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A small collection of cars owned or driven by the late movie star Burt Reynolds was sold at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Las Vegas last week, Motor Authority reports. Three cars he owned personally made a whopping $330,000 and a Trans Am that he never owned but drove onto a Tampa Bay Bandits football field on opening day of the now defunct United States Football League season sold for $49,500.
Two 1978 Pontiac Firebird Trans Ams were sold, one replicating the original 1977 model immortalized in Smokey and the Bandit, and the other replicating the car from Hooper. The others included a 1987 Chevy R30 pickup replica of the car in Cannonball Run and an unspecified Trans Am model used to promote the USFL and driven at least once by Reynolds. All four vehicles were signed by the actor.
The most iconic model sold was undoubtedly the Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am, which was an exact replica of the cult classic movie car, replete with citizens band radio antenna, scanner, and corresponding tires. Reynolds and his friend Gene Kennedy were adamant to ensure the car was a total facsimile of the original, down to the black and gold paint job with a screaming chicken on the hood. As the most successful item of Reynold’s collection at this auction, the car sold for $192,500.
On the silver screen, the rocket-powered Hooper Trans Am managed to evade the authorities by jumping across an unfinished bridge. While the sold model can’t quite manage those stunts, Reynolds did perform a lot of his car stunts in the film himself. Again, this model is replicated to a tee, with a red paint job, 403-cubic-inch V8 engine, and another chicken-adorned hood. The car was auctioned for $88,000.
The Cannonball Run Chevy pickup, which famously jumped over a freight train in the film, has a 496-cubic-inch V8 engine under the hood and includes anachronistic additions like power steering and air conditioning. Like the Trans Am used to promote the Tampa Bay Bandits, the pickup sold for $49,500.
All of the original cars from Smokey and the Bandit’s production were destroyed once the studio wrapped. Universal prohibited their sale because of the substantial frame damage, and feared liability by putting them on the market. For the winning bidder, this is quite a catch. While there was a promotional Bandits car sold at auction for $550,000 in 2014, that one wasn’t owned by Reynolds. This one certainly was, and someone’s tearing that Trans Am down the pavement right about now.
Reynolds began selling cars from his personal collection a few years before his death, with some of the money going to the Burt Reynolds Institute for Film and Theatre. Reynolds died Sept. 6 at age 82.
