Pontiac engineer Herb Adams, one of the famed engineers behind the GTO Judge, the 455 Super Duty, and the Trans Am, built the car as a hobby project in 1965 with inspiration from the Alfa Romeo B.A.T. concept cars of the 1950s.
Though he worked for Pontiac at the time, he pursued the Vivant as a side project, without any assistance from Pontiac itself. Drawing on his experience as a competitor in the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild contests, he built a model of his design. That encouraged him to go ahead and build a chassis in his garage using Pontiac parts sourced from a junkyard, including a Tempest transaxle, full-size Pontiac Bonneville alloy eight-lug wheels, and a Pontiac 370-cu.in. V-8.
Adams debuted the car at the 1966 Detroit Autorama but quickly sold it to settle a few racing debts incurred while in SCCA Trans-Am. It went into hiding for the next 40 years, reemerging from an Ohio lockup and going into restoration in 2010.
https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2019/08/22/eclectic-rides-from-the-quail-2019
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2011/09/22/herb-adamss-vivant-seen-in-public-for-the-first-time-in-40-years/
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