This is a Pace CB-166 23 channel CB radio with a plug-in walkie-talkie and a Pace 10-4U police scanner that was owned by Burt Reynolds and signed by him as “Burt Reynolds / BANDIT.”
It’s known that these units belonged to Reynolds for many years, and that that are the exact make and models of the units used during the filming of the 1977 hit comedy Smokey and the Bandit starring him and Sally Field. What isn’t known is if these are the film-used units that Reynolds took with him after filming, or if they’re identical units he sourced from elsewhere.
The general rule in the world of movie posters is that for any given film, the Japanese version of the poster will be the best by far. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) is a classic action-comedy starring Burt Reynolds as Bo “Bandit” Darville, Sally Field as Carrie, and Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Justice (“Smokey”).
The plot revolves around a high-speed chase across state lines. Bandit accepts a challenge to transport 400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas, to Atlanta, Georgia, within 28 hours, which was illegal at the time due to liquor transportation laws.
He enlists his partner Cledus “Snowman” Snow to drive the truck with the beer, while Bandit serves as a decoy in a flashy black Pontiac Trans Am to distract law enforcement.
During the journey, Bandit picks up Carrie, a runaway bride, who complicates things further as she’s fleeing from a wedding to Buford T. Justice’s son. Sheriff Justice becomes determined to catch Bandit, leading to an intense and often humorous pursuit filled with stunts, car chases, strategically driven trucks, and witty banter between Bandit and Carrie.
The film became a surprise box-office hit, it had a budget of $4.3 million USD but ended up raking in over $127 million USD at the box office, making it the second-highest grossing film of 1977 after a little-remembered space science fiction film called “Star Wars.”
The CB radio and police scanner shown here are possibly the original units used in the film, but they would need to either be screen matched or have their serial numbers matched with records from the film, if such records still exist.
Above Video: This is the original theatrical trailer for Smokey and the Bandit, a film now widely regarded as one of the most iconic of the 1970s.
Both units are being offered as a single lot by Julien’s as part of their upcoming Gunsmoke & Western Legends Auction which will be held on the 15th of November.
The price guide for this lot is $1,000 – $2,000 USD and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more about it or register to bid.
Images courtesy of Julien’s
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Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
