A friend of mine has just bought the Ford Mustang from the film ‘Gone in Sixty Seconds’. Quite how it must drive compared to his normal transport of Aston Martin I cannot imagine but my friend likes unusual cars-he also has a Mercedes 600 as used by all self-respecting third world dictators. The purchase made me think about some of the great cars and motoring images that I have loved in films. I am tempted to use the ‘I’word but I firmly believe that the ‘I’ word should be reserved for religious pictures from Byzantium where images of prominent early Christians are painted in gold leaf often with what look like solar rays emanating from behind their heads. So no Icons here then.

I’m not going to give you the links for this article. I suggest that if the mood takes you just hit You Tube and dig. So often the versions of film scenes are added to adverts or just badly recorded. They are all there, some long, some short, some in HD and some fuzzy. (Also, if we have links the films often get removed for copyright reasons, and this way we don't get sued. And I'm too lazy to YouTube the references. Asst ed)

In the 1969 caper film The Italian Job the opening sequence shows a fabulous Lamborghini Miura being driven up the St Bernard Pass, Mat Monro sings jauntily in the background and the world seems a perfect place. Sadly the car’s progress is eventually halted by an untimely explosion in a tunnel. The destruction of the car conveniently occurs outside camera range, a second, previously damaged, Lambo is then despatched down the side of a ravine. The technique of having something destroyed or killed out of sight of the audience is not new. In Hamlet, Polonius is stabbed behind the arras (curtain) so as to resolve the problem of getting a corpse off the stage. The tunnel does the same job in the film. I have never driven a Miura, I don’t suppose I ever will but with its transverse V12 and those big eyes for headlights it has got to be one of beautiful things to have come out of Italy since Mr Botticelli painted Printemps.

Youtube- Italian Job opening sequence

Another Italian car from the same era is the Alfa Romeo Duetto. It has a prominent part in Dustin Hoffman’s film The Graduate. He drives one in its original boat tail form, its derivation from the Disco Volante flying saucer concept car is easy to see. I have owned and raced a few Alfas, the twin cam four brought high tech enginesto the masses long before most other manufacturers had worked out there was an alternative to push rods*. The enraged and love sick hero drives his car to his trysts with Mrs Robinson but the most memorable image is of him driving across The Bay Bridge (not the Golden Gate as I had thought) from San Francisco to meet with his true love, Mrs Robinson’s daughter. The music that accompanies the scene is Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair. It is great stuff as the whole film has potent memories of the fantasies of teenage boys who are now men of a certain age. Mind you I live near Scarborough and I have never known it to have a fair.

Youtube-The Graduate Sounds of Silence/Scarborough fair

A film for anoraks like me is the Steve McQueen 1971 Le Mans epic. Not a lot of dialogue, not a great deal of story either but a film with so much soul. Not a word is spoken for the first 35 minutes but the film does contain a line that strikes a chord:-

“ When you’re racing, it... it’s life. Anything that happens before or after... is just waiting.”

All of us racers know that feeling that is depicted in the part of the film that goes with the 24 hour race start. The car door is closed, the engine is running, the seat belts are tight, the crew have gone. It’s just you, the car and the race. The race starts and in my case everybody overtakes you. The film opens with our hero driving his Porsche 911 across the countryside in the Sarthe. Le Grand’s music augments a memorable few minutes of vicarious motoring pleasure. The roads are empty, none of the French have got up yet, just a few yawning gendarmes. It captures so accurately the early mornings at Le Mans that I remember from the seventies when I was a regular visitor. That particular Porsche 911, I think, is one of the most valuable 911s in the world. The car recently sold for over $1,000,000 with McQueen’s race suit from the film going for slightly less. We have to accept that some folk are just born cool and he was one of them.

Youtube-McQueen Le Mans opening sequence

A film that is anything but cool but has some of the best anarchic motoring to ever been shown on celluloid is the 1976 American film Gumball Rally. It is a story of an illicit race across the United States involving lots of fast cars driven wonderfully irresponsibly. Of course the law enforcement community do their best to stop them. American muscle cars dominate, the E-Type never starts and they destroy a Ferrari Daytona. Judging by the photo of the instruments they didn’t exactly treat the car with much sympathy. Notice how the car is doing 120 mph but the oil and water are still cold-ouch. The Daytona they used was rebuilt then crashed again by Kris Kristoffersen in one of the many remakes of A Star is Born. This one with Barbra Streisand. I noticed that it had been rebuilt again and was for sale in Motorsport just last year. When you see the two film crashes, believe me you don’t want to buy that Daytona.

Youtube-Gumball Rally 1976

I know that many of us Monoposti like motorcycles as well as cars. The counter culture Easy Rider was in many ways a pointless film about nothing in particular. A couple of disaffected idiots who should know better, getting themselves killed. A contemporary comment was ‘A man went looking for America and couldn't find it anywhere.’ Those words pretty much sum up the plot but the first five minutes are such fun. A couple of cool-looking blokes on Harleys cruising across a wide open space, crossing the Colorado River to the soundtrack of Steppenwolf’s ‘Born To Be Wild’:
" Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way"

I recently rode a current Harley-Davidson from Fort Lauderdale to Key Largo, it was a current model 1,800cc V Twin, it was a memorable journey but even in its 2012 form a Harley makes Stephenson’s Rocket seem cutting edge. How Captain America made it to the second reel without his bike breaking down is a mystery.

On the subject of American counter culture nothing beats the 1998 film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Based on Hunter S Thompson’s book of the same name it stars among other things a 1971 Chevrolet Impala convertible. Two tons of the silliest car one could imagine. The vehicle used in the film was the famous Red Shark owned by the author. Again two idiots who should know better take too many drugs and enjoy their motoring under the influence. The following line should really never be said:- “We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like: I feel a bit lightheaded. Maybe you should drive.”

Youtube-Fear and loathing in Las Vegas

I have not expanded onto car chases or music videos There are so many to choose from. I wanted to stimulate less frenetic memories. Of course Gone in Sixty seconds is not the only appearance of the hairy chest Mustang in films. James Bond drives one on two wheels in Diamonds Are Forever and of course Steve McQueen takes on a Dodge Charger around the streets of San Francisco in the film Bullitt. The Dodge is a 440 Magnum (they just don’t give cars names that good any more do they?) and the Ford a 390 GT. Bullitt is possibly the best film car chase ever but there is stiff competition for that award. The rush under the tracks of the Chicago metro in The French Connection, the destruction of a shopping mall in The Blues Brothers, the madness through the streets of southern France in Ronin or the Transporter films are all great fun but they all use ordinary cars. Cars one would use to go shopping in, they don’t stir the soul like some of the vehicles above.

Mind you there are some great motoring images in music videos. Check out any ZZ Top track for the 1930s Ford or Cosmic Girl by Jamiroquai for the F40 and the 355.

I hope you have enjoyed the clips, I know there are many more and we all have our favourites.

Steven Griffin