Smokey and the Bandit 50th Anniversary 1977-2027 The Ultimate Highway Chase Building Block Set

Big Enos and Little Enos Burdette wanted Coors in Atlanta, and back then the beer was not sold east of the Mississippi. So they offered the Bandit the money to haul it from Texarkana, Texas, with Cledus “Snowman” Snow driving the truck and the Bandit’s black Trans Am drawing the heat. Then Sheriff Buford T. Justice joined the pursuit, and the deadline stopped being the hardest part of the trip.

Burt Reynolds played the Bandit, and stuntman Hal Needham made his directing debut. The film opened on May 27, 1977, and finished the year second only to Star Wars at the box office, earning roughly 127 million dollars at home on a budget of about 4.3 million. The Ultimate Highway Chase lays the whole run along one stretch of road, from the Dixie Diner and its gas pump to the painted trailer, the sheriff’s patrol car, a South 75 sign and a bridge that has already given way.

The whole highway chase beside its box, and the six cast figures lined up along the bottom.

Six figures carry the cast, and one card names the actress

Every figure has a name card, and five use the character’s name. The sixth, in the white blouse, is labeled Sally, after Sally Field, though fans know her as Carrie, the runaway bride the Bandit nicknames Frog. The groom she left at the altar was the sheriff’s son, Junior, which is why Justice takes the chase so personally.

Name card	Character	Played by
The Bandit	Driver of the black Trans Am	Burt Reynolds
Snowman	Cledus “Snowman” Snow, the trucker	Jerry Reed
Buford T. Justice	The Texas sheriff in pursuit	Jackie Gleason
Sally	Carrie, known to the Bandit as Frog	Sally Field
Little Enos	Little Enos Burdette	Paul Williams
Big Enos	Big Enos Burdette	Pat McCormick

The vehicles carry the details fans quote back

The coupe follows the 1977 Pontiac Trans Am, black with gold trim and the firebird across its hood, and its T-top panels lift out the way they did on screen. The trunk opens too, which is exactly where a smuggler wants room. Snowman’s rig follows the film’s Kenworth W900A, its trailer painted with horses pulling a stagecoach, and the sheriff’s brown-and-cream cruiser sits close behind.

On a desk among the memorabilia, with a Trans Am poster, a Georgia 77 plate and a cowboy hat.

Then there is the bridge. The broken span over the river nods to the jump every fan waits for, the Bandit taking the Trans Am across a gap where the road simply stops. Jerry Reed, who played Snowman, also wrote and sang “East Bound and Down,” and it is hard to look at this stretch of highway without hearing it.

The Bandit in his cowboy hat at the wheel, with the sheriff right on his bumper.

Fifty years later the chase still finds an audience

Burt Reynolds died in 2018, but the film still turns up on TV and on the garage walls of people who grew up wanting that car, or who can still recite the CB radio chatter. Put the set near our Smokey and the Bandit decanter and the home bar becomes a small shrine to 1977.

Lining the Trans Am up on the bridge, with the box and instructions within reach.

Line the Trans Am up at the edge of the bridge, park the sheriff one length behind, and the scene is set. The only thing missing is the song, and most owners will supply that themselves.

Written by Nadia Marsh, Collectibles Specialist at DoesignUs.