Ride like the Bandit in this new 840-horsepower Pontiac Trans Am

What's better than a brand-new Pontiac Trans Am? A brand-new Trans Am signed by Burt Reynolds, of course.

Thankfully, that's what Trans Am Depot will do — a Floridian company keen to continue the legacy of General Motors' extinct Pontiac brand.

Trans Am Depot — or TAD, as only I call it — announced at the New York Auto Show that it is building 77 brand-new Pontiac Trans Ams designed to look just like the one Mr. Reynolds drove in the the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit. Cleverly, TAD is calling it "SE Bandit Edition."

To create the Bandit, TAD starts with a modern Chevrolet Camaro and then it Trans Am-ifies (totally a word) it. That means a plastering golden screaming chicken emblem (the nickname for the Firebird logo) on the shaker hood, special retro-inspired "snowflake" wheels and a chopped T-top roof — along with many, many other modifications. Read more...