Just because it's in a movie or on T.V....doesn't mean it can be done...

A lot of people argue about car stunts they see in movies and on T.V.  Like Kurt Russel's evil stuntman Mike said in "Death Proof" even before the advent of CGI there was quite a bit of trickery going on behind the scenes by filmmakers to put exciting sequences on screen. Way back in the '50s-when Robert Mitchum did "Thunder Road"-the rear bumper of his '50 Ford was unbolted and barely attatched with adhesive-so when the "Feds" latched on to it-it would come off easily. They also used hydraulic jacks to flip the cars. "Bullitt"-the grandaddy of them all that still looks good 50 years later because of Steve McQueen's committment to reality had quite a bit of off-screen scrambling to keep it going. Ford had the contract to supply cars to the movie company. McQueen didn't want two Fords in the chase. What are the chances that the cop and the bad guys would both be driving Fords?  Since Chrysler wouldn't or couldn't supply them with cars because of Ford's contract-McQueen and Stunt Coordinator Carey Loftin bought the ominous black Charger off the showroom floor of Tanforan Dodge with their own money. The Charger was a 440 / 4-speed; the Mustangs were all 390 / 4-speeds. Ford guys aren't going to like the next few paragraphs, but it's all true verified by interviews with Steve McQueen, Carey Loftin, Bill Hickman, and Max Balchowsky-the stunt crew of the film. When they first started filming-the Charger would leave the Mustang so badly that they couldn't film it. Steve McQueen was furious.  Max Balchowski-Loftin's ace mechanic hopped up the 'Stang. He added headers and shorty glasspack mufflers, and an Edelbrock Intake and a Douple-Pumper Holley carb along with a Mallory distributor. That's why the car sounds so badass when McQueen is winding the gears. The Charger would still beat it in a drag race-but now only by a car length or two; now McQueen could stay close enough to Hickman so they could film it! The other problem they had was bounding over the hills of San Francisco at speeds up to 115 mph. The Charger-with it's Torsion bar front end and leaf-sprung Dana 60 rear end had no problems other than throwing hubcaps off. If you watch the film closely-the Charger loses 8 hubcaps during the chase!  The Mustang on the other hand kept breaking suspension parts and ripping the shock towers out. Ford had supplied 5 Mustangs. Loftin and Balchowski worked every night stealing parts off the other cars to keep the camera car running! That's why only two of the five are known to exist today. Oddly-none of the Mustangs had a limited-slip rear end. That's why McQueen and Loftin-they drove the Mustang- ( Bill Hickman was the Charger driver ) created such one-tire fires when taking off.  Carey Loftin was also the stunt coordinator on the classic "Vanishing Point". The Challengers were stock except for the one that Loftin jumped the creek in. That one he cranked up the torsion bars to maximum height and added Koni shocks. At the end he towed an engineless Camaro with dynamite and an impact-sensitive switch in the engine bay behind the Challenger toward the bulldozers at 80 mph and used a quick-release cable. In the "Seven-Ups" directed by Philip D'Antoni-who worked on "Bullitt"-he apparently didn't care what cars were used-or perhaps didn't have Steve McQueen's power with the film company-there were two Pontiacs in the chase-a black Grand Ville and a silver Ventura. ( Pontiac's version of the Nova ). The chase was supposedly through upstate New York-but there were a lot of similarities to "Bullitt" including the passenger shooting at the pursuing cop with a shotgun. The scene where the Ventura's hood comes off after getting shot took quite a bit of planning. By the '70's all cars had double hood latches. Even if the hood was popped accidentally or not fully closed-the 2nd latch would keep the hood from flying up and blocking the driver's vision. A safety feature all the manufacturers had. The stunt crew cut off the 2nd latch; that way when the hood was popped-it would fly up. However-it would have just been up; the hinges and the bolts holding it to the hinges would have held. The stunt crew set the hood on the hinges with pins not bolts. That way when the hood flew up at 75 mph or however fast they were going-the pins would slip out and the whole hood would fly off.  It looks cool on-screen. The scene where the Ventura runs under the parked semi took a page from Loftin's playbook. In the film it looks like driver Roy Scheider dove onto the floor a second before the car's roof is torn off.  In reality-no one was driving the Ventura. Bill Hickman was towing it beside him using Loftin's quick-release apparatus-that's how they threw the Charger into the gas station in "Bullitt" as well. Hickman hit the release at the last second and the Ventura spectacularly gets be-headed by the rear of a parked semi. In the first "Smokey and the Bandit" big burnouts were easy. With 400 cubes under the hood the T/A's could smoke the tires at will. However-the 2nd movie was made in 1980-and the mighty 400 Pontiacs were retired. The ill-fated Turbocharged 301s couldn't smoke the tires at all on dry pavement. Burt Reynolds and Hal Needham-the director / stunt coordinator thought it would look silly to have to wet the pavement for smoky burnouts, and that the audience would find it cheesy, which it would have been. The solution? They had ten black Turbo T/A's for filming. Two of them were designated "Burnout" cars. These two were fitted with nitrous. When they wanted tire smoke either Burt Reynolds or the stunt driver would powerbrake the motor, hit the nitrous button and release the brake. Instant burnout. The joys of the smog-laden cars of the early '80's. Just 3 years earlier in '77-the driver only had to pop the clutch on a 4-speed models or just punch the automatics!  The Dukes of Hazzard destroyed something like 216 '68-70 Chargers during it's run. A lot of the "jumps" were done with driverless cars because the stunt guys knew that a driver would be gravely injured or killed by the impact. The stunt crew of "Dukes" had a rivalry with the stunt crew of "Knight Rider". A grudge match was set up. The Dukes stunt crew built a "General Lee"-it was code-named "GL26"-it was the 26th one built, with a tricked-out suspension and a NASTY 440. The Knight Rider crew put a NASTY Traco-Built 460 hp 350 Chevy into one of their '83 T/A's in place of the stock 305. '83 T/As had WS6 suspension and 4-wheel disc brakes from the factory-nothing needed there. Since the T/A in the show was named "KITT"-this one was code-named "Superkitt".  Anyhow the race was held at a local L.A. racetrack-it might have been Fontana-I'll have to double-check-and apparently it was too close to call. No one claimed victory; but they had a lot of fun. A funny side effect-for months to come the stunt drivers of both shows complained loudly that all the other cars didn't have near the power and handling capabilities of GL 26 or "Superkitt"!!  The "Fast&Furious" movies use quite a bit of trickery. Hydraulic jacks were used to make the Charger wheelie in the race with the Supra. The stunt crew put 600 lbs of lead in the rear bumper of the Chevelle to make it wheelie. The Grand National had the body mounted backwards on the frame for the scene where Vin Diesel is chasing the semi in "reverse". The BMW in the "Transporter" was a one-off 733i specially built for the movie by BMW. It had a manual transmission-which production models don't have-their all automatics-and it had all the traction controls and electronic nannys disabled so the stunt drivers could do all those smoky burnouts and sliding around. On that subject-this is why so many action flicks use old musclecars in chase scenes. Because modern cars have so many safety features and electronic nannies-if you hit anything at any rate of speed-the fuel pumps shut off, the airbags trigger, etc-which could certainly ruin a chase scene if it happened at the wrong time!  Anyhow-take what you see on the screen with a grain of salt-and like they used to say on stunt shows-"Don't try this at home". Mastermind