The Trans Am used in the movie was a 1976 model with the front end of a 1977 car. How Many Police Cars Were Destroyed In Blues Brothers His personaround, dumpy, and clipping wordsreminds one of another fictional southern sheriff. The differences between the two are major. Mr. Reynolds made a bunch of low budget films before this , all had wild chase scenes with cop cars crashing & going into swamps . Everything You Should Know About The The Trans Am From Smokey And The 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. I was in the Air Force during this era, stationed in California. 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. As I am finishing this article while Big Truck Week is winding down, here is a Kenworth with a 1973 Dodge Polara patrol car. Anyone with insight is encouraged to share their knowledge on this. [8] Niver provided much of the western attire worn in the film, as well as the custom-made sheriff's uniforms (waist size 64") that Gleason wore throughout the film. I am indeed a fan. The paint code for each truck was coffee brown with gold trims and the 48-foot (15m) mural trailer used was manufactured by Hobbs Trailers in Texas with a non-operational Thermo King Refrigeration unit. I agree, despite people saying you sound cute, it seems like they think Ellie Mae Clapett or Jethro Bodean. Now then you mentionned Sheriff JW Pepper, I decided to post some Youtube clips of him. The T/A is just as quick as my present Challenger is, but the Challenger doesnt have anything close to the throttle response it had, and I miss it. thebandit77transam 2009-04-14 14:04. andre1969 wrote Pontiac supplied 5 brand-new cars for "Smokey and the Bandit". The owner restored it and sold it at the Scottsdale 2016 auction by Barrett-Jackson. Smokey and the Bandit Pursuit Pack 1 2 3 DVD Burt Reynolds Cult Car After the movie came out, Firebird sales increased even more, but the Trans Am was now the most popular one. http://www.leelofland.com/wordpress/john-fedack-my-days-as-a-dekalb-county-police-officer/. He contacted Pontiac and an agreement was made that four 1977 Trans Ams and two Pontiac LeMans four-door sedans would be provided for the movie. Much of the surrounding scene comes from that immediate vicinity. You want to questions bra sales, check out the youtube video of Hang on Sloopy by the Mccoys, the color version.wowza! In its place was the nonsensical "scum bum." . The story replaced the Coors beer with Mobil 1 products. Except for Gleason, the original actors mostly redubbed their lines for the television version. It was a powerful car, and I was glad to be issued it as my range car instead of one of the new but already disintegrating 1985 Oldsmobiles supplied by a local dealer that most people had. During a Q&A session on Saturday, filmed by ComicBook.com, a fan asked how many Trans Ams they burned through during production. Needham and assistant director David Hamburger spent 30 hours revising the shooting schedule.[4]. Some of the more recent DVD releases of it redid all of the engine sounds and it sounds much more mellow than the original(not happy about that). But that doesnt make for an interesting movie premise. I remember borrowing my brothers red 1976 T/A to take a girl to the theater to see Smokey and the Bandit. Naturally, it fetched the highest price with a . For this purpose, they overdubbed dialogue deemed offensive, which was common practice. They destroyed all those cars in the films he said. Gleason was a genius, but this was not one of his better outings I prefer the Hustler and Gigot. you can find it on amazon.com . Actually, there were 2 future Dukes stars in the movie: Ben Jones (Cooter) was in an early scene helping Big Enos find Bandit. Great article! Upon showing it to his friend, Reynolds told Needham that it was the worst script he had ever read, but that he would still make the movie. Trio of Burt Reynolds movie cars fetch $330,000 at auction, including Pontiac gave Needham a total of four cars, three to use in the movie, and one as a promotional vehicle to drive around and advertise Smokey and the Bandit following its release. For a little visual variety of sorts, and possibly an indicator of what car was about to be wrecked, the producers did branch out to use the 1975-era Plymouth Fury as another police car. It outsold its Chevrolet Camaro counterpart for the first time. 13 Fast Facts About Smokey and the Bandit - Mental Floss [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. And Coors itself limited its distribution to west of the Mississippi. 12 A Total Of 3 Trans Ams Were Destroyed During Filming. The most noted change made for network broadcast was the replacing of Buford's often-spoken phrase "sumbitch" (a contraction of "son of a bitch"; usually in reference to the Bandit) with the phrase "scum bum". 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. Did I mention how much I enjoy reading all the back stories and niggly details I can only get here ? The Bandit takes the bet on the risky and unprecedented task, and recruits his partner Cledus "Snowman" Snow to drive the truck, while Bandit drives a black Pontiac Trans Am bought in advance from the Burdettes as a "blocker" to divert attention away from the truck and its illegal cargo. Except that shes not sagging. Reed would eventually play the Bandit in Smokey and the Bandit Part 3, in which Reynolds only appeared in a cameo near the end. 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. The redesign was originally planned for 1980, but 1978 and 1979 became record years for GM's division, so the new model was pushed back. Many people believed beforehand that the film was not right for . Remember that Smokey and the Bandit was the 2nd biggest movie of the year, right after Star Wars. 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. One guy did a while ago a fan-made trailer of Smokey & the Bandit 4. Seven: (Three with Burt Reynolds and Crew, and Four without) Smokey and the Bandit - 1977 Smokey and the Bandit II - 1980 Smokey and the Bandit III . The Trans Am used for said jump was equipped with a booster rocket, the same type that was used by Evel Knievel during his failed Snake River Canyon jump. Below is probably another DeKalb County cop car. Mrs Jason wont let me sell the sumbitch. The sticker read "T/A 6.6," which was a reminder of the engine's 6.6-liter displacement. The hood scoop on these cars says "6.6 LITRE", which, in 1977, would have denoted an Oldsmobile 403-equipped car or a non-W-72, 180 hp version of the 400 Pontiac engine. In Smokey and the Bandit, there were eight 1977 Trans-Am cars and approximately the same number of police cars (but some said ten). What Sports Cars Are In Smokey And The Bandit - OsVehicle When it is finally torn off along with the car's roof in the impact with the girder, the missing fender still reappears later on in the film. Nah, they survived by coming up with bras with very thin cups. [22] It premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, where it performed badly. The man does get around. Reynolds replied: We went through 12. The cashier never batted an eye as she sold us the mass quantities of suds. As a kid that T/A, the General Lee, and KITT were largely responsible for defining my taste in cars and that carries through to today. Smokey & The Bandit was the first of three movies in that franchise. And the 400 Pontiac or 403 Olds versions could be made to run well. I also own a Etrl replica of the Pontiac Bonneville Buford T. Justice drove in Smokey and The Bandit II. Frog not included. The new Hot Pants scene had to quickly be refilmed as a part of a second unit in the San Fernando Valley and was shot at a drive-in restaurant near Hansen Dam named Baby Beef Burgers, which has since been demolished. The original uncut sumbitch version. I also own a 1:18 scale version of the Bandit Trans Am. The Kenworth even achieves a trifecta of sorts, as it gave the first dent to Sheriff Justices LeMans. [38], In 2014, petroleum company Mobil 1 produced television commercials, featuring then-NASCAR driver Tony Stewart, closely based on the film. The film features the custom clothing and costuming of Niver Western Wear of Fort Worth, Texas. It is now sold in all states as Coors ships it in refrigerated train cars and bottled locally and sold in different parts of the country including the eastern US states. Wealthy Texan Big Enos Burdette and his son Little Enos have sponsored a racer in Atlanta's Southern Classic and want to celebrate in style when he wins, so they are seeking a trucker willing to bootleg Coors Beer to Atlanta for their refreshment. Let me get the popcorn for this one. Nuts about any form of classic motorsport and muscle cars, Ciprian's currently working on a time machine that would take him back to the 1960s for a long vacation alongside Dan Gurney and Jim Hall. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 78% rating based on 32 reviews. Well, the Corvettes success is clearly due to Corvette Summer, @Jim I remember that movie! Let us dissect this flick to better examine it. Other sources in East Texas (from whence Sheriff Justice hails) are familiar with the popular regional delicacy known as the Diablo Sandwich. Check out the entire video below. Not everything was Pontiac, as evidenced by this 1973 Plymouth Satellite coupe (CC here). I drive a conversion van. The little packy there had Coors and even though it was horribly expensive, we thought it was the elixer of the Gods. I dont know whose idea was to replace the wicked Two Lane Blacktop Chevy sourced engine sound effects with an authentic 200 horsepower muffled smogger 400, but that sumbitch is a scumbum!!! A movie for the people, "Smokey and the Bandit" is more - Hagerty [24] With an original budget of $5.3 million (cut to $4.3 million two days before initial production),[4] the film eventually grossed $126,737,428 in North America,[25] making it the second-highest-grossing movie of 1977 (only Star Wars earned more, with $221.3 million). With Reynolds' salary at $1 million, Needham was left with only $3.3 million to make the film. ARRGH! 46,000 in 1976, 68,000 in 1977, 93,000 in 1978, 117,000 in 1979. If they werent burning candles to an image of a cowboy hatted Burt Reynolds at Pontiac headquarters. In 1978, Pontiac delivered 93,351 Trans Ams and 93,944 regular Firebirds for a grand total of 187,295 cars. When I was a kid, there was an old record from the 50s around the house that was a collection of radio and tv bloopers. One was a radio ad for a movie that went something like: . It was destroyed in Smokey and the Bandit II and in a flashback scene in Part 3. With Reynolds agreement to do the movie, and his insistence upon casting Gleason as Sheriff Justice, the movie became a larger venture. The Trans Am was a high-performance package for the Firebird, Pontiac's take on the Chevrolet Camaro. Gleason probably wanted too much money to provide the dubbing, which is a shame because it ruins the TV version. [5] Reynolds revealed in his autobiography that Needham had written the first draft script on legal pads. When Im driving the Bandit Trans Am while playing one of my many Forza Motorsport games I always put that song on. The site's consensus states: "Not much in the head but plenty beneath the hood, Smokey and the Bandit is infectious fun with plenty of car wrecks to keep your eyes glued". In addition to the four Trans Ams, Needham also received two Pontiac LeMans models to serve as patrol cars in the movie. The scenes set in Texarkana were filmed in Jonesboro and the surrounding area and many of the chase scenes were filmed in the surrounding areas on Highway 54 between Fayetteville and Jonesboro for a majority of the driving scenes, Mundy's Mill Road, Main Street in Jonesboro, Georgia State Route 400, I-85 (Pleasant Hill exit) and in McDonough. One of those things that will make my kids think Im crazy some day. As a publicity stunt, the Trans Ams used in the movie had different decals on the hood scoop. I still regret selling mine almost 30 years ago. Luckily, both cars survived, and the Trans Am became famous only five years later. Director Hal Needham convinced Pontiac to feature the Pontiac Trans Am in the movie. Even today when I stumble across this cinematic masterpiece being rerun on cable tv, Ill watch the entire thing. Now, having only three Trans Ams to wreck for a movie is minimalist, to say the least. 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. "Buford T. Justice" was the name of a real Florida Highway Patrolman known to Reynolds' father, who was once Police Chief of Riviera Beach, Florida. $30.00 + $11.45 shipping. In a rare public appearance, Burt Reynolds revealed how many cars they wrecked making Smokey and Round and dumpy, just like the Colonnade LeMans! Thank you for signing up to CinemaBlend. These were the cans with the two circular push buttons on top instead of pull tabs. In 1976-78, while a high school student in Norwalk, CT, me and a few buddies would routinely drive up to Vista, NY, which was just over the state line. This reminds me of the classic introduction (actually written by Dick Cavett) said by Jack Paar on The Tonight Show: I was 3 years old when the original came out, and do not remember any of these details but, supposedly this was the first movie my parents ever took me to. The directorial debut of stuntman Hal Needham, the film follows Bo "Bandit" Darville (Reynolds) and Cledus "Snowman" Snow (Reed), two bootleggers attempting to illegally transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana to Atlanta. So lets explore this car (and truck) heavy flick, all while giving those who have not seen it a glimpse into a movie whose complexity and intellect remains unparalleled within the history of cinema. Whaddya expect outta a guy what drives a conversion van? [32], After the debut of the film, the Pontiac Trans Am became wildly popular, with sales almost doubling within two years of the film's release. Suncook River Swimming, Astro A50 Firmware Update Stuck At 25, Bedlington Whippet Lurcher Puppies For Sale, Articles H
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