Hitman's Pontiac Trans Am Site

Smokey and the Bandit Movie Myths

I have started this page to take care of some of the movie Myths surrounding the movie Smokey and the Bandit. Of course for all you Trans Am buffs out there, the Trans Am is almost synonymous with the Smokey and the Bandit Movie. Smokey and the Bandit was filmed in 1976 and starred Burt Reynolds, Jackie Gleason, Sally Field, and Jerry Reed. Did you know that Smokey and the Bandit was the second highest grossing movie in 1977? Star Wars was the only movie that grossed more $$ for that year. No wonder the sales of the Trans Am jumped in 1978 and 1979. This is just a start and more will be following. Now, I am not going to cover all of the continuity issues like something missing in one shot and suddenly appears in the next shot..... after all, it was 1977 and they really were not thinking of things like that back then. This is more of a page about myths pertaining to the car.

1976 or 1977?
Some say that the cars used in the movie were 1976 Trans Ams and not 1977. They say that they were 1976's with a new nose on them to look like a 1977. Well, what about the nose, the hood and the shaker scoop?..... they are all 1977.

1976 hood, notice the rounded shaker scoop, the grilles (vents) on the hood, the shape of the hood compared to the front nose, etc........

Honeycomb rims?
There is the argument out there that when the Bandit is waiting at the side of the road right before they pick up the Coors beer, that the Trans Am had honeycomb rims on it..... you make the call.

Here is another shot from later in the movie...... can you see the trim rings and the larger gaps like in the honeycombs?

Some shots you can plainly see that they are snowflakes and not honeycombs due to the shine in the rims in the center.

Sunvisors/Rear View Mirror removed?
I think this is more of a continuity thing where maybe one shot they were there and the next shot they were missing, but from all of the photos that I have, the sunvisors and the rear view mirror were there, but the seatbelts have been removed in some shots.

and of course you can clearly tell here that the sunvisors are there when he knocks it down in this shot...

Mileage?
If you look at alot of the shot where they show the speedometer, the mileage does not change that much. That is because the shots of the speedometer were all taken at the same time and then edited into the movie in different locations.

1108.8 1108.9