With all the recent talk about the new Fast and Furious movie, I have been thinking about my favourite movies that have great car moments. Here’s my top five—these may not be the end-all-be-all of automotive cinema, but they’re the moments that stand out for me:

1. Bullitt. Most people automatically think about the Mustang chase scenes, but when I think of the chases it’s the Dodge Charger that comes to mind. I can remember being a little kid and seeing it for the first time and thinking that the Charger was the coolest car. Also, if you have read about the making of this movie, you’ll know which car needed the least maintenance as a result of all the hard driving that took place. That’s right, it was the Dodge!

2. Mad Max. The two-door Australian Ford coupes used in this movie were always cool, and when they were modified for the film they became even cooler. What I really like about this film is that I just have to take a short drive from my house and I can find myself on a lot of the roads that this movie was filmed on.

3. The Blues Brothers. Let’s be honest, how great would it be to drive through a shopping mall? Minus the people of course. This movie really had it covered for originality. Who could forget, "the new Oldsmobiles are in early this year”?

4. The French Connection. Without a doubt this movie has one of the greatest car chases of all time. What I find interesting is that the car crash during the chase was unplanned but was left in the movie because of its realism. The producers paid for the repairs to the smashed car.

5. Every James Bond movie. Ok, it’s a rather broad selection, but if it’s cool cars that you want then Bond has always delivered.

So that’s my top five. What’s yours?

Long before there was the Dukes of Hazzard, there was Vanishing Point, every Mopar guy’s favorite existential movie. The hero of the story is the white 1970 Challenger driven by Kowalski. So what’s the first thing Rich Truesdell thought of when he learned he’d get a chance to drive the new Challenger? That’s right. And he’s gonna hook up with Buzz Graves and his 1970 Dodge Challenger Hemi R/T to retrace the route from the movie. Let’s just hope he doesn’t crash into some bulldozers at the end. Stay tuned for exclusive video and photos of the drive on CarDomain, just as soon as Dodge lifts the embargo on driving impressions on May 1. And right now Rich is serving up a teaser for his 2,600-mile trip next week over at Automotivetraveler.com, with a wallpaper-sized image of a 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A alongside the 2006 concept version of the Dodge Challenger–both "painted" white.

Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) is perhaps the greatest street racing film of all time (sorry Fast and Furious fans). And the ‘55 Chevy used in the film is one of the greatest hero cars ever. In fact, it was so cool that it was also used again in American Graffiti (as the car driven by Harrison Ford). The same car.

Actually, there were three cars built by Richard Ruth for Two-Lane, and two of them were used in American Graffiti. The main car from Two-Lane was also used as the main car for American Graffiti. It was built with a 427 crate motor, M-22 Muncie, 4.88 Olds rear, fiberglass front end, doors, and trunk lid, and straight axle front suspension. It was heavily modified in the 80s and now barely resembles the car from either movie. The second car was the camera car for Two-Lane, and was used for all the interior shots. It was similar to the main car, but was built with a 454 crate motor. This same car also provided the engine sounds for the Trans Am in Smokey and the Bandit. It was restored to the condition you see in the photo below. The third car was used as the stunt car in both movies, and was rolled in American Graffiti. It was an all steel-bodied car equipped with a 454 crate motor, TH 400 automatic, and Olds rear. Sadly, this car was crushed in the late 70s. Some links and more photos after the jump.

Continue reading "'55 Chevy from Two-Lane Blacktop and American Graffiti" »

Everyone hates Nazis, especially Illinois Nazis. Too bad their cool orange Pinto wagon had to die with them. Believe it or not, the producers of the Blues Brothers had to get a special airworthiness (or unworthiness?) certificate for the Pinto from the FAA to certify that the car would not fly off-course when it was dropped from a helicopter in the famous scene. As a result, they first had to drop a duplicate car in a remote area to see how far off from vertical it would travel while falling. So two Pintos died for the sake of art. Oh well… Sadly, I could not find a photo of the actual drop.

Update: check out this site. Thanks for the link Gary!

Today I’m kicking off a weekly blog column on cars in film. And I’m gonna start with one of my dream cars–the 1967 Plymouth GTX convertible. Clearly, not all of the cars below are "real" GTXs–the orange car in Joe Dirt definitely has the wrong hood paint, and both the Joe Dirt car and blue Tommy Boy car have a bench seat, which probably indicates that they are Belvedere IIs. In fact, my buddy Scott thinks that owing to the David Spade connection, the Joe Dirt car may be one used previously in Tommy Boy, just painted differently. Of course, the blue car in Tommy Boy came to a very sad end–but they probably had several cars for the shoot. My favorite of the three is definitely the black vert in Lost Highway–David Lynch is a real Mopar dude. I definitely need to see that movie again. I have a few more Tommy Boy pics after the jump.

So, let me know what cars you would like to see featured in future posts. I’m gonna try to stick to one year/make/model used in two or more movies or tv shows.

Continue reading "1967 Plymouth GTX Convertibles in Film" »

I finally got around to watching the Pixar movie Cars a few weeks ago (Jen was horrified to learn I hadn’t seen it and let me borrow her personal copy). And now my daughter is obsessed with it, thanks to a kid’s birthday party this weekend with the full Cars theme–Cars cake, Cars napkins, Cars plates, Cars party hats, Cars pinata. I’m happy to say that her favorite car is King (she thinks Mater "looks like a car made out of poop"). Anyway, I’ve been seeing some pretty good Cars photochops recently around the web. I really like Mike’s ‘Cuda below. Got a good Cars photochop on your ride page? Post a link in the comments below. We’ll send the member with our favorite Cars photochop a CarDomain t-shirt.