Birds with an attitude problem are flung at evil green pigs, demolishing a variety of structures along the way. The game is simple, fun and immensely popular. Everything from cartoons to scatter cushions has received the Angry Birds merchandise treatment. There was even a movie!

The Firebird is simple and fun like its gaming cousin, but it gets a lot angrier than the scatter cushions. It intimidates everything and everyone it gets close to, not least of all those ultra-considerate early morning road cyclists of Cape Town en route to a flat white and breakfast of organic lentils and kale. Yummy.
There’s something about a booming V8 approaching behind them that makes the shaved leg crowd immediately reconsider their three-abreast approach to life.

Despite what you are currently thinking, the “green pigs” were not the cyclists. We don’t condone scaring cyclists, even if it’s probably as much fun as the tractor-tipping scenes in the Cars movies.

Instead, the brightly coloured hogs were the unfortunate residents of Sea Point who had to bear the brunt of our V8 experience. There’s nothing like a Firebird at 5:45am on a Sunday to cure an Atlantic Seaboard hangover.
Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t drive this car quietly. Much like the many Cobra replicas that share the same engine as this particular car, the thunder starts the moment you even brush against the accelerator pedal. The often-used term “loud pedal” has strong application here.
The first rays shot over Signal Hill just after 6am. We were ready for a special shoot.

Miami setting? Hollywood blockbuster? Not quite, but almost. This exact car very nearly made it into a Vin Diesel movie currently being shot in Cape Town. The Director eventually decided Vin in a Firebird was too cliché, so they picked a different car.
Perhaps the real reason was that the bald superstar would be completely out-muscled by the Firebird’s ridiculously impressive stance?

Everyone has their type. The blonde girl-next-door with the beautiful smile. The striking redhead. The brunette with olive skin.
Then there is the girl at the bar with a dragon tattoo on her back, the purple streak in her hair, six visible piercings and black heels that are so ridiculous they should be illegal. She’s the one you would never admit to your girlfriend or wife that you looked twice at. Your mom would never approve. Your dad would never approve either, at least not publicly.
The Firebird is exactly that girl. Bad-ass to the bone. If The Rock and Tomb Raider had an automotive love child, this would be her.

Once we had dragged ourselves away from just staring at the car, it was time to drive it along one of the most iconic roads in Cape Town – Chapman’s Peak.
For possibly the first time in our lives, we were thankful for an automatic gearbox. Trying to drive a massively powerful (and frankly just massive) left-hand drive car on twisty coastal roads isn’t easy, at least at first.
You don’t drive the Firebird so much as just point it at the horizon. The 5.7l Chevy 350 does the rest. It isn’t the original engine, but it’s close enough. Putting a bigger non-standard V8 in a muscle car is socially acceptable everywhere but California.
They all want to drive electric cars anyway, so what do they know?

A V8 is much better for the world in any event, because at least the cyclists (and pedestrians) can hear it coming. The last few metres of a near-Tesla experience would be like being assaulted by a high-quality vacuum cleaner, which is neither glamorous nor enjoyable.
Once you get used to being on the wrong side of the car, you start to appreciate just how comfortable it is to drive. The automatic gearbox is perfect for cruising and the ride soaks up the bumps. The steering is smooth. The driving position is really comfortable, with the pedals straight in front of you rather than off-centre as seen in some V8s.
Like almost all American cars, trying to find two-tenths on the apex isn’t the right approach to enjoying this machine. Stay away from the accelerator through the corners, but jump on it every time there’s an open (straight) road in front of you and hold on for dear life.
GM allowed Pontiac to build the Firebird as a consolation prize, sharing a platform with the Chevrolet Camaro. The idea was to let Pontiac have a go at Chevy’s arch-rival the Mustang, without cannibalising too many Corvette sales.
Thank goodness they were given the green light. Regardless of your view on the Donald, I think we can all agree that the ’67 Firebird is doing a proper job of Making America Great Again.

(you can contact the owner here if you are interested in hiring this car for weddings etc.: