Burt Reynolds Left Something on This Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am Before He Died
In 1977, Burt Reynolds drove a black-and-gold Trans Am across movie screens and sold more Pontiacs than any salesman alive.
Trans Am Depot built 77 Camaro-based replicas of that exact car a decade ago, and one of them just surfaced.
Before he died in 2018, the Bandit himself signed something on this car – and it's not the hood.
How Trans Am Depot Rebuilt the Smokey and the Bandit Car
Pontiac is gone.
GM killed the brand in 2010, took the Trans Am with it, and left a generation of muscle car fans with nothing but memories of that iconic black-and-gold machine from Smokey and the Bandit.
Trans Am Depot refused to accept that ending.
Working from a fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro platform, they rebuilt the car Pontiac never got to make again – and they did it right.
The nose was stripped and rebuilt from scratch: new bumper architecture, a front splitter, gold-rimmed headlight housings, and a split grille straight out of Trans Am DNA.
The hood is all-new, carrying the original "Screaming Chicken" graphic – hand-painted, buried under layers of PPG clearcoat, looking like it just rolled off a 1977 Pontiac assembly line.
Gold pinstripes cut against the black paint exactly the way they should.
Removable T-top panels – the detail that made the original Trans Am so irresistible in Smokey and the Bandit – are back and functional.
Silver and gold-spoked wheels sit over aftermarket brake hardware, the rear sports custom taillights and a spoiler, and gold accents run the length of the car tying every piece together.
Inside, freshly upholstered seats carry Trans Am badging on the headrests, and flying chicken graphics run across both door panels.
And on the dashboard, in ink, is the signature of Burt Reynolds.
840 Horsepower With a Dead Man's Blessing
Reynolds personally collaborated on the Bandit Edition project.
He was not a passive licensing arrangement – he was involved, he approved the car, and he put his name on all 77 of them before he passed in September 2018.
Not one more was ever signed.
This particular car carries the 7.4-liter supercharged V8 Stage V build – the most powerful configuration Trans Am Depot offered across the entire run.
It puts 840 horsepower to the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic transmission.
For context, the original Smokey and the Bandit Trans Am made roughly 200 horsepower.
This machine makes four times that – meaning Burt Reynolds himself never drove anything close to what this car can do.
Low miles on the odometer make it essentially brand new.
It surfaces at Mecum Auctions next month, and the question is not whether it is special.
The question is how many collectors across America are already working out their bidding limit.
What a Burt Reynolds Signed Trans Am Sells for at Mecum Auction
Burt Reynolds can never sign another Trans Am.
That single fact changes the math on this car completely.
A restomod 1978 Trans Am – no celebrity connection, no provenance, no story – sold on Bring a Trailer in 2025 for $285,000.
This is one of 77, personally blessed by the man who made the car a legend, with 840 horsepower wrapped in the most recognizable muscle car livery ever captured on film.
The collector market already understands what that combination is worth.
Smokey and the Bandit drove Pontiac Trans Am sales from 68,000 units in 1977 to 117,000 by 1979 – numbers the brand had never seen and never saw again.
Hollywood had never done that to a single car before, and it has not done it since.
The man is gone, the brand is gone, and Chevy just retired the Camaro platform this car was built on.
You cannot make any more of these.
One of 77 with Burt Reynolds' signature on the dash is not a collectible.
It is the last artifact of something America used to know how to build.
Sources:
- Brad Anderson, "The Pontiac That Chevy Never Built Comes With Burt Reynolds' Signature," Carscoops, April 18, 2026.
- Barrett-Jackson Auction Company, "Gabriel 'Fluffy' Iglesias' 2015 Chevrolet Camaro Trans AM Bandit Edition," Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas, 2022.
- Trans Am Worldwide, "For Sale," TransAmWorldwide.com.
- Staff, "Restomod 1978 Pontiac Trans Am Fetches $285K at Auction," Yahoo Autos, June 30, 2025.
- Staff, "How Smokey and the Bandit Made the Trans Am an Icon," CarsForSale.com, November 7, 2023.
