If you're jonesing for fast cars on public roads, there is a 9 minute movie filmed in Paris in the mid 70's I believe, with a Ferrari 275/GTB4 running amok through the streets at dawn called Rendevouz. The famed director Claude Lelouch stuck a camera on the nose of the car and away they went. The motor is the soundtrack. It's called part of the Holy Trinity of car movies (with LeMans and Grand Prix), and has been said to make Bullit look like a cartoon. A must have, it's now on DVD I think after having been long discontinued on VHS.

 

Hehe....you do realize who made the Cannonball Run movie don't you? You do realize that several vehicles in the first Cannonball Run were the REAL cars used in the Cannonball run, don't you? You do realize that several events that happen in the movie were based on real incidents during the real Cannonball drives, don't you? Yes, the movie was intended to be comedy and thus there are some strange elements of fiction in it, such as Roger Moore pretending to be a spy....but I think the first one is a great movie nonetheless.

 

There is a post on 6speedonline.com that has an entire collection of gumball 3000 videos on it, it is in the 996TT forum.

 

I am old enough (and started reading C&D at about 8 or 10 years old) that I remember reading about the first Cannonball Baker Sea to Shinning Sea Memorial Trophy Dash when it was first held. As an aside, my favorite line from that article was "along a dark canyon road in the middle of the night, Dan Gurney proved to Brock Yates that 'Ban doesn't wear off.'" Hehe. They were doing 170 at the time in a Ferrari Daytona.

Anyway, after the first CBSTSSMTD there were a few gimmicks. The one from the Cannonball Run movie that most stands out is the Polish Racing Driver's Club (a group formed by Oscar Kovaleski of Auto World) ran a van with a huge fuel tank inside so they didn't have to stop. It did not run into a fireworks factory and explode however.

Brock Yates may have been involved with that stupid movie, but it was a Hal Needham (I think) production. I think I remember reading Yates being perturbed when Needhan didn't try to capture the real CBSTSSMTD and at one point said, "**** it, let's wreck some cars."

No, the Cannonball Run was about as true to the real thing as that stupid Stalone movie was to real Champ Car racing.

 

There is only on Stalone car movie that's worth watching:
Deathrace 2000

Hehehe...
-Z.

 

Wasn't that about NASCAR?

 

Gawd, Deathrace 2000....I haven't seen that movie in ages! hahaha

No, Cannonball Run isn't the most accurate, but it was a fun movie and it did have the people who were really involved making it. I think it stands better as what it is than trying to do a really serious version. It's one of several movies from the 70s-80s comedies that still beat out almost all of the comedies done today. Airplane, Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Monty Python, Spaceballs, etc.

That said, the commentary on Cannonball Run with Hal Needham is great for behind the scenes info. They really did have a somewhat similar scene to the one getting pulled over by the police in their ambulance and hearing them recount some of their Cannonball Run (real and movie) stuff is hilarious.

 

Hehe. I forgot about the ambulance.

 

I found the "Gumball 3000" on DVD at a video/music store at a mall here. Has the M3 on the cover with a chick and a guy wearing a pig mask with a police hat on top.

 

Remember Jackie Chan! LOL he had that wierd *** space car in cannonball run.