New The Master Bandit Car, The Auto That Started The Whole Smokey In Addition To The Bandit Phenomena Has Been Institute Past Times Accident Past Times A Burt Reynolds Hardcore Fan, In Addition To Verified Past Times The Pontiac Oakland Lodge International, In Addition To Burt Reynolds Himself
Back when they were plotting out the film, manager Hal Needham as well as star Reynolds were trying to determine what automobile to shape every bit Reynolds’ ride. Several Detroit musculus cars were considered — until Needham as well as Reynolds saw the promotional brochure for the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am.
“I retrieve when Hal Needham as well as I starting fourth dimension saw this car,” Reynolds says inward a video every bit he sits adjacent to the automobile when it visited his home. “It was dear at starting fourth dimension sight.”
To bring the brochure produce for the launch of the 1977 model year, Pontiac took a ’76 Trans Am — i amongst a 455cid V8 as well as 4-speed transmission — as well as replaced its forepart halt amongst the novel ’77 blueprint for the brochure photograph shoot.
The automobile is straightaway owned yesteryear an 85-year-old adult woman who had such a matter for Burt Reynolds that she sent her boy on a hollo for to honour her a automobile only similar the i the handsome moving-picture exhibit star had driven inward the Smokey film.
“I looked for years as well as every Pb was a dead end,” David Martino said. Undaunted, inward 2014 he flora a Bandit-style Trans Am, inward Virginia, as well as bought it for his mother. It would hold upward a few years after earlier he discovered the car’s actual history
The car’s authenticity has been collaborated amongst prove from Pontiac Historic Services as well as from Smoke Signals, the official mag of the Pontiac-Oakland Club International. The mag reportedly had planned a one-page story on the automobile but, after a multi-month forensic study, ended upward publishing an 8-page encompass story on the car.
Such promotional vehicles normally are destroyed — crushed — as well as non offered for sale. But somehow, perchance because the automobile was beingness used for promotional move on the West Coast, it ended upward on the showroom flooring of Bryant Pontiac, a California dealership, which eventually sold it every bit a demonstrator model, though non until the proper 1976 model yr canvass metallic was reinstalled.
Despite going to all that work, Smoke Signals reported that the ’77-model-year Snowflake wheels remained on the automobile
https://journal.classiccars.com/2018/10/10/an-85-year-old-woman-owns-the-car-that-inspired-the-bandits-trans-am/