Smokey and the Bandit Questions?
 

Does anyone know who owns the original bandit T/A used in the movies? Also what happened to the semi truck and trailer used in the movie? It's got to be somewhere? Thanks Brandon.

which movie?

in part one they used a 77, part 2 I believe its a 79 or 80, and part 3 (which sucks really really really bad) they used a 82 or 83

I'm not sure any of the '77 models used from the movie still exist or not. The company I work for owns the '78 special edition Pontiac gave Burt Reynolds after the movie as a "thank you" (we have the title with his name on it). The 2nd movie was released in 1981, so 80-81 models I'm guessing (it was a 301 turbo special edition model).

Derek

yea you are right, I remember now that its a 301 Turbo, the stunt drivers were mad because it lacked so much power it would burn out or do 180s very well, I dont know if I am remembering correctly but they put different engines in the stunt cars

Bandit Here.

I read somewhere the first movie car was actually a 1976 455 model with a 1977 front clip.

I Never Heard That.

I Thought Year One Had One Of The Originals.

You are correct. All the cars were '76 TAs with the new front end and snowflakes. If you notice the scene where they enter texarcana and the bandit is parked in the ditch by the sign, the car is on "honeycomb" wheels which were used prior to '77. I know forsure the jump scene had a 455 in that particular car.

none of the cars remain.....they had 6 new ones..and the bridge jump scene knocked out one...and in interviews they said that on the last few scenes if you look at the car right you will see it all twisted up and mangled....kinda....absolutely no cars of the movie exists...

Amazing a movie takes out all the cars, but the Dukes of Hazard still have survivors. Then again I guess the Dukes had more than 6 cars to work with.

As far as different engines, 90% of the time, the stunt cars have a more powerful engine. The General Lee is a prime example. The standard car that drove around was just a 318 based.

have you guys seen that General Lee on Ebay that is selling for 2 million dollars, it has like 60 bids

They used over 300 '68-'70 Chargers during the seven seasons of filming.

That avgs out to 21 cars per season. Each season has roughly 15 hours worth of footage. Which is 900 minutes. Now Smokey and Bandit was 96 minutes long and they used 6 cars. Do all the math, and it'd be 56.25 cars per "season" for Smokey and the Bandit :P Dukes did quite a good job at keeping cars together!

I think they've used like 5-6 different TA in that flick. :judge:

hey Kage you are from Copperas Cove?

Correct. Pontiac gave them 5 1976 cars w/ 77 front clips but only a couple were 455 4 spd cars. They used those for burnout/fly-by scenes and the other cars were automatics with the 400.

4speed eh?

I figured they were all automatic because I have seen on a few stunt men documentaries from DVD extras that it is easier to use a slush box in the stunt cars

It would depend on the stunt I would think. Jumping a car has no benefit to either, but might as well use an Auto so you can use both hands. If you're going to be doing power slides or any sort of stun where you need to control wheel spin, I would assume you'd want a Manual. After all, how many of those silly drifters use Autos?

Yeah dont you guys remember right after he pulls the TA out of the trailer, at the light he revs it up real high, either neutral tranny drop, but I think that was a stick car dumping the clutch. Im really not sure though. I also think they used 9 cars for the movie and Burt Reynolds was given one of the cars from pontiac for doing the movie, the article was in High Performance Pontiac magazine.