And, of course, it helped him concentrate on all the CB banter, which started a trend in the US and UK, ‘Breaker, breaker’ and ’10-4, big buddy’ becoming part of the late-70s vernacular. In reality, the in-cab scenes of Reed ‘driving’ had his rig lashed to a flatbed trailer hauled by another truck, giving an authentic look while he’s at the wheel. Snowman, meanwhile, continues unimpeded by the law. I saw kids in front of the car disappear – we (jumped) right over them.” Reynolds was interviewed years later and explained: “We go over the wall and we land in a little league baseball game. While the stunt was carefully staged, the kids were real and no one took into account how high and far the car would leap. With no hope of stopping, she breaches a wall and is jettisoned into a children’s baseball game. Having found herself behind the wheel of the Trans Am while being chased the Justices, Carrie misses a turn, and hurtles towards a dead-end. It destroyed it – the body looked like a camel’s!”īut while life and limb were preserved on that stunt, they very nearly weren’t on another.
What year trans am in smokey and the bandit manual#
“So the car was given a 700bhp motor and a manual ‘box fitted by a NASCAR garage. “We only had a quarter mile to get up to speed,” he told me.
According to various sources, the car received a booster rocket to clear the gap, but Needham, who drove the car himself, makes no mention of this. With nowhere to turn, he guns the car and makes the leap. Blocking for the beer-packed rig, Bandit leads a trio of Smokies down a forest track, but the broken Mulberry Bridge is his only route across a wide river. Photo: Getty Imagesįaced with substantial budget cuts from Universal Studios, the production crew meted out stunt-abuse to the Trans Ams sparingly, but one ‘gag’ finished a car off completely. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason, in Smokey and the Bandit. Justice, played by an hilariously pompous Jackie Gleason, who, according to Reynolds, “…never said a word in the script.” Their Pontiac Le Mans (of which three were again supplied by GM) is steadily ‘lightened’ through the film, and at one point its roof is shorn completely under a concrete stanchion. Heading back to Atlanta, Bandit picks up fleeing bride, Carrie (Sally Field) from the roadside, and is then pursued by her would-be groom (Mike Henry) and father-in-law Sheriff Buford T. Round headlights were swapped for square units and bonnet graphics changed to show ‘6.6-LITRES’ instead of the previous cubic-inch capacities, which at 455, were in reality closer to 7.5 litres. GM supplied him with five of the muscle cars, but since filming started in August 1976, just before the ’77 model-year upgrades, the cars had to be hastily revised by the crew. “I needed a ‘down the road’ car for Bandit and the Trans Am fitted the bill,” Needham told me.
And by driving through the night, they make their collection in good time and are soon ‘East Bound and Down’ (the title of the film’s theme song, co-written and sung by Reed himself)). An advance from the Burdettes buys Bandit the aforementioned Trans Am to block for trucker pal, Cledus ‘Snowman’ Snow (Jerry Reed) in his ’74 Kenworth W900 rig. Georgia being a dry state and Coors’ ingredients being fragile if not fresh, it’s just doable. It must be a b**ch getting a 68-Extra-Fat – and a 12-Dwarf…”) and challenge him to collect 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas and deliver them back to their Atlanta party in 28 hours for an $80,000 prize. They meet with Reynolds’ Bo ‘Bandit’ Darville (“Oh, I love your suits. Big and Little Enos Burdette, Stetson-wearing Southern caricatures, are sponsoring a racer in Atlanta’s Southern Classic and, convinced that he’ll win, want to celebrate in style.
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