how many smokey and the bandit movies were made

It was this Pontiac Trans Am LE-or more specifically, a photo of it-that convinced Reynolds and director Hal Needham that this would be a good buddy for Bandit. It would be hard to fathom the Bandit behind the wheel of anything other than a black and gold Pontiac, but had it not been for a photograph in a brochure, the late Burt Reynolds may have been east bound and down in a Chevrolet Corvette or a Dodge Charger. The car, a 1977 Pontiac Trans Am LE, was such an integral part of the plot that the film’s director considered it a character. The portrayal of a smooth-talking southern trucker blasting across Dixieland on an escapade to deliver illegal booze is essential viewing for any connoisseur of car culture. Of course, thanks to the movie, sales of Trans-Am skyrocketed, and if Pontiac kept all the Trans-Ams instead of crushing them, each of the cars could have been sold for high prices.Over 40 years after its release, Smokey and the Bandit is still a spectacular fable of automotive fantasy. All of the Trans-Ams, including last surviving one which had no damage at all since it was only used as camera car and for photo stills, were crushed after filming was done on the orders by Pontiac because they only donated the cars to the production, and same thing happened to most if not all police cars.

And couple things which were said and confirmed by everyone is how seven of the Trans-Ams got completely destroyed, not just while filming some heavy stunts like famous river jump, but also some minor stunts like car crashing through all the mail boxes.

Over the years some fans managed to find and ask people who worked on the film or just watched the filming about all this, and the answer which they most often got was how there were eight 1977 special edition Trans-Ams and about the same number (although some said ten) of police cars. Before his death, Burt Reynolds said in interview how they used twelve Trans-Ams and how most of them got destroyed during filming. Some like Hal Needham gave conflicting reports about them only using three or five 1977 Trans-Ams and few police cars. Ever since the film's release, there were so many different rumors about exact number of cars used during filming and what happened to them later, even some official sources like Wikipedia often got their info wrong.

How many smokey and the bandit movies were made