Smokey and the Bandit episodes of the series. Needham saw an advertisement for the soon-to-be-released 1977 Pontiac Trans Am and knew right away that would be the Bandit's car, or, as Needham referred to it, a character in the movie. He contacted Pontiac and an agreement was made that four 1977 Trans Ams and two Pontiac LeMans 4-door sedans would be provided for the movie. The Trans Ams were actually 1976-model cars with 1977 front ends. (From 1970 to 1976, both the Firebird/Trans Am and Chevrolet Camaro had two round headlights, and in 1977, the Firebird/Trans Am was changed to four rectangular headlights, while
The Gumball Rally as many rides in Disneyland as possible in a single day. The winning teams are presented with medals and have bragging rights forever after; and the grand prize is a gumball machine topped by Cinderella's Castle, obviously inspired by the movie's Gumball Trophy. As noted above, "The Gumball Rally" ushered in a subgenre of road-race films, many of them starring a younger Burt Reynolds, one of whose more popular films, "Smokey and the Bandit", spawned a still-ongoing yearly rally event called The Bandit Run. The Gumball Rally The Gumball Rally is a 1976 American comedy film directed and co-written by