The cinema has made many cars famous – the Ford Mustang, Dodge Charger, Chevrolet Corvette, and even imports like the Toyota Supra have achieved iconic status, due to no small part, to the movies they’ve starred in. Among these is the Pontiac Firebird Trans Am and it was “Smokey and the Bandit” that inspired this 1978 Pontiac Trans Am resto-mod, built by “Ryan’s Rod & Kustom”.

After the outrageous 1976 Cadillac Hearse “Overtaker”, the YouTube channel “POWERNATION” is giving us another video of an interesting project. Tommy Boshers, who is normally associated with Detroit Muscle, visits his friend and colleague, Chris Ryan – the man behind the idea of this 1978 Trans Am, which was brought out at the 2021 SEMA Show.

There are always those who will say that modifying a classic is wrong and it should be kept original, but everyone knows that a 1970s Trans Am was far from being perfect. As Chris explains “we wanted to take the cheesy, 1970s plasticness out of the Trans Am”. Those terrible, cheap, squeaky plastics, GM products were (and still are) known for, have been disposed of.

The car Chris calls “the “Mullet Missile”, because of the era, has been totally reimagined. Think of this as Singer, but for Trans Am instead of Porsche. A bold statement, indeed, but you only need to look at the fit and finish of the 1978 Pontiac, which now has even gaps and a beautiful, hand-stitched, red interior that took weeks to complete.

The rear, in particular, has seen a few changes, among which the new rear bumper, which has been tucked in by about three inches, and the new ducktail, which is now made out of metal. The quarter-panel has been lowered by about 1.5 inches and the curved rear window has been flush-mounted, making for a much cleaner look. The most modern addition to the Trans Am's rear is the new LED taillights, with a classic design.

Moving to the side, the original fender flares, which were made out of plastic-fiber-glass composite and had terrible fitment, have been disposed of, in favor of steel ones. Inside them are custom, one-piece wheels, with a “honeycomb-ish” design as Chris Ryan describes it. The rocker panels have also been redesigned to give the impression that the car sits closer to the ground, but the most interesting change is the door handles, which originally belong to a Nissan GT-R.

At the front, the idea was to get rid of the “ugly, square GM headlights” from that period and replace them with more modern projector lights. The front bumper has been tucked in by 1.5 inches on both sides, just like at the. “The main focal point on the front” - as Tommy points out - is the bird, which was hand-drawn by artist, Jeremy Sayner, on top of the new silver paint, which is actually BMW Donington Grey.

As for the engine, it’s an LS-based unit with 6.0 liters of displacement and 600 horsepower. The engine not only sounds epic, but looks amazing, being finished in an interior-matching bright red color. Chris explains that “all the ugly stuff”, like the battery, radiator, and overflow tank, hide under a cover, in front of the engine. The car sits on a new, Ridetech chassis and features "fat, sticky, rubber" with 325 mm rear width.

Being inspired by “Smokey and the Bandit,” the 1978 Trans Am was originally supposed to be black and gold. Things obviously took a different turn, but it’s probably for the best, as the car stands out, amongst all the movie car replicas. Nothing on this Trans Am has been left untouched. Chris wanted the car to stand out and that’s exactly what he did. Best of all, it still has the awesome T-top. As Tommy Boshers says, Chris Ryan “knocked it out of the park” and we couldn’t agree more.