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Tony Stewart to star in Smoke Is The Bandit web series

NASCAR driver Tony Stewart is making good use of his nickname Smoke in new videos inspired by the 1970s classic Smokey and the Bandit. The original is one of the quintessential automotive movies of its era with a fantastic combination of slapstick comedy and great car stunts in a Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. If you've never seen it, check it out immediately.
In the new six-part Smoke IS the Bandit web series, Stewart takes on the role of Burt Reynolds' famous character complete with huge mustache. But instead of trying to smuggle cases of Coors beer it's Mobil 1 oil. The series promises to recreate many of the famous scenes from the movie and includes cameos from other NASCAR drivers.
To complete the look, future videos just need a quality replacement for a young Sally Field to ride shotgun. It would also be really cool if Reynolds could make a brief appearance at some point. Scroll down to check out the trailer and the first episode in the series.

AMC Trans Am Javelin SST, an ultra-rare underdog, is up for auction

Among the rarest of the American muscle cars that went racing in the early Seventies — cars including the Camaro Z/28 and the Boss 302 Mustang — the 1970 AMC Trans Am Javelin SST may be the most hard to find, and among the most valuable. Only 100 units of this unique Javelin were produced, and one of them is up for auction at the Mecum event in Dallas on September 20. The Trans Am Javelin was fashioned in a patriotic livery of tricolor paint — red, white and blue — and arrived after the American Motors Corporation had decided in 1968 to compete in the Trans Am racing series against Ford and General Motors. The company's chief driver, Mark Donohue, would dominate the 1971 season, taking seven wins in his Javelin AMX and that yearÂ’s SCCA Trans-Am Championship. AMC took the trophy with 82 points, well ahead of Ford's 61, Chevrolet's 17 and Pontiac's paltry 7. The example listed for auction came equipped with a 390-cubic-inch V-8 engine with 325 horsepower at 5,000 rpm and 420 pound-feet of torque, power steering and brakes, dual exhaust, BorgWarner four-speed manual transmission and Hurst competition shifter. Its “ram induction system” sealed a chamber around the air filter so that cool air from the functional hood scoop would be funneled into the intake. This JavÂ’s factory price was $3,995 — a mere $32,000 or so in today's money, though it was expensive by the standards of the time. The 100 Trans Ams were among 19,714 Javelin units built in 1970, so they started out rare, and today the surviving examples are highly collectible, if and when they come up for sale. No bid estimate is available yet. Related Video: Motorsports Chevrolet Ford Pontiac Auctions Automotive History Racing Vehicles Classics

Junkyard Gem: 2010 Pontiac Vibe

Just over a month before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in June 2009, General Motors announced that the 83-year-old Pontiac Division would be "phased out" by the end of 2010. Only three Pontiac vehicles were sold as 2010 models in the United States: the Solstice, Vibe and G6 (new G3s were sold here during 2010 but they were all 2009 models, while the G5 was available as a 2010 model only in Canada and Mexico). Today's bit of junkyard automotive history is one of the very last Vibes ever built, found in a yard near Denver, Colorado. This car is significant not just as one of the final vehicles to bear Pontiac badges but also as one of the last cars built by the New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated GM-Toyota joint venture in California, better known as NUMMI. The NUMMI factory began life as GM's Fremont Assembly, which built its first vehicle (a C-Series pickup) in 1963 and closed in 1982 after building its final vehicle (an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera). Rebooted as NUMMI, the first 1985 Chevrolet Nova (an Americanized AE82 Toyota Corolla Sprinter) rolled off the line in December of 1984. A quarter-century and better than eight million vehicles hence, NUMMI shut down production after its last Corolla was finished on April 1, 2010. While there was some noise about the Oakland Athletics building a new stadium on the site at the time, Tesla ended up buying most of the site soon after that. Tesla now builds more vehicles per year there than NUMMI ever did. The Vibe was co-developed with Toyota and based on the same platform as the ninth-generation Corolla. The Toyota Matrix was mechanically identical and was built in Canada, while the Japanese-market version (known as the Toyota Voltz) was built on the same NUMMI line as the Vibe and shipped across the Pacific. The Vibe/Matrix/Voltz got a redesign for the 2009 model year, but few noticed due to all the turmoil in the GM world at the time. The final Vibe was built in August 2009. This car was built in July of 2009, just before the end. It was living in West Texas just prior to coming to Colorado. El Paso is about a ten-hour drive from this car's current location. Once in the Centennial State, it got parked somewhere it shouldn't have been and ended up being auctioned to Pick Your Part. An occupant of this Vibe had time to sample some of the local agricultural products before that happened.