Continuity mistake: At the Gator Motel, after Cledus and Bandit get part of the money, when Bandit starts crying about Frog and blows his nose into the money, there is a side shot showing a wad of bills in Bandit's shirt pocket before he actually puts the bills into his pocket in a following shot. (00:12:45)
Continuity mistake: When Sheriff Justice has caused the roller coaster frame to collapse his car's left front hubcap is gone, but soon reappears. Then during the "game of chicken" between the semi-trailers and police cars, his car's left back hubcap is gone, but reappears just before Justice thinks about retiring.
Continuity mistake: The rear view mirror on Sheriff Justice's car repeatedly disappears and reappears.
Continuity mistake: Bandit and Frog are driving in the T/A with the windows up and the T-tops on. When Bandit passes the screaming girls in the Eldorado, the windows are down and the T-tops are off. They then cut back to the inside of the car with the windows up and T-tops back on.
Continuity mistake: When Buford T. Justice's car goes off the drawbridge, it is a different older body style car than what he was driving originally.
Continuity mistake: When Cledus is racing his truck in the beginning scenes, several times they show him out in the lead by himself, but then they'd cut to him inside the truck and he was always passing the same trucks over and over again.
Continuity mistake: When the Bandit's car jumps over Buford T. Justice's car, Justice's car somehow turns into an older body style car than what he was originally driving.
Continuity mistake: When Smokey's about to try and jump the bridge, we see it rising, he starts pulling away, then we see it lowering to flat, then in the next shot it's raised again as he drives up it.
Continuity mistake: When Justice is chasing Bandit after the desert crash scenes, he says about how Bandit has picked a route with only one way out, and behind him you can see a load of trucks. The next camera shot then shows Justice driving away from the camera with Police cars following, then the next shot then goes back to an interior shot of Justice and there is now nothing behind him.
Continuity mistake: The rear view mirror on Bandit's Trans Am disappears and reappears repeatedly throughout the movie.
Continuity mistake: Right after Bandit pays the kid to watch the elephant they switch to a scene of Smokey driving his car with the light bar fully intact, which in all previous scenes is almost destroyed.
Continuity mistake: In the gas station scene, the attendant tells Bandit he is one of the top 5 A-holes. He then walks toward a back room in the garage, and while he is approaching the door it is fully intact. When he slams the door, Bandit stoops down to a crack in the door where one of the slats is missing, that was there a few seconds before.
Answer: To me, in real life, it looks like a roller coaster was already set up for demolition because of its poor conditions, and the crew was able to film it for the movie. However, in-universe, the owner kept saying they were closed. It's possible they were closed to repair the roller coaster to make it work but now it's completely destroyed and beyond repair.
Bishop73