The pair arrive in Texarkana one hour early and load up the truck, but just as they head back, Carrie, a runaway bride, intercepts Bandit and jumps in his car, unwittingly making him an indirect target of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, a career Texas lawman whose witless son Junior was to have married Carrie. . Im still trying to get clarification on what a diablo sandwich is though. 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. Producers of Smokey and the Bandit wrecked 26 cars while filming the movie in 1977. That song often pops into my head at the start of long drives. a custom mandrel bent dual exhaust, and the Mondello bottom end plate to stabilize the windowed mains. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Jana, another oddity was that I could go to Carbondale and be asked where down south I was from. As I did Steve McQueen and Paul Newman. I remember that it had a bunch of trim badges on the center of the dashboard. Ive always wanted some sort of de-commission/ex unmarked cop car, something from the 70s preferably. Except that shes not sagging. That parking lot was full of Trans Ams! Smokey & The Bandit Police Cars. One of our favorite movies. It wasnt distributed in Washington in those days either. Here in Canada they didnt censor it, so we always got the sumbitch version. After the movie did well, Pontiac gave Burt a free Trans Am to drive for a few years. 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. According to Wikipedia, the second movie was able to get away with destroying an INSANE number of brand-new Pontiac LeMans police cars because Pontiac had them sitting around in the southwest region, having been sent to a rental fleet in Phoenix without a/c. Most of the shots that show Reynolds and Field in the car talking were filmed with the T/A being towed along on a lowboy trailer. The scene featuring the racetrack was filmed at Lakewood Speedway at the old Lakewood Fairgrounds on Atlanta's south side. The value of their stock rose a startling 70 percent after the films release, and to show their appreciation to Reynolds, the president said they would give the actor a new car each and every year. NY 10036. [33] Reynolds was given the 1977 vehicle used during promotion of the film as a gift, though the car itself never actually appeared in the film. . Probably the most interesting thing about this movie and Burt Reynolds is that he is not originally a Southern boy at all he was actually born in the Wolverine State Lansing, Michigan to be precise. Some fellow classmates were extras on the film set, and it was a big deal around here at the time. Most of the dialogue was improvised on set. Great write up. Needham originally planned the film as a low-budget B movie with a production cost of $1 million,[4] with Reed as the Bandit. 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. And theres this nugget from the director of the coming new Shazam movie; I first watched Smokey on quiet swing shifts from the drivers seat of a 1977 Pontiac Le Mans patrol car, parked by thr back fence of the drive-in theater at the far end of town. I recall reading somewhere that the Trans Am that did the bridge jump had a tweaked Chevy 350 in it with a stick, and of course that it was WO after the jump. 1975 PLYMOUTH FURY HIGHWAY PATROL "SMOKEY & THE BANDIT" 1/18 BY . 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. Oh, and a hooker girlfriend that looked like Annie Potts. I will confess, however, that it was a fun movie to watch and I have caught it on TV a time or two in recent years with my kids. Cape was far enough north that it was watered down and there was so much cross-pollination with the Illinois side you really didnt discern much difference. The cars were wrecked on purpose to create the illusion of a high-speed chase. And theres beer in Texarkana.. [12] The area around Helen, Georgia, was used for some locations. This movie came out during my early formative years pre grade school. A CC for a 1973 Grand Ville convertible can be found here. The sound came from a 1955 Chevrolet Custom, the same car that was used in Two-Lane Blacktop and American Graffiti, films launched in 1971 and 1973, respectively. Burt Reynolds may be 79, but he shows no signs of slowing down. After passing Buford's badly damaged cruiser on the roadside, Bandit gets on the CB and initially directs him to the Burdettes, but then respectfully gives his real locationright behind Buford, who continues his chase leaving Junior behind, and with more parts falling off his cruiser as he limps off after Bandit. I only got one of them LOL. 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. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 78% rating based on 32 reviews. I looked at a Bluesmobile worthy 1977 Plymouth Grand Fury, the big ones, it was an ex Florida Highway Patrol car, but it had a pretty good amount of rust and it was pretty beat. The 1978 Trans Am is an exact duplicate of the "Smokey and the Bandit" movie car, finished in black and gold with a screaming chicken on the hood. 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. I guess the Trans Am proved to have more staying power than the hot 71 Ford in the earlier movie. The truck at the shell station is actually a 75 or 76 Toyota Hilux. The film features the custom clothing and costuming of Niver Western Wear of Fort Worth, Texas. you can find it on amazon.com . The area around Helen, Georgia, was used for some locations. 12 A Total Of 3 Trans Ams Were Destroyed During Filming. The cop cars with the hood scoops were ex-DeKalb County (Georgia) cruisers. Luckily, both cars survived, and the Trans Am became famous only five years later. The Bandit's car was a second-generation Trans Am and the prize for completing the run was a new truck rather than $80,000. Regular film-goers might not pay much attention to the car's engine sound, but gearheads will quickly notice that something is off. On top of Burt Reynold's top-notch acting, Smokey and the Bandit is also famous for the Pontiac Trans Am that the actor drove throughout the film. I have always loved this movie, watched it dozens and dozens of times on TV, video, DVD, laserdisc, almost any form of media. The advertisements lampoon the film and feature a Pontiac Trans Am and a cover version of the song East Bound and Down. There was a problem. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. The production team wrecked three for the four cars it received from Pontiac. Apparently the engine sounds were lifted from another movie, I think two lane blacktop? Arguably the most iconic Pontiac Firebird in history. ARRGH! He is hired by Big Enos Burdette and his son Little Enos to transport a truck load of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas, back to Georgia in 28 hours. Haul my wife and four shelter adoptee mutts in it. Her groom? Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox would bring several cases after playing on the West Coast, by stashing them in the equipment trunks on the team's plane. (it did taste a lot better than Bud as I recall). Here is the LeMans; Gleason literally drives the wheels off: As an aside, heres a curious bit of trivia. Nothing annoys him more than car electronics, and he just hates it when performance cars lack a third pedal. Sheriff Justices son, Junior. WildI watched this for the first time in years after watching the latest Archer.the whole thing is an homage to S&B. Some of the original sound effects (such as Cledus's dog Fred barking) and music (such as the final chase to the Southern Classic) were removed and not replaced. His father was also the inspiration for the word "sumbitch" used in the film, a variation of the phrase "son-of-a-bitch" that, according to Reynolds, he uttered quite often. Reynolds replied: We went through 12. 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. As I am finishing this article while Big Truck Week is winding down, here is a Kenworth with a 1973 Dodge Polara patrol car. I fondly remember lots and lots of terrible B grade movies @ the drive in in the early to mid 1970s all featuring cars racing , smashing and so on . An effort to recreate a jump from Smokey and the Bandit doesn't go perfectly when the car takes a rough course off the ramp. My drivers ed driving range car was an ex-patrol colonnade Pontiac LeMans Enforcer. There definitely was a halo cast around the 2nd gen F-body from its appearance in the movie, which I believe even did extend to the Camaro, which was probably the cheapest way to at least get some of the Bandit vibe, where there other factors too, probably, the 70s, disco, cocaine, mustaches and probably a bunch others.many thought that these car would be the last hurrah for anything performance oriented. 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. Jason, Using the words nuance, subtlety, complexity and intellect to describe this movie, is, as they say, trs amusant! Thats all true. Just like the exaggeration sales went up 700%. [10], Principal photography of the film began on August 30, 1976. Id like to hear from Mr. Needham why so many of those police cars had what look like shaker hood scoops. Except for Gleason, the original actors mostly redubbed their lines for the television version. I am pretty sure it was filmed in Florida, when I-75 was under construction so they could use the highways while empty. And he succeeded as far as the Pontiac Trans Am is concerned. The little packy there had Coors and even though it was horribly expensive, we thought it was the elixer of the Gods. One of those things that will make my kids think Im crazy some day. He paid $550,000 for it, likely a record for any Pontiac Firebird. Today, Smokey and the Bandit remains one of the most popular car action films ever made, and the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am will forever be wed to the movie. That came out in 1981. I have worked a long time to eradicate the one I had but it still crops up periodically from exposure, like you experienced. The owner restored it and sold it at the Scottsdale 2016 auction by Barrett-Jackson. Depends upon what he converted it from. I agree, despite people saying you sound cute, it seems like they think Ellie Mae Clapett or Jethro Bodean. The scene where Sheriff Justice's car has the door knocked off by a passing semi-truck was shot on Georgia State Route 75, 3 miles (4.8km) north of Helen. [18] A 1974 Time magazine article explains that Coors was so coveted for its lack of stabilizers and preservatives, and Coors Banquet Beer had a brief renaissance. I know, Ive owned a 75 for 23 years. From living there for my first two decades, I noticed the accent didnt get going good until around Sikeston (not Saxton as it would seem) and it progressed as you went deeper into the Bootheel. As a former Club Wagon pilot, I happen to like his Econoline. Other sources in East Texas (from whence Sheriff Justice hails) are familiar with the popular regional delicacy known as the Diablo Sandwich. Im gonna barbecue your ass in molasses., Re: The picture with 4 ladies and the wagon and van.