what's your favorite action car movie?

these movies are getting more popular as late, and thank god there's nearly always a tuff muscle car, from transformers to fast & furious ( and there's no 4 due out soon with vin deisel again) gone in 60 seconds (1&2) then there's the old stuff eg: running on empty ( starring : piss off!) and mad max , two lane blacktop . Just to name a few.

It's simple , what's your favorite? I'll start

Vote1 for : running on empty ( damm!, this is harder than I thought it would be!!)  

#1 American Graffiti #2 Gone In Sixty Seconds  

Best Dramatic Car Movie

#1 Two-Lane Blacktop, #2 Gone in Sixty Seconds

Best Comedic Car Movie

#1 Used Cars, #2 Hollywood Knights  

Haven't seen "Running on Empty."

When we did this topic a few years ago, I thought that Turbo Ted had a fairly solid list, so I looked it up on "search" and posted it below.

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The Best:

Le Mans--greatest racing movie of all time.

Grand Prix--second greatest racing movie of all time--a tad melodramatic, though.

Funny Car Summer-- Big fun watching the Dunns try to make a rear engined flopper work in the days before everybody had huge 18 wheelers and multi-million dollar sponsorships.

Heart Like a Wheel-- The only hollywood drama I'm aware of that depicts drag racing with any respect and attention to detail.

American Graffitti [sic]--George Lucas used to know how to make movies.

Two-Lane Blacktop--"Make it three yards and we'll have ourselves an automobile race." Totally BOSS!

Vanishing Point (the original, not the lame Fox-TV remake)

Watchable but flawed:

The Green Helmet-- old movie about sports car racing.

Redline 7000-- old movie about stock car racing.

The Petty Story-- The King (not Matt King) ]plays "hisself" as the King of NASCAR

Smokey and the Bandit--Dumb but great car sounds and occasional cool action

Cannonball

Mad Max/ The Road Warrior

Dirty Larry and Crazy Mary (what a waste of a nice Mopar)

Moonrunners

White Lightning (look for the car to change back and forth between column and floor shift)

A Small Town in Texas (decent cop car crash action)

Gone in 60 sec. (original)

The Italian Job (original and remake--original is better, though

On the bubble:

1. Hollywood Knights (only Project X and the other cars save it)

The Gumball Rally (not as good as Cannonball)

The Fast and The Furious (remake) / 2 Fast 2 Furious--sure, they're packed with ricer bling and implausible plots, but you know you watched them . . . and probably bought the DVD/video, too.

Bullitt--great chase, but most folks usually fast forward through the other stuff

The Seven-Ups (see Bullitt)

The French Connection (see Bullitt)

The California Kid--Milner's engine in Pete's coupe driven by a future TV president.

Fireball 500--Elvis

State Fair- (Young Ann-Margret and dirt track action is worth a look)

McQ -- (Fun to see John Wayne scrunch into a Pontiac TransAm)

The Blues Brothers -- (jumped the shark when the bluesmobile started flying)

Thunder in Carolina -- (old school stock car action)

Ronin -- (too many imports but awesome action)

The Racing Scene-- (James Garner documentary from '69; drags at times)

Driven-- (Stupid plot, but decent speed shots)

Duel--(Spelberg's only car film and the best case for why MoPars should always have Hemis or turbos)

MAJOR SUCKAGE:

Nearly anything with "Hot Rod" or "Drag Strip" in the title.

Cannonball Run / Cannonball Run II

Last American Hero (way too many errors)

Stroker Ace

DAZE of Thunder

Smokey and the Bandit II/III

Hooper

Six Pack

Cobra  
http://speedzzter.blogspot.com

I can add another one to the old  "Total Suckage" list:

REDLINE

I tried to watch it last night on Encore.  What a horrible waste of film. And exotic supercars. And swimsuit models.

I can usually overlook stupid plots, wooden acting, ridiculous dialogue, and gratuitious titillation, if the cars, the sounds, and the car action are good.

Not this time.  

I had to watch "Two-Lane Blacktop" just to clear my head of the brain-eating acid residue from about half an hour of "Redline."  It's that abysmal.

I know there's been some inflation since 1971, but make it $28 million . . . and we'll have ourselves an automobile race just doesn't seem to resonate much with me.  Not even the Ferrari factory "bets" that much on a single contest.

And somebody needs to explain to the clueless schedule writer at the cable company that "drag racing" doesn't involve high-speed turns or reckless slaloms around non-competing cars in heavy traffic.  

Why is it that every recent car racing film has to be packed with a bunch of obviously computer-generated special effects and cheesy video-game graphics?  At least the sappy old NASCAR movies that used the same vintage crash footage over and over garnered these sequences from REAL races!

How about a car movie with a realistic plot, real-world cars, and characters who are identifiable and likeable?  Is that too much to ask?  Apparently it was of the producers, writers and director of "Redline."  
*****
TURBO TED --Internationally known as the "John Force of the Yugo Racing Association."

Sergeant-at-Arms and immediate Past President of the SoAL Yugo Owners Group.

running on empty, is a movie about  street racing. The cars are pretty cool. My favorite line is about " nitrous oxcide is a sweet sensation !". There is some of it on you tube.

My favorite laugh is some of the german ? Car movies that have recently been made. They'll have one American unkown actor and bunch of Germans putting on a American accent (really badly!). There's always a camaro that can't handle and overturns or crashes!, whilst german and import turbos can do anything!, the best was this guy who would race with a full cup of coffee in the drink consol, and he'd never spill a drop even when going into hair pin corners at 100+! His driving was that smooth!! Honestly, it's pathetic to think your ordience is that nieve!

Another is "metal skins" from Aussie , it's got a tuff charger in it that has a street race through the the suburbs with a NASCAR !( that's stolen).

If only real car enthusiasts could make movies.....but running on empty is not bad (if a little old) and I love that phase 3 falcon gt in it!  

Junk Man, Smokey and the Bandit, Blues Brothers, Cannonball Run, Vanishing Point, Bullit.
But the best seat in the house is in the passenger seat of your buddies car when he goes out to do hole shots and donuts to try out his new upgrade.  
`

It may not be the fastest or prettiest, but i can pretend

"If only real car enthusiasts could make movies...."

That's the problem.  The people who write, produce, direct, and act in "car movies" know almost nothing about automotive culture and simply don't care about getting the details correct.

And yet we're all so starved for validation and recognition on the big and small screens that we'll watch about anything (no matter how stupid) that features a hot-looking car.  
*****
TURBO TED --Internationally known as the "John Force of the Yugo Racing Association."

Sergeant-at-Arms and immediate Past President of the SoAL Yugo Owners Group.

yep! They can't act, no nothing about cars, evrything is over-dramatized . Car movies are ruined by people just trying to hard to be us! They either fall short, or go waaaay overbord

Examples of how car movies are waaay over-exzagerated


: cruise spots have sexy girls dancing around in hot pants (arrr, the hot pants!) or two piece berkinies, acting like it's a night club.

:there's never a average looking girl

: the star has 20" arms or at least big arms

:the mechanics don't have dirty fingernails and grezzy overhauls.

:the mechanics never struggle to fix anything & and never swear or cus

:it never rains. Seriously, it never rains in a car movie, not for a minute

: cruise spots only have cars that are fully finished, no beaters ,no ruff cars

:there's never a fat guy or girl, only 31" waist lines or under need apply

:there's never a family man with kids enjoying his car, this means if you've got kids you should not have any resion to still have a cool car ( it's a volvo or mini van)

:there's always drugs or crime involved , hence the need for a hot looking car. Why can't hot rods and street machines be scripted for avrage joe's or just as a normal person in the movie ( eg: home improvment) working normal jobs, normal hours, trying to put a shelter over thier heads and food on there plates.

Having said this,it's obvious that I can enjoy but can't relate to most car movies , though, I've got hot cars,a smoking hot sexy wife (pacific islander & former polynisian dance leader)great healthy kids, a joyful life ( with god in our life), but I still enjoy a traffic light street race! Especialy against a steriod popping teenager in his import turbo after he gives his best vin desile look! It's nice when they come up next to you at the next set, sterio turned down, windows up,not reving up the motor, and I think ... Ahh, job done!  

It's funny when they get some things really right and then fall on their faces in the rest of the film. I think the Fast 'n' Furious franchise is a good example of this. The intro to the original film showed a fly through of a rotory engine, through the turbo and stuff then through the gears. That was pretty bitchin'. AND when finally making it outside the car it was actually an RX7. Huh, They got it right. THEN later they mix up the sound of the cars and stuff.

In the latest F'n'F… New Model, or something like that, again really cool intro passing through an engine. COOL! Then the cut to Vin Diesel sitting in the Charger with the scoop sticking out the hood and it's all, "WWWAAAHHHH WWWWAAAAHHHH! WWAAAAHHH WWWWAAAAHHHHH!" Like a nitro funny car. WTF!! WHY!? It sounds all wrong. Irritating.

I dig the hotties like any other guy. Like Don I'm thinkin' my Wife's pretty hot too. I guess the problem is a movie like that is it's not actually targeted at us motorheads. Leave the hot people in, if they think they have to… I just wish they would spend more time on the details. Not just spout off popular motor part brands and trends but get into some accurate details. It wouldn't take that much work.

Here's another example of a film that got it right and wrong. Death Race. The new one. Ian McShane lays out the motorhead details of the car. Really cool. The actually name the other cars and got them right. Nice! It slowly decomposes from there. It was actually an ok movie. It's hard to put an exact finger on but it's like the movies want to make a film with motorheads like us but they don't go to the minimal trouble to just ask one of us about a few details. In the end of the movie the super hot girl character from the prison where they keep all the hottest criminals drives up in a really cool '70 Chevelle Mod Rod. SO the Machine Gun character says, "How much horsepower does that engine have?" It just sounded wrong. Close but not quite. How about this: "Hey, is that still running the LS-6? Or LSX?" That would have been cool.

Another example is spouting incorrect motor info in an average movie. That just jettisons me right out of my suspension of disbelief. My favorite example is the scene in the Transformers movie when super hot Megan Fox, who's supposed to be a motorhead, cracks open the hood on Bumble Bee and says, "Oh, you've got a dual high rise double pump in here." I actually stood up in the theater and shouted NO at the screen! I mean, first off what she was supposed to say was double-pumpER, secondly they follow that inaccurate statement with a beautiful shot of a Quad Webber side-draft cross-ram! WTF!!! NOT EVEN CLOSE!

The thing that really bothers me is there HAD to be some motorheads on the set. They had the Camaro SS on loan from GM. There had to be dorks like us there to set them straight. They only needed to ask.

OK I guess I should actually get to the spirit of the post. I think some of the best have already been listed. Way to go, team! I'm with Speedzzter on a couple of the chase movies like Ronin. That's one of the best chase scenes. I'll add one more to that category:

To Live and Die In LA: Really, NOT cool cars but a frickin' awesome chase scene. One of the best. It's mainly between a late 70's Caprice and a Fairmont. Seriously ugly. My favorite part is that the sound of the cars is RIGHT ON. That sort of toilet flushing "wwwOOOOOO wwwwOOOOO" that the Q-jet made. LOL! Perfect.

The Worlds Fastest Indian: OK not a "Car" movie but DEFINITELY a motorhead movie. Burt Monroe!! He sleeps in a garage, Casts his own pistons with a homemade alloy of pot metals and quenches them in the water he make his coffee from!! HELL YEAH! That scene where he finally gets to Boneville… Dude, that seriously brought tears to my eyes. I felt like they really nailed it with that scene. AWESOME.

Thanks for a really fun thread!  
-Nic '73 Vega GT, Aluminum Wildcat 5.0

Too bad we can't have a "World's Fastest Indian" with cars instead of bikes. Of course they could leave out the stupid cross-dresser stuff, though.

BTW, I saw some ad on TV for a James Taylor "covers" CD and that got me to wondering . . . whatever would have happened to the character that James Taylor played ("The Driver") in "Two-Lane Blacktop?"  

I mean if the late Paul Newman could successfully revisit the "Fast Eddie Felson" character decades later (see "The Hustler" and "The Color of Money"), why wouldn't it be interesting to see what happened to "The Driver" after nearly four decades.

(Note: Because the other major stars of "Two-Lane" sadly are dead now, a "Back to Blacktop" story should probably be limited to Taylor's character).

Am I the only person wondering what would have happened in the years after the legendary "film burnout" on that airstrip?

If done well and with integrity, such a story could be as prescient of an existentialist commentary on our current age (and our aging) as "Two-Lane" was on the end of the Supercar '60s.

Is this nuts?  
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460_BBF_Turbo-in-CC (formerly Dr511scj) "This guy has no life other than posting endlessly on carcraft.com." -- Car Craft, July 2005
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October 1, 2003: " I'm thinking a couple of...turbos, blowing through an old Powerstroke intercooler...on a Super Cobra Jet-head 460 would be mad cheap and make sick power."
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"I have no problem with your...talking to several versions of yourself...or pointing out our failure to do a turbo story ...." --Douglas "CC/Rambler" Glad

The super super super hot "megan fox"! ( arrrr, the hot pants!!)

Yeh, but seriously, that is one of the most stupid sceanes ever put into a car movie! How could American movies get that so wrong? What did the producer drive when he was at coledge?!

Probably the only scean  worse than that in any car movie ,is the reduculasly corny! " to some people, that's more important!"  

sombody should make a blip, of all the worst or most stupid car movie sceans , and put it on "you tube!!"  

just been looking over in the "kiss your v8s goodbye " thred, it's given me a awsome idea for a car movie!

Car crafters hiding in the mountains because of stringent new "cash for clunker" laws. Negotiations fail, the government sends in the army to get these rebels (enviromental terrorists!), there's awsome chase scenes with muscle cars pithched against military vehicles, and modified cars made by the govt to catch the car crafters, he'll there could even be a detetion and interigation camp where car crafters could be givven imunity for dobbing the where abouts of modified car /environental terrorist groups!

Now that would be a movie!  

DUDE! I would totally watch that movie!  
-Nic '73 Vega GT, Aluminum Wildcat 5.0