{"id":847096,"date":"2026-08-05T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/847096\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:00:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T15:00:16","slug":"burt-reynolds-was-gifted-a-brand-new-pontiac-trans-am-every-year-for-the-rest-of-his-life-until-an-awkward-call-with-general-motors-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/847096\/","title":{"rendered":"Burt Reynolds was gifted a brand new Pontiac Trans Am every year for the rest of his life until an awkward call with General Motors president"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Burt<\/p>\n

The only thing more iconic than the late Burt Reynolds in the\u00a0Smokey and the Bandit\u00a0franchise was his Pontiac Trans Am.<\/p>\n

The movie was huge, and it made both Reynolds and his\u00a01977 Pontiac Trans Am<\/a>\u00a0incredibly famous.<\/p>\n

The amazing success of the film series led to General Motors gifting the actor a brand-new Trans Am every year for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

But a strange phone call from the then-president of GM put an end to the deal, and Reynolds later opened up about what happened.<\/p>\n

How Burt Reynolds and the Pontiac Trans Am became icons thanks to Smokey and the Bandit<\/p>\n

Back in the 1970s, Reynolds starred as Bo \u2018The Bandit\u2019 Darville in the film series alongside the legendary Jerry Reed, Sally Field, and Jackie Gleason.<\/p>\n

Crucially, his bootlegging character was driving a car that became a huge star: the\u00a0Pontiac Trans Am<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Apparently, sales of the vehicle shot up precisely because of the movie\u2019s success<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So GM did something that\u2019s quite normal these days but must\u2019ve felt a little unusual back then.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Barrett-Jackson Auctions<\/p>\n

The then-president of GM picked up the phone, called Reynolds, and offered him some sort of endorsement deal.<\/p>\n

But the deal was much better than expected: he told Reynolds he could have a new Trans Am every single year<\/a> for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n

Obviously, GM didn\u2019t have to do it \u2013 but it was still nice that they did.<\/p>\n

But shortly thereafter, the new head of GM had a change of heart.<\/p>\n

Why the new GM president cut the deal short<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Mecum Auctions<\/p>\n

For the next five years, Reynolds did indeed receive a new Pontiac Trans Am every year.<\/p>\n

He gave most of those to his family members, but he did keep one for himself.<\/p>\n

Then, in the sixth year, Reynolds didn\u2019t receive a new Trans Am.<\/p>\n

So he called GM to find out why, and what followed was a strange conversation.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Julian\u2019s Auction<\/p>\n

Reynolds told<\/a> Car and Driver: \u201cJust to make sure there wasn\u2019t some kind of an accident with shipping or something or maybe it got stolen, I made a call and it turned out Pontiac had a new president.\u201d <\/p>\n

Apparently, the GM boss told him his predecessor had loved Reynolds\u2019 films<\/a>, but he himself was not the biggest fan in the world.<\/p>\n

The actor told the publication: \u201cHe got on the phone and told me: \u2018That was the old president. He liked your movies. I\u2019m the new one. I don\u2019t like your movies\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

This being over 40 years ago, the record is a bit hazy.<\/p>\n

So we don\u2019t know exactly what happened and how.<\/p>\n

Still, receiving five free Pontiac Trans Am must\u2019ve been a good deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The only thing more iconic than the late Burt Reynolds in the\u00a0Smokey and the Bandit\u00a0franchise was his Pontiac…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-847096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}