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Burt Reynolds' movie re-creations fetch $379,500 in Vegas

The recent death of Hollywood legend and automotive enthusiast Burt Reynolds helped drive up the value of four of his former cars from the 1970s and '80s, which sold last weekend at Barrett-Jackson's Las Vegas auction for a combined $379,500. Reynolds, who died Sept. 6 at age 82, had offered three Pontiac Trans Ams — two of them re-creations of the cars he drove in "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Hooper" and the third from 1984 used to promote his United States Football League team, the Tampa Bay Bandits. The fourth was a 1978 Chevrolet R30 pickup truck, styled like the one featured in "Cannonball Run." The "Bandit" re-creation, a 1978 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that Reynolds ordered to be as "movie-correct" as possible but featuring a custom-built 200-4R automatic transmission, sold for $192,500. The car features a freshly built Pontiac 400 cubic-inch V8 mated to a four-speed automatic and featuring all-new Butler Performance parts and air-conditioning components. Reynolds reportedly said this was his favorite car from his films, and it even came with an authentic movie-correct CB radio and CB antenna. The red retro-rocket "Hooper" '78 Firebird, with a 403 cubic-inch V8 and a three-speed automatic, hammered for $88,000. By comparison, a gold 1978 Trans Am also offered at the Las Vegas auction but not connected to Reynolds fetched $27,500. The 1987 Chevy R30 pickup was a re-creation of the Indy Hauler pace truck seen jumping over a moving freight train in "Cannonball Run." It hammered for $49,500. The fourth car never appeared in any of Reynolds' films but is instead the only surviving example of two Trans Ams used to promote the Tampa Bay Bandits of the now-defunct USFL, having been driven out onto the field by Reynolds and his late friend and co-star, Jerry Reed, during opening day one season. It also sold for $49,500. At the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale Auction in 2016, Reynolds accompanied a 1977 Trans Am used to promote "Bandit" onto the auction block. That car sold for $550,000. Related Video: Featured Gallery Burt Reynolds 2018 Barrett-Jackson Las Vegas Auction Image Credit: Barrett-Jackson Celebrities Chevrolet Pontiac Truck Coupe Performance celebrity pontiac trans am pontiac firebird burt reynolds

Fiero-based Zimmer Quicksilver was objectively terrible, but we'd totally drive it

Now here's something you don't see everyday. It's listed in our classified ads as a 1986 Pontiac Fiero, but as you can see, that description is a bit misleading. In fact, it's a Zimmer Quicksilver, which was indeed built atop the guts of a mid-engine Fiero coupe but was heavily modified by the Zimmer Motorcars Corporation at a facility in Pompano Beach, Florida. And the one you see here actually seems to be a pretty decent deal for a highly unusual car. We're not sure what was a more popular starting point for kit and custom cars in the 1980s and 1990s, but it would have to be either the Fiero or the vintage air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle. Fiero-based machines usually mimicked the design direction of any number of highly desirable Italian stallions, most commonly, we'd guess, the Lamborghini Countach. The Quicksilver is an altogether different animal, with over a foot of extra wheelbase added in front of the A-pillar to make for a dramatic, long and low silhouette that somehow still only has barely enough room for two passengers in its leather- and wood-lined interior. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. A stock 2.8-liter V6 engine from General Motors is mated to a three-speed automatic transmission that sends 140 horsepower and 170 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels. Period road tests found the 0-60 run took a little over 10 seconds, which is terrible today but wasn't all that bad for the mid '80s. Best we can tell, only around 170 Quicksilvers were made between 1984 and 1988, which are, not coincidentally, the same years that Pontiac produced the Fiero. The 1986 Zimmer Quicksilver you see here is priced at $18,495 and shows well under 30,000 miles on the odometer. There aren't a lot of Zimmer Quicksilvers currently for sale for us to compare, but the ones we did find that had sold within the last few years suggest a little under $20,000 is a reasonable asking price. It could be a fun and offbeat addition to the garage, and if nothing else, you're not likely to see another one at your local car show. Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

GM knew about fatal Chevy ignition problem decade before recall

Well, this is not good for General Motors. Following a report last week that GM was recalling 778,000 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 compacts over concerns that the ignition could switch out of the "run" position without warning, USA Today reports that the Detroit-based behemoth knew about the issue, which affected 2005 to 2007 Cobalts (the Cobalt shown above and in the gallery is from 2010) and 2007 Pontiac G5s, all the way back in 2004.
The information comes from a deposition in a civil lawsuit against GM, obtained by USA Today, which claims that a GM engineer experienced the issue while the then-new model was undergoing testing. The issue was "solved" when a technical service bulletin was issued in 2005, informing dealers to install a snap-on key cover on the cars of customers who complained about the issue. According to the Cobalt's program engineering manager, Gary Altman, the cover was an "improvement, it was not a fix to the issue."
The case where the depositions were made was from 2010, and involved Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old pediatric nurse in Georgia who was killed on her birthday. At the time, police claimed she was going too fast on a wet, rural road, although it later came out through the black box that her car's ignition had come out of the "run" position at least three seconds before the accident (the max amount of time a black box records before a wreck), disabling her airbags, power steering and anti-lock brakes. According to USA Today, police said Melton was "traveling too fast for the roadway conditions," although it's impossible to know if she'd have been in the wreck, which injured the occupants of another vehicle, had her 2005 Chevy not shut off. GM settled the Melton family's case, although the details remain confidential.