Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

[73Nova]

So me and the wife will be watching a movie and all is going well then the main charactor whose been driving a badass "insert cool old car here" is in the midst of a chase or somthing exciting and next thing you know its flying through the air and getting torn to pieces and eventually blowing up. Typically this dosent add much to the plot and its all about the big boom that people like to see. DAMMIT ALL TO HELL!! This ruins movies for me. All I keep thinking is no matter how bad of shape the car was in it was obviously repairable enough to make it fly for hollywood, so it was probably fixable and I could have made a killer hotrod out of it. This sucks. Its like getting all reved up to go hammer on some hot chick then your mom calls about her gastrointestinal problems......WTF

Discuss...

[Scott Liggett]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

The purpose is to create drama. Killing off a car you love is the same as killing off a character you love. If it hits you in the gut and draws an emotion, they did their job.

[73Nova]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

Nah man your missing the point....it just kind of ruins the movie for me. At the end all I think about is WTF would they blow up a {insert cool car here}

[Mike The Photo Guy]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

The guy that owned Hardcore Motorsports paid a stunt crew to jump the General Lee his shop restored. Within a year after the jump the Feds shut down his shop. From what I hear he got busting for some form mortgage fraud and money laundering. Wrecking old cars can bring real bad Karma.
Mike TPG

[Mike The Photo Guy]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

Here are the stills I shot. During the video you can see me on the wrong side of the wall shooting these.
Mike TPG

[JustinSuhas]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

thats tragic.

all so someone can say:
sweet... theres a car flying in the air.......... oh, its over. Lets go scarf down a hot dog and get scammed by Carnies.

I really don't even mind when they do it for a movie, as long as it pertains to the plot and the movie doesn't totally suck. For example, what would American Graffiti be without the car crash at the end?

Photo guy- Great photo's btw... of the catastrophe. I love how you captured the feelings so accurately of the frame... oof! ;D

[Knowlesville340]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

So THAT's what happened to HARDCORE.For those unaware they were on Moparts hyping their repro full Charger quarters then kind of disappeared.And no matter how much they might claim that Charger was a POS to begin with,the looks of the undercarriage (pre-impact) show a very workable '69.Personally I think they wrecked it as soon as they painted it like that.
As for Hollywood,I'm completely with you,Nova.I want to see a movie where a (fill in the blank) turns into a 85 Century or something likewise,just before impact!The older movies like Gone in 60 seconds (the real one,not the Nick Cage abortion) were wrecking them because they were cheap and plentiful at the time.I don't even care if a car was "beyond restorable" before they wrecked it.Parts is parts.And if it's solid enough that it sits on 4 tires and ROLLS let alone DRIVES,somebody would love to have it.Probably me.(or you!)

[sawracer]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

I was at a monster truck show once and a very workable javelin was destroyed. A good javelin qtr in northern maine is priceless. I always wonder why hollywood has to use american cars for their "gonna get wrecked for the scene" cars period. Even "mythbusters" typically uses american iron. It says without saying " American cars are the most worthless cars we could find for a one way trip stunt/experiment." Remember the mythbusters with the rotting pig carcass in the corvette? Why the hell couldn't they have done that in a crx or accord? I am sure GM appreciated that great press.

[std]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

Why are parts falling off the car before it hits the ground.

With all the cars they crash in Hollywood, they seem to keep on finding or fixing them.

[Mike The Photo Guy]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

That was a 440 car before they wrecked it. I had mixed feelings while I was shooting it. It made all the little kids there flip out. From their perspective, it was cool to see something that they've seen on TV live. The distance of the jump was incredible and the impact had to be seen to be believed. The Hazard County Stunt Team did the jump for Hardcore. I was able to talk with the engineer and driver before they did the stunt. I wanted to know what the car was going to do so I wouldn't miss my shots. They knew were the car would hit within 3 ft. I worked out the arc and figured out at 8.3 frames per second with a 27 shot buffer I would have to wait till the car hit the ramp before I started my sequence. A lot of the other photographers started their sequence to early and didn't get the impact. If you look at the video on the second run you can see me on the wrong side of the barrier. There were two guys behind me ready to yank me over the wall if the car didn't hit the ramp square. The car hit the ramp so hard , it ripped the plywood off and made some of the parts come off. The whole stunt was done so perfectly it was a thing of beauty to see in person. After the stunt they put the wreckage on ebay and it sold for about $7000. I wonder if the person that bought it is going to restore it. If he does, he'll have a cool video to show people along with his restored Charger.
Mike TPG

[JustinSuhas]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

i just noticed this. if you click and hold on the scroll bar (on the bar, not the button)on the right of the screen w/ the scroll tab at the top, It makes a flip book of the photos. It must have been a hard hit on the ramp, if the back tail light bezels fly off!

[82z]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

I was there at the jump, and that car was flying! The sad part about the destruction is the car was from the tv show. It was very rough though. I agree that that car could have been saved.

[Mike The Photo Guy]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

When the car hit the ramp, the sound was like an explosion. I couldn't believe how high he went without a landing ramp. He stuck that front quarter into the dirt after 150 ft. They had a box in the trunk with over 400 lbs in it. The car still nose dived.
Mike TPG

[Matt Cramer]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

Even "mythbusters" typically uses american iron. It says without saying " American cars are the most worthless cars we could find for a one way trip stunt/experiment." Remember the mythbusters with the rotting pig carcass in the corvette? Why the hell couldn't they have done that in a crx or accord? I am sure GM appreciated that great press.

I think there's a couple reasons on Mythbusters...

1. Some of the cars like the Cadillac were donated, and at other times they may have picked cars that don't hold their resale value very well.

2. The riceboys have bought up the value of CRXs to the point that any CRX you can find for less than the price of a mid '80s Corvette will already smell as if it had a pig die in it.

3. When they pick something nice like a Corvette, it's for shock value too.

[joebogey]

Re: Hollywood and their fascination with wrecking old cars

It makes me shed a tear as well when a new movie shows and old car getting destroyed. As for the General Lee, I could understand being there just to see the spectacle, but they really should have tried making it out of fiberglass or something since most were probably there just to see something pound the dirt.

As for Mythbusters, I love the show (hate crash lab as it's a lame knock-off), when they fired the J2's on the roof of the '65 Impala I didn't like it much but the car was part of the story. As for the Belvedere (I think) that they tried to pole-vault by dropping the driveshaft at 50 mph then dropped from a crane. :'(