If there’s a car more likely to be driven by people who are usually found chewing a toothpick in an alley wearing a leather jacket and a bad moustache than the ’77 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, we’re yet to find it.
This Speed Champions scale Trans Am comes from Rolling Bricks, complete with a lift-out T-top, opening doors, and a golden flaming bird motif.
Don your leather jacket and head to an alley to chew a toothpick via the link above.
We’re not sure why robots in the eighties were uptight nerds, but KITT was the wheeled equivalent of C-3PO.
However unlike Star Wars’ anxious golden bi-ped, KITT had flame throwers, lasers, a tear gas launcher, a giant taser, and ultramagnesium charges at his disposal. And we don’t even know what that last one means.
Equipped with none of that, but looking rather cool nonetheless, is Jerry Builds Bricks‘ 8-wide Speed Champions version of the Knight Industries Two Thousand, which captures the TV star car beautifully.
There’s more of KITT to see at Jerry’s photostream, and you can head there to deploy some ultramagnesium charges via the link above.
This is a Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am, a car made famous by the ’77 movie ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, and possibly the only car in history to look kinda-cool with pin-striping. Plus a giant flaming bird motif of course.
This exceptional 1:8 recreation of the American icon is the work of Chris Radbone of Flickr, who has not only replicated the exterior of the ’77 Trans-Am beautifully, complete with pin-striping and giant flaming bird motif, his model is a qualified Technic Supercar underneath.
A Technic frame holds a working V8 engine, all-wheel suspension, functioning steering, and a D-N-R gearbox, all of which are concealed behind the wonderfully accurate Model Team exterior.
It’s a great way to finish the year and there’s more to see of Chris’s superb ’77 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am ‘Bandit’ at his photostream. Click here to make the jump to Flickr for the complete gallery of images, here to see the Smokey and the Bandit movie trailer in which this car stars, and we’ll be back soon with our 2020 round-up.
It’s the early ’80s, perms are big, jackets are leather, and 200mph, self-driving, talking cars exist only in the imagination. And then NBC shoved C-3PO into the dashboard of a Pontiac Trans-Am. Perms remained big and jackets remained leather, but the 200mph, self-driving, talking car was now a reality, on screen at least.
The Knight Industries Two Thousand (K.I.T.T) became the coolest car for every eight year old in ’80s America, and even though most of the technology it featured is now hilariously out-of-date (even Mrs. TLCB Writer’s compact hatchback can do more* today), it’s still one of the most famous and enduring TV cars of all time.
Capturing K.I.T.T superbly in mini-figure scale, László Torma has constructed a 6-wide version of the camp coupe complete with a mini-fig Michael Knight, and he’s made instructions available too so that you can build your very own. Head to Laszlo’s photostream via the link above to take “a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man that doesn’t exist. Michael Knight, a young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the powerless, and the helpless in a world of criminals that operate above the law“. It doesn’t get any more ’80s than that!
*OK, it can’t do 200mph, despite the way Mrs. TLCB Writer drives it.
This might just be the most American thing we’ve ever seen. Apart from Police brutality of course. This is the late ’70s-early ’80s second generation Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, GM’s sister car to the Camero, and the Mustang’s fiercest rival.
Powered by an expansive choice of enormous V8 engines ranging from 4.3 to 7.5 litres, plus some marginally less enormous six-cylinder motors, all of which produced about as much horsepower as a European or Japanese engine half the size, the Trans Am completely erased the words ‘oil crisis’ and replaced them with a giant flaming bird motif. Because America.
The iconic slant nose arrived in 1977, bringing with it huge sales numbers, with this iteration of the Firebird selling between 150,000 and 210,000 units annually until emissions regulations finally caught up with it in 1980. The Trans Am’s starring role in Burt Reynolds’ 1977 movie ‘Smokie and the Bandit’ can’t have hurt its popularity either, a film basically about little more than trucking, car chases, and beer*. Because America.
Recreating this icon of American automobiles is TLCB Master MOCer, regular bloggee, and all-round excellent human being Firas Abu-Jaber, who has captured the ’77 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in astonishing detail. Firas’ model replicates the Firebird’s famous exterior beautifully, with opening doors, trunk, and hood (complete with giant flaming bird motif), plus an amazingly accurate interior, and with presentation as stunning as the model itself.
Over a dozen spectacular images are available to view at Firas’ Pontiac Firebird Trans Am album on Flickr, where a build commentary can also be found. Click the link above to take a closer look, and the first link in the text to read Firas Abu-Jaber’s Master MOCers interview here at TLCB to learn how he creates incredible creations like this one.
*Well, Coors, which is nearly beer.
This is not the best looking recreation of Knight Rider’s KITT (that accolade belongs here or here). But KITT’s genius wasn’t found in the way that it looked, but in what lay hidden inside. This is Gabor Horvath’s remote controlled KITT, and what’s underneath is a simply astonishing piece of Lego engineering.
Gabor’s KITT contains six Power Functions motors, the first being a Large motor driving the rear wheels through a differential, and the second being a Servo motor for steering. The remaining four motors are all needed to give the model KITT’s most recognisable feature; its lights.
Up front a set of pop-up headlights are controlled via a Medium motor, whilst another Medium motor switches them on. Sitting in-between these is KITT’s scanner, which oscillates back and forth via an ingenious linear-actuator operated mechanism. It’s a properly clever solution, which Gabor has detailed through a series of images and in a neat video.
See full details of how it all works via Gabor’s MOCpage, Flickr photostream or at the Eurobricks discussion forum.
Ralph Savelsberg continues his fantastic run of movie cars with an epic from 1977 – the famous black n’ gold Pontiac Trans-Am from ‘Smokey and the Bandit’. Brick Reynolds makes an appearance too. Get Eastbound and Down on Flickr at the link above.
Chris Melby’s huge 1975 Kenworth 900 A truck from the cult film ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ featured here at TLCB earlier in the month, and he’s now completed the second star vehicle from the movie; the Bandit’s 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am.
Chris’ Model Team replica of the famous American muscle car uses some ingenious building techniques throughout, not least the glass, wheel-arches, front air-dam and side sills. There’s lots more to see on Flickr – click the link above to join the journey.
The world… of the Knight Rider.
Probably both the coolest and cheesiest TV series ever made Knight Rider arrived on our screens in 1982, running for four glorious – although some might say ridiculous – years.
The star of the show was of course the artificially intelligent Pontiac Trans-Am ‘KITT’, a self-aware and nearly indestructible force for good, driven by a crime-fighting David Hasselhoff.
This superb Model Team recreation of the Knight Industries Two Thousand is the work of Flickr’s Alex Jones aka Orion Pax, and he’s published an extensive gallery of top quality photos at his website. Click the link above to visit Alex’s Flickr page where you can be re-routed to the full set of images.
Insert the Hoff for twice the aweso… Actually don’t, it’s probably more awesome without him.
Michael Knight, a lone crusader in a dangerous world. The world… of the Knight Rider. Orion Pax reminds reminds us just how cheesy American TV was in the ’80s with his Knight Industries Two Thousand. See more of the camp car on Flickr.
