Well, you can't know everything so I may as well admit that I know absolutely nothing about the movie Smokey and the Bandit and very little about the Pontiac Trans Am that actor Burt Reynolds drove in the film. "How can Powell be so clueless?" you may very well ask, particularly as I was creative director of GM's Canadian ad agency at the time. Put it down to culture, even if that sounds dreadfully snobbish. Regardless of my job I preferred European cars (and a few Japanese), American comedic films of that type didn't interest me and neither, inasmuch as I was and still am a hardcore modern jazz enthusiast, did the music of the times.

However, that confession isn't stopping me from directing our viewers to this update of the Trans Am, being produced in small volume by Year One, which has teamed with Burt Reynolds to promote it. Autoblog, "gracefully providing more of this story", informs us that "since the Bandit car was a T/A, all of the Year One cars will be true T/As, and titled as such." It goes on to give details of the frame-up restorations, which include chassis mods, custom interiors and the requisite CB radio. The three variations, BAN1 through BAN3, get differing performance specs up to "monster aluminum 455's or LS-derived engines."

So what to do with your brand new Trans Am? Enter "the first Bandit Run" to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the release of the original Smokey and the Bandit film. It's a recreation of the route Burt Reynolds took in the movie, from Texarkana, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia, passing through Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. The Bandit Run starts on May 15 and ends in Atlanta on May 17, in time for participants to partake in the YearOne Experience which runs May 18-20. All makes are welcome but Trans Ams get an especially big hello. As for me (I'm not a snob, honest!) when Smokey and the Bandit becomes available in Movies on Demand, I'll download and watch it. I've always enjoyed road movies... maybe I missed a good one.