---
title: "Lunatics Pay $550,000 for Old, Slow Pontiac"
description: "The Smokey and the Bandit fetish must stop. This one wasn’t even used in the movie..."
date: "2016-02-02"
modified: "2016-02-02"
authors:
  - name: "David Traver Adolphus"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/david-traver-adolphus"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/vintage/1990/lunatics-pay-550-000-for-old-slow-pontiac"
categories:
  - "News"
tags:
  - "Auction"
  - "Pontiac"
---

# Lunatics Pay $550,000 for Old, Slow Pontiac

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/020216-trans-am-auction-hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Last spring, a dude in Connecticut named Marc Cifarelli advertised an old Pontiac Trans Am. It had the 400cid V8, and a little plaque above the steering column that read: “This 1977 Trans Am built for Universal Studios’ ‘Smokey and the Bandit’.” As the car was a complete heap of crap (it had been sitting for over a quarter-century; Cifarelli said he couldn’t even get the doors open), [he stuck it on eBay](<https://www.ebay.com/itm/1977-Pontiac-Trans-Am-/171726980082>) with a $200 starting bid and a $3,000 reserve. There were...no bids. He advertised it locally at $3,300 and then, [according to CNN](<https://money.cnn.com/2015/12/22/autos/burt-reynolds-smokey-and-the-bandit-trans-am-auction/>), he decided to have it restored.

When it turned up [consigned to Barrett-Jackson](<https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1977-PONTIAC-FIREBIRD-TRANS-AM-SMOKEY-AND-THE-BANDIT-PROMO-CAR-190067>) this winter, it’d been restored by the [McLaughlin Trans Am “Museum.](<https://www.transammuseum.com/>)” It was also attached to a stack of documentation and memorabilia, stating it was both a Y81 “Bandit Edition” Trans Am, and originally owned by Universal Studios as a promo car. None of this means it had anything to do with Burt Reynolds. It was not used in *Smokey and the Bandit*. It was transported around and displayed, and when Banditmania™ faded, left to rot.

Bandit Edition Trans Ams *are* collectible. They come with the top engine option, the three-legged dog 200-horsepower 400 that might get under 17 seconds in the quarter-mile. Really top quality examples are better than $40,000. But when you haul out Burt, stick him in the car when it crosses the auction stage and make him sing *Eastbound and Down*, witchcraft happens, apparently. It’s probably the eyes. [You could just drown](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4A8LLRgQj0>).

For buyer John Staluppi (owner of [a private car museum](<https://www.carsofdreams.com/>) and a [*James Bond*-themed series of superyachts](<https://johnstaluppi.com/john-staluppi-yachts.html>)), the purchase is a drop in the bilge of his last yacht, *Skyfall II*, which was listed for $16.85 million when he sold it a couple of years ago. For the rest of us, $550,000 is [a 13-second, four-speed Trans Am Super Duty](<https://www.mecum.com/lot-detail/FL0116-230122/0/1974-Pontiac-Trans-Am-Super-Duty/>), and 16 more perfectly good non-promo car 1977 TAs with a screaming chicken on the hood. Or, you know, almost any other car in the world.

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