans Am clock steady 15.20s at 96 mph, which is the best performance we’ve seen from a stock 1978 automobile under virtually identical conditions at the same facility.)”

Now I know we live in an era of 707 Hp factory cars like the Hellcats and the Corvette ZO6 . Hell my 2005 GTO was 400 HP off the showroom floor. But the performance of the Macho T/A of it’s time was awesome. The L82 Corvette was only at 220 Horsepower and that was the top dog of American Performance cars.

But they are still fun to drive bang the gears and hear the motor do its thing. It’s still a big cube Pontiac motor after all (There is no such thing as a Big Block Pontiac)

I am a Trans Am guy you can tell by the blog, I love these Macho T/As they are a part of automotive history. Sure they are not fast but they are fun and will kick out the rear-end Dukes of Hazzard style whenever you want to.

It gets no better than that…