Five years before Bo Darville ran blocker for Snowman in his famous black ’77 Trans Am in “Smokey & The Bandit,” Burt Reynolds was tearing up Arkansas back roads in a brown 1971 Ford Custom 500 in the silver screen classic “White Lightning.”

In “White Lightning,” Reynolds played Bobby “Gator” McKlusky, who was incarcerated in an Arkansas state prison for running moonshine. While in the slammer, Gator’s younger brother, Donny, was killed by crooked Bogan County Sheriff J. C. Connors, (portrayed by Ned Beatty). As part of a plea, Gator goes undercover for the United States Department of the Treasury to expose the sheriff for illegal financial transactions. Gator’s motivation is revenge, as he has no intention of gathering evidence against any moonshiners.

According to stuntman Hal Needham, who did the big jump scene in the film, he almost died from the jump onto the barge in the brown Ford.

To get the attention of Connors, Gator will run ‘shine and the Feds give him a hopped-up 1971 Ford Custom 500 — the very ride replicated by Jim and Laura Cunningham, which they brought to the recent Carlisle Ford Nationals in Pennsylvania. The Street Muscle Mag staff was there to get a look at the big Ford.

(If you want to learn more about the movie and the Custom 500, click here to read Rob Finkelman’s Street Muscle Mag story.

“We saw ‘White Lightning’ maybe 20 years ago, and when first saw it we thought the 500 was the ugliest car to be used as a feature car,” said Jim Cunningham. “But as we watched the movie time and time again, it became cool because it’s muscular and understated. We decided to build one because we thought it needed to be seen by the public, so here it is,” he added.

Hooked On Tributes

Having already built a General Lee Charger and Starsky & Hutch Gran Torino, the Cunninghams took on the Custom 500 build as a White Lightning tribute. A five-year search culminated in finding a clean, running example in Nelsonville, Ohio. It was blue with a white top and originally purchased and driven most of its life by an old lady. She passed it on to family members who sold it to the Cunninghams.

The Ford was in good shape but needed to take on a new look. The body was stripped and prepped for paint. Some trim was removed and a proper brown hue called Walnut Fire Metallic was sprayed. The blue interior received a cleaning and new seat covers, along with a few props, such as the Olympia beer that Gator swigs down.

This is what the Jim and Laura Cunningham started with —not too rough..

White Lightning fans will note the movie-shown 1971 Ford Custom 500 moonshine runner was rowdy-sounding and is supposed to have a dual-quad 429 engine under its long hood. In one scene, Reynolds gets a quick look at the powerplant, which leads to him saying in a deep southern drawl: “Would you look at that motor: 429, dual carburetors.”

Enthusiasts, however, recognize the engine is a 351C with a single four-barrel carb, likely sitting in a Mustang as you can see shock towers. It’s likely the Mustang underhood was traded for filming since the movie-used Custom 500 was likely to have had a stock 302 or 351C and wouldn’t have looked as impressive as the engine shown with the finned valve covers and open-element air cleaner.

Producers also took poetic license with powertrain. At some points, Gator is shown banging gears with a T-handle four-speed and later he tosses the automatic shifter into “Park.” The 4-speed shots are very tight and look to be from a 1971-’73 Mustang.

Inside The Tribute Car

Nevertheless, the inaccuracies don’t diminish the cool factor of the Ford or the character.
Motivating the Cunningham’s ’71 Ford is a 351 Windsor, which was in the car when Jim purchased it. The 351 provides the “Gatoresque” rumble through headers and dual exhaust. It does, in fact, have a Holley 600-cfm four-barrel and BBK headers. Jim added finned valve covers to replicate the engine shown in the film.

The Windsor is backed by a FMX three-speed automatic with a Hurst Auto Stick and a T-handle. “It looks cool and was best for movie accuracy,” Jim stated. “It also has a Ford 9-inch with a Traction-Lok and a 2.75:1 ring and pinion.”

The suspension was rebuilt, but left stock, and Jim chose Mopar 15-inch wheels, rather than Ford rims. “The Mopar wheels look close to original and cost $125 for four wheels. I’m not sure why, but the same size Ford wheels are roughly $2,000 for steel wheels.,” he stated.

He’s not lying either; we saw a set at the Carlisle Ford Nationals for $1,800! To complete the rolling stock movie look, he disguised a set of BFG Radial T/A tires as Cooper “Wide Runners” with raised white letters.

“We can look at the movie and see that they used as many as four or more cars,” said Jim. “You can tell that some of them have a chrome body side molding, some cars had bumperettes, and the stunt car had a big push bar to preserve the front-end on heavy driving scenes. You could tell they wrecked and patched a few, too. We picked the best attributes for our replica. The fans recognize it as Gator’s car from ‘White Lightning’ and that’s all that matters to us.”