The enduring appeal of the Smokey and the Bandit films starring Burt Reynolds means the beaky 1977-78 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am is never short of buyers. Naturally, most people gravitate towards the black cars to emulate Reynolds’ ride, but the most desirable are the limited edition Y81 and Y82 SE cars with all the gold styling goodies.
You’re going to need to hand over a pot of gold, or maybe the earnings from a massive cross-state bootlegging operation, to take this Y82 home from Mecum’s Harrisburg sale at the end of this month though. Why? Because it has covered just 14.8 miles (24 km) from new.
Y81 and Y82 cars sold in 1977 all came finished in black paint, but received a gold engine-turned dashboard, gold paint on the inner facings of the 15-inch snowflake wheels, gold grille inserts and gold paint pinstriping to distinguish them from regular Trans Ams ordered with black paint. The key difference between the two is the Y81 cars came with a conventional coupe roof, while Y82s got the sexy Hurst removable glass T-Tops.
Mecum’s listing doesn’t explain the history behind this car and its extremely low mileage, but the pictures show it looking every bit as good as the day it rolled out of Pontiac’s plant. What they don’t show is the build sheet, so we don’t know exactly which options are fitted, though Mecum lists air conditioning, tinted glass and cruise control as being part of the equipment list.
Related: Banditry or Justice? Someone Just Paid $495k For Burt Reynolds’ 1977 Pontiac Trans Am
The images and listing also confirm that this Y82 is fitted with the three-speed automatic transmission, rather than the available four-speed manual, which is a shame. And it looks like the original owner was happy to stick with the standard 180 hp (183 PS) L78 6.6-liter engine rather than fork out a measly additional $50 for the W72 package, which bumped output to 200 hp (203 PS). But hey, what use is an extra 20 hp when you’re never going to drive the car, right?
According to production data on tran-zam.com this car is one of 6,030 Y82 automatics with the base engine made that year out of a total of 68,744 Trans Ams, meaning it’s maybe not as rare as you imagined. But there can’t be many, if any, other ’77 SE cars out there in this kind of condition and with so few miles on the clock. What do you think it will sell for? Leave a comment and give us your best guess.
