Although 1977 models also featured 6.6-liter engines, they were rated at only 200 horses. 2-Smokey and the Bandit II-Pretty bad, still has some funny campy crap, the Dom DeLuise Italian Dr. bit is ok, Gleason is still pretty funny, the Turbo T/A is pretty weak, but still cool to see. In the Reynolds portion of the interview, he stated the movie prompted Trans Am sales to jump around 700%. While they did jump, from 46,700 in 1976 to 69,000 for 1977 with another 93,300 for 1978, it wasnt exactly 700%. The cars were originally ordered by a car rental agency in Phoenix, who refused to accept the . Free shipping for many products! Wouldnt the accent give you away? Anyone with insight is encouraged to share their knowledge on this. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. I remember borrowing my brothers red 1976 T/A to take a girl to the theater to see Smokey and the Bandit. Also up for auction was a go-kart replica of the car, which sold for nearly $14,000. Let me get the popcorn for this one. Coors wasnt pasteurized. Smokey and the Bandit II is a 1980 American action comedy film directed by Hal Needham, and starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, . About two seconds after this picture was taken, these motorcycles were doing their best imitation of a stack of pancakes. Here is the LeMans; Gleason literally drives the wheels off: As an aside, heres a curious bit of trivia. When Smokey & The Banditfirst aired on television in the early 1980s, the Gleason phrase sum bitcha regional butchering of son of a bitchhad to be dubbed out. I am still drawn to the shape of these cars, and others that have that long and low look about them. thebandit77transam 2009-04-14 14:04. andre1969 wrote Pontiac supplied 5 brand-new cars for "Smokey and the Bandit". From what I have read the artist did the poster rendering from some blown up stills that he was shown from the movie, and none of them for some mysterious reason included the Trans Am, the truck, Reynolds, Gleason, Sally Field, crashing police cars, but no T/A. He has no less than four movies listed as coming out, and they run the gamut from romantic drama to family comedy to horror mystery to action thriller. Reynolds and Needham owned the Skoal Bandit team at the time, so getting these other drivers to appear probably would not taken much more than a six pack of beer and a hug from co-star Loni Anderson . After the movie did well, Pontiac gave Burt a free Trans Am to drive for a few years. And lets not forget the Trans Am rental car Steve McQueen drove in his very last movie, The Hunter from 1980. A blackguard? That's because the Trans Am in Smokey and the Bandit didn't sound like a Trans Am. This gives rise to various continuity errors with Justice's patrol car, which during some chase sequences is shown with a black rear fender, which then reverts to the car's bronze color again in later scenes. We gonna do what they say cant be done I certainly hope the guy hired to drive that 74 Ford Torino wagon was paid well for his work. We stopped in that same Safeway later on the way back home from southern Cal, and they had a huge display of cases of Coors out on the floor near the checkstands. [9] Though the film Moonrunners (1975) is the precursor to the television series The Dukes of Hazzard (19791985), from the same creator and with many identical settings and concepts, the popularity of Smokey and the Bandit and similar films helped get the Dukes series on the air. I imagine that they borrowed some of the character from Sheriff JW Pepper from the 1973 and 1974 James Bond movies, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun. I guess the Trans Am proved to have more staying power than the hot 71 Ford in the earlier movie. how many cars were destroyed in smokey and the bandit 2 how many cars were destroyed in smokey and the bandit 2 (No Ratings Yet) . The next movie, Smokey and the Bandit II, featured the same cast and an updated version of the Trans Am.The second version of the Smokey and the Bandit car was a 1980 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that had a similar paint job, the updated front end, and gold "Turbine" style wheels.The 1980 models featured a turbocharged 4.9L Pontiac V8, but that still wasn't enough power for the stunt personnel. According to an interview with Susie McIver Ewing on The RetroZest Podcast, she was picked to play the role of Hot Pants Hilliard after the dailies footage (shot in the Atlanta area) of the original actress playing the role was inadvertently destroyed on its way from Atlanta to Los Angeles. With the Smokey and the Bandit actor gone, and the impact the actor had on the Trans Am community, having one of the few connections to him destroyed is too much. If you watched the second clip above, this truck should look familiar. ARRGH! The film was followed by two sequels: Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983). The side vents give it away. Two cars were reportedly badly damaged in early stunts in the film, while a third car was completely destroyed during the famous bridge jump scene. The Pontiac Trans Am seems like a natural choice for Smokey and the Bandit, but the car was only a few inches close to not being used in the movie. In its place was the nonsensical scum bum. The voice over actor? Sheriff Justices son, Junior. Many hardcore fans of Burt Reynolds' most iconic movie, 1977's "Smokey and The Bandit," know that none of those cool black Pontiac Trans Ams with gold trim survived the stunts in the film. The tow truck driver was a local garage owner, Berlin Wike. Please to note I didnt say _I_ didnt like them as I was in my 20s then (early 1970s) so I hustled my self and my Russian girlfriend right on down to the cinema every time Burt Reynolds had a new flick , I personally loved his movies even the chick flicks like The Man Who Loved Women , I just had to hear earfuls from everyone else about how awful he / those movies were.. We even bought one of those Pontiac Police Specials on auction from. I remember reading somewhere that one of the cars was equipped with a 455 for some of the higher speed scenes. Field enjoyed making the film, but remembers that virtually the entire project was improvised. Actor Henry Corden, who voiced Fred Flintstone after original performer Alan Reed died the same year the film was released, was used to replace a considerable amount of Sheriff Justice's dialogue. His personaround, dumpy, and clipping wordsreminds one of another fictional southern sheriff. Even when the 2nd gen was already coasting on fumes, and defanged, and after the reasonably shitty Smokey and the Bandit sequel, Pontiac managed to pump out 107,000 Trans Ams in 1980 and 70,000 for the 2nd gen Trans Ams swan song in 1981. During a Q&A session on Saturday, filmed by ComicBook.com, a fan asked how many Trans Ams they burned through during production. He had quite a few orders for Coors beer, and when he stopped in Weed, CA, on the way home, he went into the Safeway and asked for twenty-four cases of Coors. February 27, 2023 . Gotta love that guy! Three actors from the main cast of The Dukes of Hazzard appear in small uncredited roles in Smokey and the Bandit: Ben Jones, John Schneider, and Sonny Shroyer (who played a police officer in both). Lets take a look. No more needs to be said. I drive a conversion van. But while the cars shown in the movie look like 1977-model-year Trans Ams, they were actually 1976 models. However, the scene and the obscured expletive were played for comedy value and written as such, with the passing truck being the gag of the scene more than a way to avoid the censors. Of course, nobody else cared if it was in the trunk of the car when heading back home. Theres really nothing like an old cop car. Ive also looked at a Fox based LTD cop car and an early 1991 whale Caprice 9C1 detective model, burgundy on burgundy cloth. Jackie Gleason ad libbed a lot of his lines too. At the time, using "fuck" would immediately require an R rating and this self-censorship allowed the film to avoid this rating and reach a much larger audience. Further, as Pontiac has deliciously obvious product placement, anyone who delights in 70s era Pontiac iron will experience visual ecstasy. The films are indeed classic and very funny to this day. Many people believed beforehand that the film was not right for . While watching the movie (yes, I did have to diligently research this article), one shot seemed to indicate this may be a dummy scoop. In particular, the scene where Sheriff Justice unknowingly encounters the Bandit in the "choke and puke" (a roadside diner) was not in the original story but was rather Gleason's idea. However, the scene where they drive through the Shell gas station was filmed in Ojai, California, on the corner of Ojai Avenue and El Paseo Road. Ironically I never really cared all that much for Coors, I dont think it has much flavor, but it was well received when we got to Kentucky. The commercials were produced after Stewart mentioned that the movie was one of his favorites.[39]. The remaining Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am is currently owned by Florida car collector John Staluppi. You want to questions bra sales, check out the youtube video of Hang on Sloopy by the Mccoys, the color version.wowza! American Brands: AMC, Jeep and All Others, Tractors, Lawn Mowers, Off-Road Equipment, CC Outtake: The CC House, and With a New Recent Exotic Addition, CC TV Outtake: This Used Car Commercial Didn't Make It On The Air, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cODPt3T0cHE. The comedy has been remastered to DVD standards. So these kind of represented a rebellion attitude to the government mandated diesel econo hatches everyone thought we were going to be forced to drive in the 80sinterestingly 1979 was also the best year for the Corvette too. Amazing how a combination of desire and unobtainability can make an ordinary product special. [37], The first run in 2007 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the movie, The Bandit Run was the brainchild of Dave Hall, owner of Restore A Muscle Car. Some fellow classmates were extras on the film set, and it was a big deal around here at the time. You can see in some shots in the movie that the Bandit Trans Am has 1976 style gold honeycomb wheels instead of the gold snowflake wheels from the 1977, I think at least one of the cars used in filming was a 1976 converted with a 1977 front clip. A paper on Cognitive psychology was published in the 1990 issue of Computers in Human Perception. Burt Reynolds once claimed in an interview that there were actually 12 Trans Ams featured in Smokey and the Banditand he wrecked every one. Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Furious 7 may ruin a lot of cars, but they were far from the first. Please refresh the page and try again. [31] Smokey and the Bandit was released in the United Kingdom on August 28 and was a success there, garnering positive reviews. Its lack of additives and preservatives meant that Coors could spoil in one week without refrigeration, explaining the film's 28-hour deadline. Get ready to tear up the highway with the Bandit (Burt Reynolds), a fun-loving, fast-talking trucker who takes on his craziest haul yet - delivering 400 case. [10], Principal photography of the film began on August 30, 1976. $30.00 + $11.45 shipping. I am pretty sure it was filmed in Florida, when I-75 was under construction so they could use the highways while empty. Sure Smokey helped, but was not the sole reason T/A and F body sales went up. Sales almost doubled in two years, which is a very big deal given that the Trans Ams 1978 facelift was rather minor save for the front fascia. If you notice there are several different angled skid marks on the road in the scene where the Bandit picks up Frog, you can see that they did a couple of takes of the T/A skidding to a stop and taking off again. Id like to hear from Mr. Needham why so many of those police cars had what look like shaker hood scoops. The man does get around. Hes fodder enough for his own article at some point. According to director Hal Needham in the DVD documentary, Pontiac gave them three Trans-Ams and two LeMans (Sheriff Justice's patrol car) for the film. Good silly fun. I remember that it had a bunch of trim badges on the center of the dashboard. The theatrical release has a few lines deleted, including an edit in which Sheriff Justice tells a state trooper to "fuck off" after the sheriff called his vehicle "a piece of crap". Gleasons Justice is the stereotypical Southern sheriff, as seen in this clip. It was destroyed in Smokey and the Bandit II and in a flashback scene in Part 3. The 1977 Firebird Trans Am once owned by Burt Reynolds was sold at auction Saturday for $495,000 at a sale held by Barrett-Jackson. For Smokey and the Bandit II (1980), Needham asked for and received 10 Trans Ams and 55 Bonnevilles with no trouble. Actually, there were 2 future Dukes stars in the movie: Ben Jones (Cooter) was in an early scene helping Big Enos find Bandit. a custom mandrel bent dual exhaust, and the Mondello bottom end plate to stabilize the windowed mains. Every idiot with more money than brains wanted a Trans Am. Since mentioning the Kenworth, it must be noted it was a redecorator of the highest fashion. And he succeeded as far as the Pontiac Trans Am is concerned. Chevy almost did the same with its counterpart, the Camaro. He paid $550,000 for it, likely a record for any Pontiac Firebird. In the 1977 movie Smokey and the Bandit, a high-speed chase ensues between the police and the Bandit (Burt Reynolds). Musicians such as Beegie Adair and George Tidwell[20] played on the soundtrack. The soundtrack album was released in 1977 on vinyl, cassette, and 8-track through MCA Records. Jackie Gleasons Buford T. Justice character is a supposedly an amalgamation of a few characters, including the real Buford T. Justicethere is obviously the Dodge safety sheriff from the 1970s ads, Burt Reynolds father was chief of police of Jupiter Florida, and a friend of his fathers, a Florida Highway Patrol officer was actually the REAL Buford T. Justice. A 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville, seen toward the end of the movie. As luck and script writing would have it, Frog has left her groom at the altar. Gleason probably wanted too much money to provide the dubbing, which is a shame because it ruins the TV version. The 79-year-old 70s and 80s heartthrob made a rare public appearance over the weekend at Wizard World Chicago. Now then you mentionned Sheriff JW Pepper, I decided to post some Youtube clips of him. The sticker read "T/A 6.6," which was a reminder of the engine's 6.6-liter displacement. By the end of June, it had played in major Southern markets, including Charlotte, Atlanta, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Memphis, Dallas, and Oklahoma City, grossing $11.9 million. The $%&#* Germans got nuthin to do with it!, Such a great movie I grew up in the 80s, so it was comforting to watch this, Blues Brothers, or Animal House once a week on TBS/TNT. Burt Reynolds as the Bandit can always count on the truckers on the other end of his C.B. That said, an uncomplimentary accent does exist. UNIVERSAL CUT THE BUDGET JUST AS PRODUCTION WAS ABOUT TO BEGIN. They called out equipment like Radial Tuned Suspension, Calibrated Speedometer, and Power Disc Brakes. Maybe even the dual exhausts and the 400-4 merited badges. [5] Reynolds revealed in his autobiography that Needham had written the first draft script on legal pads. There was still a market for bras in the 1970s. While the initial concern was it having a regional appeal, it would ultimately play as well in New York City and Chicago as it did Atlanta, Georgia, or Biloxi, Mississippi. They destroyed all those cars in the films he said. Bandit attracts more police attention across Dixie as Snowman barrels on toward Atlanta with the contraband beer, but they are helped en route by many colorful characters via CB radio.
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