The Firebird Trans Am, more commonly just called the "Trans Am", is a performance upgraded version of Pontiac's Firebird automobile, first available in 1969. It was selected to be the car driven by a person named "The Bandit" in an upcoming film by Hal Needham, which became Smokey and the Bandit. The car also appeared its sequels, Smokey and the Bandit II and Smokey and the Bandit, Part 3.
In the first film, Big Enos and his son, Little Enos Burdette makes an offer to the Bandit that if he drove from Atlanta, Georgia to Texarkana, Texas and back with 400 illegal cases of Coors Beer in 28 hours or less, (an act in the film called "bootlegging" as Big and Little Enos had made similar offers to other truckers who were later arrested), he would be paid $80,000.
To carry out the job, the Bandit buys the 1977 Trans Am to run as a blocker to divert the police away from Snowman who is transporting the illegal cases of Coors in the Kenworth's trailer.
During the film, the Trans Am is chased by Sheriff Buford T. Justice and his son, Junior and other police from the various states during which it drives off-road, over a pond, and even jumps over a river, and never even gets scratched.
In the sequel, Smokey and the Bandit II, that after they win another bet made at the end of the first film (in which if the Bandit drove to Boston and back to Atlantia with clam chowder in 18 hours or less, Big and Little Enos would have paid him double than the first bet with the Coors), Bandit got drunk and trades it for a case of beer. Frog buys him a new 1980 Trans Am when Big Enos and Little Enos makes him another bet.
Appearance[]
The car is the main vehicle of Sho in the film, although by the end of the Racetrack Challenge the Trans Am sustained a large amount of damage.
Trivia[]
- The four cars used in the first movie as Bandit's Trans Am were the 1976 model, with the 455ci power plant in its final year of availability, and with the 1977 front end, notable for the switch from two round headlights to four rectangular headlights.
- Much like Sho's Trans Am, the four used in Smokey and the Bandit were badly damaged during production of the film and one was "all but destroyed" during the jump over the missing bridge.