My Bandit Journey
 

I had just got out of College and rewarded myself with a trip to the local Pontiac Dealer, and ordered up a 1977 Trans Am SE with most of the bells and whistles for $6,365. Still have all of the order sheets used to pick the options. I clearly remember it was raining, and the Bandit I was looking at had the Hurst T Tops, and they were leaking like a sieve. So I ordered a Hard top Y81, not knowing at that time it would make the car rare - 1 of 384 built with the SE option, 400 ci Pontiac Motor, and 4sp. Couldn't wait to pick it up when it came into the dealer, they called and I left work.
Got to the dealer and we could not find the car, finally located it in the back lot with a huge dent in the driver’s door, they said I should just order another one for 1978 (they wanted the car) and I said F no, fix it. They did.
Drove it home, and remember taking it to the opening of the Smokey and the Bandit movie, man I was the cat's ass. Drove it for almost 2 years, and worked for Ford at that time, so driving a GM vehicle at Ford, especially a Bandit, was not wise to be in their parking lot, so it started to sit in my garage. Growing up in the late 60's and 70's we were all hot rodder's, and I had the mod bug. Bad. I got in touch with guys like Nunzi, Kern Osterstock of HO, and Herb Adams and started accumulating parts. The car continued to sit in my garage and I tore it down for engine and suspension work.
Well, there was long hours of work, 3 kids, etc. And it sat. And sat. Got divorced but managed to keep the car, and stored it at various friend’s houses, in adjacent fields, etc. - For over 20 years! Wisely I had the car "Polycoated" when I bought it, and meticulously wrapped the car for outside extended storage, so when I finally dragged it out of the mud and towed it to my new house in year 2000 after 22 years it had very little rust, just on the roof.
After dreaming about the car for so many years I finally dug into the restoration, and installing the stockpile of performance parts. Started on the chassis and put on all of the Herb Adams VSE stuff, in addition to Coil Over shocks. Installed R/A 3 ported Heads, SD 455 rods, big HO cam, Holly High rise single plain manifold, Demon Carb, Nitrous, and on and on. Finally stripped the paint, shot it in my garage, and added the decals.
Over the next 10 years I learned what it took to win at car shows - it can be modded and busy, but needs to be meticulous and clean. So I was always in a constant state of refinement year after year.
It now is a unbelievable car and a huge hit at the car shows, with countless trophies. I do appreciate stock, but I find a highly modded car draws a lot of lookers and expressions like "Holy Sh**, you got to be kidding me, this is insane, can't imagine how much $$ he's got into it, etc. The car looks relatively stock outside, but not under the skin by any means.
A t the car shows I use a lookalike Burt Reynolds hat, and Wedding vail in the passenger seat, and play all of the movie sound clips of Beauford T and Burt stored on my cell phone, played loud on a small Sound Box Pro. Car always has a crowd, and I never get to sit down cause I am answering questions and talking about it. As good as it gets!

Wowser, you and Canamman have 2 of the nicest TA’s I’ve ever seen, different directions, but dad gum awesome!!! I hope to land mine some where in between. After I owned mine for a short person of time, I learned how fortunate I was to not have “T” tops.....it was especially good for me, mines been stored outside some.....

I retained my car through a short marriage, LOL she wanted me to sell it sooo badly, so she could spend the money. I got the better end result of that deal, Thank God!!!

Mine stickered for $6800.00 and change, I paid $6300.00 for it, that is, me and GMAC finance paid that. They told me it was the first year for 48 month financing, that really helped!!!

Oh , I was a senior in high school when I bought mine. I had not heard anything about the impending movie ( I was working around 40 hours a week, of course living at home, but only making a bit over minimum wage. I saved $1000.00 for the down payment!!!) AND I got good grades I school too!!!


The movie debuted at different times depending upon what part of the country you lived in. Some places were the 19th, some the 22nd. I don’t know any of that, for sure...

Hess, thanks for joining the site, and sharing!!! Hope to some how, meet you and Canamman Some day!!!

Did you build the original 557 block? Just wondering if you did anything special to it for longevity and increasing it’s strength.

The block is stock. Not much else is- Ram air 3 heads race ported, SD 455 rods, HO Cam, Scorpion Rollers, Herb Adams Oil Pan, HO Tri Y headers, Holly Street Dominator Manifold, Demon 850 Carb. Weak link is the stock block lifter valley, 465 HP is about max to be safe., It is a great package for old school iron.

Thanks for sharing, looks great! Makes me feel better about upgrading my’77’s engine.

great story - I memba when bandit and star wars played at my local drive in when I was a kid - changed my life...lol

Really nice car - what do you have going on the console?

Mike back on line, what is that red knob behind the Shifter? My guess is something to do with the rear end to give overdrive so you don't have to go from a 3 speed to a four speed. I saw something like it in some of my reading. My roommate went into the hospital and soon he and I will be ready to install my completed TH 400 Trans. As for your sharing articles and other info. ready to start-up, I will open a new page when you're ready, Mike out.

That is a reverse lockout I installed 40 some odd years ago. My Bandit may not see much action other than a occasional drive as mu new house is now in a rather rural area in Michigan. Gotta buy a car hauler when I am done moving. My new garage Man cave is slowly getting in shape, pics to follow.

A lot of people would tell you to restore this car back to stock but I like that it’s got all the mods of the day I feel like we are restoring these cars out of exsistence as to the way they were at the time period they were from.