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The Ten Greatest Movie Cars
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Value for an original perfect stock copy $40,000-$60,000 6.6L 4-barrel V-8 engine 446 HP 3-Speed Automatic One of the most popular cars ever produced by Pontiac. |
| 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am "Smokey and the Bandit" | |
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When Smokey and the Bandit director Hal
Needham, chose a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am to star in his movie alongside
Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, he couldn't have predicted the impact
that car would have on America. The Trans Am actually looked more or less the same for more than a half decade before the film debuted. But that didn't matter. When audiences saw that Trans Am slide around corners, leap over broken bridges and evade Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) for hundreds of miles, they wanted a black and gold T/A in their garage. After the movie debuted, sales leapt by about 30,000 cars from 1977 to 1978 and by another 24,000 for 1979. Americans went nuts for the Starlight Black Special Edition paint job, the T-Top roof, and the fact that the car was quicker and better handling than the Corvette of the same generation. It was probably a combination of all three—plus a heaping dollop of Burt's star appeal—that made the Trans Am a legend. There isn't any good documentation on the ones used in this movie. We know that at least 4 cars were used in the movie. The one used in the most difficult jumps had a souped-up Chevy engine. |
