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Wrecking cool cars for movies

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by teisco, May 12, 2009.

  1. ltex old iron
    Joined: Dec 10, 2008
    Posts: 515

    ltex old iron
    BANNED

    I saw a trailer for the new John Dillinger movie coming out with Johnny Depp. In the trailer they show a scene where they roll a 33-34 Ford Sedan!!! I gasped aloud in the theater... my wife laughed.


    yeah i saw the same trailer..i gasped as well and muttered some cuss words and my old lady pinched me
     
  2. lgh1157
    Joined: Sep 15, 2004
    Posts: 1,671

    lgh1157
    Member

    Im working on a $30 million movie right now, they bought a brand new F150, the next week they drove it into a wall, $30k is nothing to some L.A producer.

    The movie before that they flipped a brand new dodge challenger, they flipped it twice and it landed on the front bumper .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . .

    Its nothing to them

    L
     
  3. LOW LID DUDE
    Joined: Aug 16, 2007
    Posts: 1,223

    LOW LID DUDE
    Member
    from Colorado

    Demo Derby dude the only thing I liked about the video was the hot chick.Seeing the old cars smashed makes me cringe,LOL.
     
  4. teisco
    Joined: Mar 25, 2008
    Posts: 171

    teisco
    Member

    When I started this thread I was pissed that they broad sidded a GTO Judge in the movie Sex Drive. I was pissed because I had one along time ago and it was personal. I am happy to see that I am not alone in my opinion that wreaking collector cars for profit is crap. Even if the car was a junker and made up of bondo and enamel it could have been a starter for someone.

    Maybe a coalition of well to do collectors could form and put pressure on the studios to think again about smashing a nice old car...naaaah, never happen.
     
  5. kustomrace
    Joined: Apr 1, 2004
    Posts: 168

    kustomrace
    Member

    I 've rented my O/T van to a movie company in Detroit for a movie about a Irish mobster.They are blowing up a few cars for the movie(64 caddy,70's merc).Every time the teamsters move my van,I get "is this the one thats gets blownup?"......also one of the pyro guys has a Baileigh hat. Dave
     
  6. DrJ
    Joined: Mar 3, 2001
    Posts: 9,419

    DrJ
    Member

    Until I read further, I thought you were confessing to being a moonshiner...!?! :eek::cool:
     
  7. jazzbum
    Joined: Apr 5, 2005
    Posts: 598

    jazzbum
    Member

    i feel the same about way mail-order guitars...great minds?
     
  8. 17 Belvederes that no one gave a shit about in 1977, not counting the rubber one they cast for some of the special effects, that could have all been bought after the filming was done.

    On the other hand, like 95% of all restored 57-58 Plymouths are painted red just like the movie car, how many of them would people have saved without the loss of the ones from the movie?

    Okay, but it was a '39 Plymouth they hacked the top up on. Which could easily have been made into a pseudo-convertible when they were done.

    And Tim Allen knew better than to drop a pipe on a real Nomad, they substituted a 150 Handyman - not that it's better but we tried to sell one just like it for like three years and it only brought $1500, because again it was just an old car no one gave a shit about, except eventually one Hamb'er.


    When The Dukes Of Hazzard was made no one much cared about muscle cars either. No one cries about the bazillion Fury and Monaco sedans shows like that and CHiPs and every other cop show and movie destroyed, though.

    The more recent Dukes movie let people buy back their cars afterwards, so even wrecked some of the stunt cars were saved.

    And the Dukes TV show did go to some terrible looking miniatures after a while - mostly because they ran out of Chargers, they couldn't find any. I think it turned out to be cheaper, enough that Knight Rider followed suit towards the end too.

    As for the number they wrecked, how many thousand clones came about as a result? How many people think Chargers or Trans Ams or whatever are cool because some movie featured one as the star car 10, 15, 20 years ago?


    Someone mentioned the Superman movie. Special effects then was done with miniatures, like Star Wars, it's hard to find a fan big enough to blow cars through the air and so on. The '32 Ford you see smashed is probably one of the Monogram 1/8th scale kits or something like that, off the shelf to save a few bucks because that work is unbelievably expensive.


    I agree Death Proof was pretty stupid, particularly the Challenger. The Vanishing Point remake roasts another Challenger, although you can see they made a roached parts car into a roller for the last scene (had it really hit those dozers at 100+ it would have exploded like a bomb and shit would have gone everywhere).

    Heck I watched one Steve McQueen movie where he rents a brand new '80 Firebird and by the time they're done the entire front of the car is blown off. So what? It was a new car when the movie was made. And by '80 they pretty well sucked anyhow. Rockford Files wrecked some, too, and they'd switch a 70-73 for the 77 he drove to push off the cliff or whatever. They even pulled that with a Lincoln, replacing a relatively new one (at that time) with like a '65. Which we've had and you still can't give away, by the way.

    I guess my point is if you're going to bitch about cars wrecked in movies, at least realize that half the movies people mention here the cars they wrecked were new, or not that old or special at the time.

    You'd think by now these people would know better, but a lot of movies get made by whiny liberal environmental-case motherfuckers who think that smashing an old car means less pollution, never mind that the burning wreck makes more hazardous fumes than the entire life of the car did. It's gotten better, to be sure, the crews know better and try not to wreck good stuff, but sometimes they can only find one car like they want. So if it needs to get wrecked... bye! They have the budget and money rules all.

    That's what it boils down to, really, $30,000 for a new car or $30,000 for a nice old car makes no difference - and sometimes it's easier to come up with 5 nearly identical old cars than to get 5 identical new ones.

    That "Make Room For Shoes" commercial is a case in point. The '55 Caddy was kind of roached out and had an Earl Scheib red paintjob thrown on it, but shit it ran and drove (or someone gave it a good push and ducked) and it was a 2-door. Plus it's just not a funny commercial, it looks like the prelude to a homicide more than anything. With a little editing, they could have crushed anything painted with the same paint, stuck the Caddy bumper on the front, and had the same commercial in the end.

    I always thought that's how you tell a real car guy from just someone who has a car because it's the cool, hip thing to have - the real car guy knows his car has a soul. I treat mine like it does and it hasn't let me down yet. Some of the cars I've had I've had no business getting the miles out of them that I did, but they got me home. In fact the one I parked ate a belt yesterday for no apparent reason. I haven't been as nice to it since I replaced it, it's probably not happy with me for making it a lot truck.
     
  9. junk fiend
    Joined: Sep 16, 2008
    Posts: 430

    junk fiend
    Member

    i watched some of this on TV cant remember what the show was called but it was all about the 3 F100s being built. and the rusty one had canted cads and a custom grill.
     
  10. junk fiend
    Joined: Sep 16, 2008
    Posts: 430

    junk fiend
    Member

    well i thought about it and what you said is retarded, when i see a car get wrecked in a movie i dont go "aww that car was probly worth 100 Gs and it just got blown up" i think shit you just wrecked some car that survived this long just to be Fd up in a stupid movie(im talking about modern movies). maybe if everyone on the HAMB drove escalades and 300Cs with 24" rims and the loudest stereo possible it would be about the "look how rich i am". shit i dont even have to drive a old car i could just sit and stare at it sitting in the garage. i understand that no material things really matter in the long run but this is a gear head forum

    Think about it. :D
     
  11. 'Mo
    Joined: Sep 26, 2007
    Posts: 7,432

    'Mo
    Member

    The ORIGINAL (literally) purposefully built movie wreck stunt car ... Barris built "High School Confidential" Chevy.

    [​IMG]
     
  12. model-a-fan
    Joined: Oct 4, 2008
    Posts: 842

    model-a-fan
    Member
    from Kentucky

    I'm with ya on the Challenger!

     
  13. vertible59
    Joined: Jan 25, 2009
    Posts: 1,058

    vertible59
    Member

    The story was in Street Rodder or Rod Action years ago about the Chinatown Phaeton. It was really interesting to me, that someone would take that chance with such a rare car. Lots of money must have changed hands!
     
  14. I think Hollywood has been wrecking cars, trains and plans since the beginning of moves. Check out Laurel and Hardy, the old westerns and the old crime movies. One movie that wasn't mentioned was Steel Yard Blues. In that one Donald Sutherland wrecks a 59 Caddy ambulance.
     
  15. cpkphil
    Joined: Aug 11, 2010
    Posts: 7

    cpkphil
    Member

    I think it was a 39 Plymouth in Roger Rabbit.
     
  16. I said that in a post on page 7... three years ago.
     
  17. Old thread but we all cringe when we see old cars destroyed! HRP
     
  18. Gromit
    Joined: Oct 13, 2011
    Posts: 726

    Gromit
    Member

    This one makes me wince... Even if it's not US Iron, it's still iconic..

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hcmGG6VUsU

    Now if there's ever a demand for mid 70's Dodge and Chev 4 doors, the Blues brothers have a lot to answer for :)
     
  19. denis4x4
    Joined: Apr 23, 2005
    Posts: 4,203

    denis4x4
    ALLIANCE MEMBER
    from Colorado

    I know it isn't cars, but a friend of mine has been trying to sell a Cal 39 sail boat for several years. Studio came along and paid the asking price for his and two others that would be made into cutaways as well as sunk.
     
  20. Gromit
    Joined: Oct 13, 2011
    Posts: 726

    Gromit
    Member

    No matter what you destroy, it's something another person could use, or would like to have. There is no win. Throw a bloody cream pie at someone and no doubt some homeless person would have rather eaten it. Real car guys will always bristle a litt;le at car destruction. but occaisionally you need to look at the bigger picture. It's stuff.. and when you see laurel and hardy destroy a model T you have to figure.. perhaps the laughs that gave millions of people is worth more that the $20k or $30k that car Might fetch today if it were preserved.
     
  21. Rob68
    Joined: Jun 16, 2011
    Posts: 495

    Rob68
    Member

    It has always made me cringe. I hate seeing cars I would love to have destroyed for movies.
     
  22. dad-bud
    Joined: Aug 22, 2009
    Posts: 3,884

    dad-bud
    Member

    Thanks cpkphil for resurecting this thread - where did ya find it?
    As noted earlier, cars have been 'cannon fodder' for the movies for a hundred years. Producers and directors don't worry about a car that only costs a very tiny fraction of the budget of a movie, and a bit like Tingler, they love the shock value just to get a reaction that comes from blowin' shit up.
     
  23. porkchop4464
    Joined: Jan 20, 2009
    Posts: 880

    porkchop4464
    Member

    I disagree with you on the money thing. I hear you, and understand your explanation, but I have to disagree. I built my 31 Model A when I was in high school, with help from my friends, and my uncle after my father died. Money was always short, and as a result, I had to cut back on a lot of chrome and other goodies that "Real Hot Rodders" possessed. But I have to be honest; coin was the last thing on my mind back then. I can admit that I wanted to be the fastest, and that I wanted respect for making something roll and drive quickly which the average teenage kid, my age back then, could not even comprehend. Sure, they may have been great at calc., while I didn't understand it one bit, but they had no idea what a solid lifter was, or how to adjust one. I don't know. Maybe longing for those things was just as bad as seeking the coin; but I gained a lot of pride and life knowledge in being a motor head at such a young age. I built something that was completely unique and that no one in my town had or even dreamed of. I was never in love with the snow cone looking Boyd cars of the Eighties, but I always loved and still do, the rumble of a glass-packed small or big block Chevy, and the surprise of a sleeper on the street! Is/was my interest bad? <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
     
  24. 1gearhead
    Joined: Aug 4, 2005
    Posts: 464

    1gearhead
    Member

    I remember the movie A Star Is Born with Barbara Strisand and Glen Cambell and the totaled a Ferarri Daytona Spider at the end of the movie. Even though it was years ago before that car achieved monumental dollar status it was still an expensive prop.
     
  25. toml24
    Joined: Sep 23, 2009
    Posts: 1,620

    toml24
    Member

    How about the Steve Mcqueen racing movie "Le Mans?" The Porsche 917K that was sacrificed at the end was really another race car--a Lola. Even the Porsche monthly magazine claimed it was really a Porsche that was ruined (IIRC). The truth came out decades later.
     
  26. Pharouh
    Joined: Sep 18, 2008
    Posts: 437

    Pharouh
    Member

    Look through one of those books called 'Classic Car Wrecks'
    This stuff happened everyday for real.
    Compared to that,Hollywood is nothing.
     
  27. If the Zombie movie ever happens,that they want to use my Merc in,I was told they would need at least three more cars for crash scenes,gunshots,running over Zombies,and one for just a spare. That would be cool! Maybe they would sell me one of them....
     
  28. S_Mazza
    Joined: Apr 27, 2011
    Posts: 363

    S_Mazza
    Member


    Agreed. And I agree with some of what Tingler said early on here.

    I get upset at destruction that is seemingly senseless. Such as several beautiful Chrysler Imperials being destroyed for an utterly lousy Green Hornet movie with the annoying Seth Rogen in it. Yech.

    To put it another way, yeah, it's just stuff ... but go into the Louvre and take a crap on the Mona Lisa, and see if it doesn't ruffle a few feathers.
     
  29. toledobill
    Joined: Apr 9, 2003
    Posts: 369

    toledobill
    Member

    I always turn off "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" right after Spencer Tracy orders the Ice Cream at the drive-in. I don't care who owned the '32, or even that you can buy quarter panels nowadays. I care about who built the roadster and what happened to the car after it got gobsmacked.
     
  30. Every time that fucking insurance commercial with the '61 Cadillac convertible comes on, I change the channel.
     

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