American Graffiti question? Experts needed.

No wonder you mom worried about you hanging around with Hot Rod Hoodlums, she was afraid that you'd go deaf!

 

milner kicked his ass from the start, unless falfa had a sneaky pete nitrous system no one knew about lol... cuz one of the car's tone changes..1/4 way .. im just messin around, i chooose....

the rocks in tires.

now onto the next question.... how in the hell does Super Dave have that big of a compound! haha

 

I have always been of the opinion that the sparks were from the steel belting of the tires....too many burnouts

 

Okay,here it is...Bondo,thats a '55 not a '56.Also,it isn't the movie car either.They had to get another '55 to get it to roll,because if the stiff suspension.I asked Paul LeMat at the Back to the Beach car show yesterday,about the sparks contraversy and told him the nail in the tire theory.He said hey that sounds good!He said there was always trouble with the sound guys leaving stuff hanging out of the cars.They would ride in the trunk of the coupe to record the dialog.I also asked him what it was like driving the '32.He said it was tough,cause it handled so bad.Straight line was okay but it was hard to turn.He signed the dash of my shoebox,I always thought getting your car signed was stupid,but John Milner!,common...American Graffiti was my Senior movie.I've got a pic of him signing the dash,he still is pretty cool!

 

It was a 327 SBC.

 

that spark could be something as simple as a rock caught in the tire and the editors of the movie didnt see it or something stupid like that

 

i believe that the 32 didn't have any rear suspension, most likely why it didn't handle for shit.

 

As I recall the 32 had the old mono leaf suspension.

 

you mean tranverse leaf?

yeah, i think it had the spring, but had angle iron or something where the shocks shoulda been...seems i remember something about that from an old magazine article.

 

Is he going to be at Paso this year?

 

My favorite Milner(Lematt) autograph is the one where he signed a Milner racing team t- shirt... WHILE MY GIRLFREIND WAS WEARING IT .... HIS FAV TOO... HE SAID

MUST BE A 2 DOOR 55 CRASHED................ I GUESS....
PAPERDOG

 

Why?


Mutt

 

well, i guess i was wrong about the whole movie. keep watching guys, ill be in the garage.


JUNIOR

 

Remember the shopkeeper unloading a few rounds at the thief?
Well those sparks were the bullets from his gun hitting the pavement under Falfas car.

George Lucas did a great job...but I can't help but imagine the same movie if it were done by Sergio Leone.
Think of cast members from "The good, the bad and the ugly" and maybe "Once upon a time in the west" playing the parts!

Henry Fonda as Curt...(God help the Pharoah's!)
Lee Van Cleef as Steve Bolander...
Claudia Cardinale as Debbie...
Eli Wallach as Toad...
Clint Eastwood as Milner...
Charles Bronson as Falfa...

"Where were you in 62...punk."

I guess Milner would have beat Falfa's Ferrari with a Simca...lol...and you'd have to watch the movie 200 times to get all the little stuff you missed the previous 199 viewings...but we have that part covered anyway!

 

Your kidding? I had no idea!
spaghetti and HAMB...what a meal! LoL

I watched "Once upon a time in the west" last night and reading about AG made me think how intense some of the AG scenes could be with the Leone touch and those incredible actors.

HAMB chat eh? Hmmmmmmm......
Maybe I'll log on and just stay in the shadows. Not really a fast typer so I fall behind in a chat setting...

 

He didn't say why,he just said it handled bad.Fun to go straight though...

 

Tingler,I told him about the hamb.I told him all about the nail in the tire theory,the snow tire theory,and all the other guesses.He just laughed.He said none of them thought the movie would do anything.Cindy Williams called him and told him the lines were going around the block!He also Dreyfus only did the movie to get out of town,away from a girlfriend,haha

 

I seen a documentary thingie one time and they mentioned the same scene and said they used a studded ( like a studded snowtire) on that side for dramatic effect. Then went into that it was something some of the rodders did back then also just for effect , and went on further to mention spark plugs in the tailpipes and drag plates on bumper bottoms and frame ends......... guess they really got off on making sparks and flames any way they could back then.

This was my dads era growing up and in the past I had asked him about seeing that scene, and without blinking an eye he said a studded tire, and he used to do it....just for the sparks! He said they'd drill random holes and inset snow tire studs... they were very common and readily available back then because no one had money for new tires or snow tires come winter... so they'd just drill and stud thier old tires. Also said they didn't stay in long.... barely one whole night of cruisin'.

He also said it was mostly always done to the drivers side tire only as a "bragging" that you were running a POSI and POSI's were "the thing" back then.

He says he had pics of cars burnin' out with studs...I have yet to come across them.... if I can find them, I will SURELY post them!

 

WOW alot of effort into this one? Well I will say I have only seen the movie a few times let see I have worn out 3 video tapes and just killed a dvd (dont ask) I never noticed the sparks in second. Good Eye! I did read in an old car book that they broke an axle in the 55 during a drag race scene? I am looking for the book when I find it I will post the quote.

 

I always figured the nail theory..and the exhaust coming out the tail pipes even with the headers uncorked is a normal thing...try it...I heard they regeared the coupe to make it quicker for the launch sequences, and that they pretty much did "race" the cars...I dunno...

 

You can see the frame around the door,is that wood too?!

 

The '55 used in that scene as well as others, had a ladder bar setup in the rear. The sparks are from the ladder bar scraping the asphalt due to the torque. I beleive they used 3 cars in the entire movie. 2 were destroyed and one is still on the road and shown.

 

Ladder bars, when torqued slap up against the springs or frame..............How could they drag on the ground?

 

You've all got it wrong. Lucas used thin strips of lightsabre wrapped around the tire for a dramatic effect.


Eeevrybody knows that when you scrape a lightsabre across pavement it makes sparks. Jeez....7 pages and it's so simple.

 

I think you may all be correct the 55 ran studded snow tires (that makes sence) and one had a nail in in and then the street was littered with metal strips and lug nuts (i see it all the time?) light sabers and gun shots perfect! I think I need to go watch hollywood knights instead.

Sorry I forgot to mention traction bars. exaust. sparkelrs. smoke bombs. neat big dollor special effects on a low budget movie! now I understand.

 

For what it's worth, when I was a kid I ran studs on my 9.55X15's on my 59 Invicta. They sparked pretty good on the burnouts. And the deal about the posi is right too. Hard to imagine them useing studs in that part of California tho until you realize this was filmed in the winter and they aren't that far from Donner pass. Tire shops probably had CHEAP studded tires from people who traded out their studded tires after comming into the state from the pass and snow country. I can see them buying the cheapest used retreads they could get to burn in the movie.

 

Petaluma is close to Donner Pass?

Nice theory though.

Did somebody already mention the possibility of crummy tires and kicking that scene enough times to be burning the belting?

 

Lots of cool info here, I like the one about the 67 caprice parked in one scene... oops
http://www.geocities.com/kippullman/intro.html