When it comes to jumping cars, it’s hard to beat the iconic jump performed by Burt Reynolds in his black 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in the iconic Smokey and the Bandit movie. Now, it seems as though there may be another Firebird jump to rival the iconic Burt Reynold jump, as YouTubers strapped rockets to the rear of a fourth-generation Firebird in an attempt to cover a football field.
Conceptualized as a collaborative effort between two popular YouTube channels – Mr. Beast and Donut Media – this outlandish attempt is one step above other car jumping projects, as the vehicle has seven miniature rockets providing additional thrust. Donut Media started out with a 1997 Pontiac Firebird powered by the 3.8L V6 L36 engine, which is rated from the factory at 205 horsepower and 230 pound-feet of torque. This old engine wasn’t going to to cut it, so Donut Media elicited the help of another popular YouTuber, Warped Perception, to fit the Firebird with rockets.
With all seven rockets functioning properly, this unlucky Firebird produces 550 pounds of thrust, which compliments the L36 V6 nicely. This combination was thought to result in enough speed to be able to clear the football field.
For the sake of comparison, a 2002 Pontiac Firebird also made an attempt. Even with the 5.7L V8 LS1 pushing out 310 horsepower and 335 pound-feet of torque, without the additional thrust of the rockets, this Firebird didn’t make it very far, and crashed into the fifth school bus in the row. Not to be outdone, the Jet-powered Firebird managed to clear an additional three buses, rocketing over a total of nine Bluebirds. Not too shabby for a project that only lasted 30 days.
It’s worth noting that both vehicles were rigged with remote controllers to control the steering and throttle, as well as a brick for the non jet-powered Firebird. As such, no one was harmed in this stunt. To watch the action unfold, check out the video linked above.
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Comments
I cannot see the video here. Please add a direct YouTube link.
WOW…
What a waste for Firebirds.
None of these are Bluebirds, they are all Thomas Built Buses out of High Point, NC.
WD40 sponsored this? Really?
I couldn’t watch the video in its entirety…too F-ing stupid. I just hope it was already a salvage/rebuilt firebird…
I don’t understand the theory behind what they’re doing because you took two perfectly good cars and wasted it the price of the jet engines it was all the ways for me I could see using the money to help the homeless or to help other people in other ways but to me how much money did you really spend totally out some buses waste of time and money I rather see better things go on feeding the homeless helping the homeless anything else would have been a lot better than the nonsense that I just watched sorry that’s just my opinion if my opinion isn’t great I’ll keep my opinions to myself but everybody should have a two cents of what they see thank you
Well, what we have here is a basically semi intelligent group of bored youth with money to burn, a Firebird that one way or the other is going to give it’s life to help accomplish a stunt that, if done right (uh, sorry?) could at least have had an ending that while probably not as excitingly stupid, could have ended with a good jump and maybe they’d be enticed to do it again with just one more bus added instead of starting out with way too many buses to begin with! Oh well, this was sort of a success if for no other reason that it got our attention, made a video that we’re watching and talking about and of course managed to literally destroy a lot of sheet metal and created a huge mess to clean up. Mission accomplished? Sheesh.
Firebird……. A fired up bird that flies! Except, it didn’t quite make it! Shame!
A waste of two, potentially great, if restored, Firebirds!!! I love these Firebirds, so it broke my heart!!!
Ramp too low and jet engine not powerful enough. Money could have been used to help people.