2001 Firebird Trans Am, 6 Speed Manual Transmission on 2040-cars

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Another Burt Reynolds Trans Am is up for auction

Fans of Smokey and the Bandit, your car has arrived. This Saturday, January 21, Barrett-Jackson will auction a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am clone that, while not originally in the movie, was owned and signed by the Bandit himself, Burt Reynolds. Not only that, but it packs many modifications that should make this Pontiac drive the way we all imagined it did. This is a Trans Am clone, not an original. The car was built by Nebraska company Restore A Muscle Car, and started life as a lowly Firebird Formula. However, the company brought it up to Trans Am grade and beyond. Under the hood is a fuel-injected 8.2-liter V8 from Butler Performance that Restore A Muscle Car says produces 600 horsepower. Coupled to the big V8 is a Tremec five-speed manual transmission. There's even Hurst line-lock on-board, so this Trans Am should be perfect for on-demand burnouts. The car also comes with QA1 coil-over suspension, so it should corner better than the original, too. The outside looks roughly like a stock Trans Am, but it now has 18-inch wheels styled after those from the movie car, and the shaker scoop says "8.2" on each side. View 5 Photos In 2014, a 1977 Trans Am owned by Reynolds sold for a whopping $450,000. That car wasn't an actual movie car either, and lacked the modifications of this one. However, it was used as a promotional car and was given to Reynolds, so it did have some history with the film. This upgraded car is listed in the Barrett-Jackson catalog as "no reserve," so it's going home with a new owner on Saturday, regardless of price. Related Video:

Looking back at Oprah's free-car giveaway 10 years later

Oprah kicked off her 19th season in dramatic fashion by giving all 276 members of the studio audience a free car.
Molly Vielweber's Pontiac G6 appears unremarkable at first glance. It wears forest green paint, rolls on five-spoke aluminum wheels, and it has a sizeable scrape in the driver's side door, the scar of a decade's worth of hard use. You wouldn't notice it parked at a big box store or cruising on the highway. Pontiac made hundreds of thousands of G6s in the 2000s, and a lot are still on the road. It's unremarkable in every way except for the front license plate, which reads, "Oprah 6."

1970 Firebird Trans-Am with front-mid-engine to be immortalized as a Hot Wheels car

Each year, the Hot Wheels Legends Tour scours the country to find the coolest real-life cars and chooses one to be made into a $1 diecast toy. Earlier this month, the search came to an end when Riley Stair's heavily modified 1970 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am won the honors. In a normal year, the Hot Wheels Legends Tour would visit multiple cities, holding a car show where judges would select one winner for that stop. At SEMA, each city's winner would then compete for the top spot. However, due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year the contest was held virtually and globally. And since SEMA was canceled too, the finale was held on the "Jay Leno's Garage" YouTube channel with Leno, Snoop Dogg, Gabriel Iglesias, and Hot Wheels designers as judges. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. What set the Firebird apart was, for starters, its front-mid-engine layout. Its LSX V8 was pushed so far back into the firewall that one bank of exhaust headers had to flow forward before curving around the front of the engine to a side-dump. Of course, all of this was custom fabricated, like the roll cage and front tube frame, with professional-grade welds. The body was also heavily modified, flared and channeled to give it a mean stance. But it's the custom Ohlins suspension with independent rear that give it its track-ready look. Perhaps most impressively, this car, which could go toe-to-toe against (and frankly exceed many) six-figure pro builds at SEMA, was built in the side yard of Stair's parents' house. Aside from body and paint, this was a shadetree job. Stair says it took a couple of years, devoting nearly every night and weekend to transforming a rusty and dented Firebird into his dream machine. Other finalists included a Street Freak-style 1969 Corvette from Florida, cartoony 1959 Chevy Ute nicknamed the "Hulk-amino", Rocket Bunny-style Cayman, 1,000-horsepower Chevy Apache, V8-powered Mini Cooper, stanced Fiat 126 from Germany, chopped VW Brasilia from Mexico, and a race-ready 1976 Hillman Imp from the U.K. Cars were judged on creativity, authenticity, and built-not-bought spirit. Look for the Trans-Am to appear in the 2021 Hot Wheels lineup. Related Video:   Featured Gallery Hot Wheels Legends Tour 2020 View 16 Photos Toys/Games Pontiac Coupe Performance Classics