. This was the lull between Gas Crisis I and II, 1976-78, and Boomers were wanting stylish cars. Sales of the coupe exploded after the film hit the silver screen and set unprecedented records for both Pontiac and the Firebird nameplate. I own all three films on a dvd called the Smokey and The Bandit Pursuit Pack. (first posted 2/28/2014) The fourth highest grossing film in the United States in 1977 was the Academy Award nominatedSmokey & The Bandit. Film critic Leonard Maltin gave the film a good rating (3 stars out of a possible 4) and characterized it as "about as subtle as The Three Stooges, but a classic compared to the sequels and countless rip-offs which followed". I am pretty sure it was filmed in Florida, when I-75 was under construction so they could use the highways while empty. It had the Modello cam kit, ported 69(I think) heads with upsized valves, headers, aftermarket intake, 3.21 gears (Up from 2.41 stock!) Burt Reynolds plays truck driver Bo Bandit Darville. My family did all grocery shopping in Cape. You might think that seeing their cars routinely destroyed on movie screens across the country would give the manufacturer pause, but that is not the case at all. 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. 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 . How many smokey and the bandit movies are there? I was a junior high school age kid when this film came out. Smokey and the Bandit: Behind-the-Scenes Details With - MotorTrend Great fun! 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". I think Stroker Ace is after Smokey and the Bandit, though there was Hooper, which was about a stuntman, it also had Sally Field, it was from 1978 or so. I never understood why dragging a truckload of beer from Colorado to Georgia was such a big deal. 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. A paper on Cognitive psychology was published in the 1990 issue of Computers in Human Perception. Thats all well and good, and it worked smooth as silk for a good while. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. 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: . A group of Trans Am owners and fans of the movie take part in an annual road trip from Texarkana to Jonesboro, recreating the route taken by the characters in the film. Smokey and the Bandit Pursuit Pack 1 2 3 DVD Burt Reynolds Cult Car a custom mandrel bent dual exhaust, and the Mondello bottom end plate to stabilize the windowed mains. When I was a kid I thought they were the same person. Some people have ripped this film as being thin on plot; others have called it a documentary about life south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Needham stated that by the end of production, there really wasnt much left of any of the three. The three movie cars were destroyed during various stunts, so the promo car is the only surviving Trans Am connected to this film. They destroyed all those cars in the films he said. 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. The movie had an even bigger impact on the Trans Am. On the DVD, there is a brief interview with both Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham, who directed this film. Alan Reed was the original voice of Fred Flintstone; Henry Corden only took over after Reeds death in 1977. As a feature-length car chase, the car was as much of a star as Burt Reynolds, and the film gave birth to the cult of the Trans Am. While I have read undocumented accounts of there being more than three Trans Ams, Needham stated three is all that were used. Let me get the popcorn for this one. I still regret selling mine almost 30 years ago. Well, the Corvettes success is clearly due to Corvette Summer, @Jim I remember that movie! 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. I am still drawn to the shape of these cars, and others that have that long and low look about them. 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. Gas was a buck a gallon at the time so fuel economy wasnt a major issue. The MASSIVE year over year sales gains came from somewhere. Coors wasnt pasteurized. 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. I enjoyed the hell out of my 1976 Dart Pursuit. A dastardly scoundrel? I just dont like car novices that assume the Pontiac T/A was soley a movie tie in car and the it started in 1977.. And then they made the biggest mistake of their lives and went to national distribution. A 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville, seen toward the end of the movie. Called Smoke is the Bandit and playing on Stewart's nickname, the commercials featured him as the Bandit opposite commentators Darrell Waltrip as the Snowman and Jeff Hammond as Buford T. Justice. [4] Reynolds said in 2015 that he most enjoyed this film, and had the most fun making it, of his career.[26]. A black Trans Am is parked in my garage because of this movie. . In fact, after Smokey and the Bandit became a box office hit, Pontiac saw a marked increase in their stock prices. IMCDb.org: 1977 Pontiac LeMans in "Smokey and the Bandit, 1977" I only got one of them LOL. The other range car was a Chevette for people that wanted to learn on a manual transmission. [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. I still think its more entertaining than Star Wars. Behind Sheriff Justices Pontiac, there is a nice looking 1965 or 1966 Ford Mustang fastback and a Toyota pickup. East bound and down, loaded up and truckin In a rare public appearance, Burt Reynolds revealed how many cars they wrecked making Smokey and That came out in 1981. The secrets behind the cars and stunts in 'The Italian Job'. That's because Pontiac almost canceled the Firebird in the early 1970s. 1979 was equally successful for the brand, joining 1978 to create Pontiac's best sales years ever. At the drive-in of all places. 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. Sonny Shroyer (Enos) was the motorcycle cop who was given the 1-finger salute by Sally Field. [6] It would become one of Reed's biggest hits and his signature song.[7]. In October 2020, a Smokey and the Bandit TV series was revealed to be in development, with a pilot written by David Gordon Green and Brian Sides and also executive produced with his Rough House confederates Jody Hill, Danny McBride and Brandon James, as well as Seth MacFarlane and Erica Huggins of Fuzzy Door.[44]. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for 1980 ERTL SMOKEY & THE BANDIT PONTIAC FIREBIRD DIECAST CAR police car set at the best online prices at eBay! Did Jerry Reed really drive the truck in Smokey and the Bandit It was destroyed in Smokey and the Bandit II and in a flashback scene in Part 3. 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. One time a friend and I drove back to Kentucky on leave rather than flying; no particular reason, we had plenty of time and wanted to see some of the country. It had amazing throttle response, with a hit that either scared people, or made them giggle. [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. These two 1967 Ford Galaxies (CC here), soon to be redecorated by a Kenworth road tractor, do not. 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. 46,000 in 1976, 68,000 in 1977, 93,000 in 1978, 117,000 in 1979. The comedy has been remastered to DVD standards. As I am finishing this article while Big Truck Week is winding down, here is a Kenworth with a 1973 Dodge Polara patrol car. 1975 Plymouth Fury Police Pursuit Arkansas State Police "Smokey and The How many police cars were wrecked in Smokey and the Bandit? Burt Reynolds once claimed in an interview that there were actually 12 Trans Ams featured in Smokey and the Banditand he wrecked every one. Check out the entire video below. how many cars were destroyed in smokey and the bandit 2. 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. Misconception by casual novice car fans is that the Trams Am didnt sell well until S&B. 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. All pictures from the movie were acquired from www.imcdb.org, Fred Lives!!! The soundtrack album was released in 1977 on vinyl, cassette, and 8-track through MCA Records. The third film which had no involvement from either Hal Needham or Sally Field and contained only a short cameo appearance by Burt Reynolds revolved entirely around Jackie Gleason's character, was panned by critics, and was a box office bomb, earning only $7 million against a $9 million budget.[41][42][43]. Free shipping for many products! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cODPt3T0cHE, We got a cage strong enough to hold you What were the police cars in Smokey and the Bandit? It was the second highest-grossing film of the year, trailing only Star Wars: A New Hope, and it made Burt Reynolds into a certifiable superstar. And all of us easterners suddenly discovered it was nothing more than another Budweiser/Miller/etc. Needham had great difficulty getting any studios or producers to take his project seriously, being better known in the film industry as a stuntman. Other than Jackie Gleason upstaging every other cast member, the perceived star of the show is this 1977 Pontiac Trans Am. 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. A couple of years ago, I was sitting around on a lazy Saturday afternoon and it was on TV. 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 . With this, the Sheriff begins his pursuit of the Mann Act-violating Banditall the way to Georgia. I am indeed a fan. Nothing annoys him more than car electronics, and he just hates it when performance cars lack a third pedal. 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. Smokey and the Bandit II - Wikipedia The cop cars with the hood scoops were ex-DeKalb County (Georgia) cruisers. Naturally, it fetched the highest price with a . 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 was in West Plains the other day and there is yet another variation of it there. Im still trying to get clarification on what a diablo sandwich is though. Also up for auction was a go-kart replica of the car, which sold for nearly $14,000. Despite growing up next to Cape, most of relatives are from the Mid-South. Its amazing, you should watch it. I grew up in Illinois, within eyeshot of the banks of the MIssissippi River, and ten miles from Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The truck at the shell station is actually a 75 or 76 Toyota Hilux. 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. And back then what I wanted most of all was a highly customized Vette with exposed headlights. [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). This movie trailer gives you an taste of this provocative film, but fails to effectively capture all the subtleties and nuances it contains. So why did they go with sound effects instead of the Trans Am's actually exhaust noise? The scene featuring the racetrack was filmed at Lakewood Speedway at the old Lakewood Fairgrounds on Atlanta's south side. This same restaurant was used for a scene in the 1983 Stephen King Movie Christine, which was ultimately cut in the final film (it can be viewed as a deleted scene on the DVD release of the film). Though no authoritative source identifies the composition of the sandwich, there are several possibilities.
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