Yeah, we took a few days off from Celebrity Car Death Match. Why? Frankly because all of the rotting corpses of these celebrity cars were stacking up too quickly and we needed to clean house. We did that and we’re now back putting two 1957 Chevrolets into the ring of death. Yeah, they were both in bad movies, but they’re cool anyway. Trust us. Before we ramble down this road, let’s look at the results from the last Celebrity Car Death Match –

[box_dark]The 1977 Mack fron Convoy DEFEATS the 1974 Ford from White Line Fever [/box_dark]

So here we have two pretty famous dudes in Nick Nolte and the late David Carradine starring in a couple of movies that were skirting the B/C level film category by the looks of it in the 1970s. Hey, everyone has to start somewhere and the fact that both of these movies have 1957 Chevys in central roles make them cool to us anyway. We’re pretty easy to please as you well know. Let’s start things off with the David Carradine masterpiece, Thunder and Lightning. 

In this non-award winning action movie, Carradine plays a moonshine runner who can’t be stopped in his Chevy. We have no idea how many ’57s were destroyed in the making of this thing but they had to have killed a dozen. There’s one scene where the car leaps off a parking garage, through the roof of a car dealer, and then blasts out through a plate glass window in the front of the dealer. You’ll see ’em roll over, (and on film keep right on trucking), crash through buildings, life guard stands, cop cars, and anything else in the way. Because this was a low budget situation the only thing that is the same on the cars is the black paint, white quarter panel insert and white painted wheels. In some scenes the car is two door, others four. While we never see under the hood of Carradine’s ‘shine runner it is reported in the film that the engine is a souped up 409. Hey, at least it sounds good even though the majority of the cars used were probably 283/Powerglide equipped. The trailer for the film is below and it is pretty hilarious. If you have not seen this one, try to find it somewhere and give it a watch. For campy fun and bad ass car stunts done with little to no budget, this thing is a ticket. Carradine even gets to bust out his Kung Fu ninja skills and bust up some bad guys. Bonus points are added because smokin’ hot Kate Jackson starred along Carradine and added a campy southern drawl to her voice. She can share our celebrity car death match luxury box any time! Also, this film is the first time anyone outside of Naples, Florida ever got to see the swamp buggy races. Like the big rig race in Smokey and the Bandit, this weird little movie had a hand in launching the Swamp Buggy racing craze! They’re shown in the trailer.

Next up we have the yellow-er, slower, and less popular street racing shoe box Chevy in cinematic history, the 1957 from Return to Macon County. In this film Nick Nolte plays the ace driver and a strapping lad by the name of  Don Johnson plays the mechanic as the two men set off across country for California to compete in a drag racing event simply referred to as the “Nationals”. Along the way they have misadventures like getting beat up when street racing, picking up a wacky chick, punching a cop out cold, and then having to run from said angry (and presumably sore) cop. Their ’57 gets thrashed on hard. The thing is driven through the woods and spends many scenes buzzing around corners and running either after or away from someone. The motor is shown a couple of times and it is equipped with (we honestly couldn’t tell) either a real or fake centrifugal blower like a Paxton or something along those lines. There’s a few goofy scenes with Johnson declaring that the car is capable of running less than 9-seconds in the quarter mile, and other laughable stuff. The film was a sequel to another film called Macon County Line which also saw a couple of kids get turned around with an evil sheriff. The first movie was a huge financial success…this one not so much. Information on the cars used in the film is virtually impossible to find other than the fact that it appears at least one is still around and owned by a guy in Kentucky. Below we have a quick clip from the movie!

THERE YOU HAVE IT, WATCH THE TWO VIDEOS BELOW AND VOTE BY COMMENTING! TELL US WHICH 1957 CHEVY WOULD SURVIVE IN A DEATH MATCH! WOULD CARRADINE OUT KUNG FU NOLTE AND JOHNSON? IS THE YELLOW ’57 JUST COOLER? WATCH THE VIDEOS AND COMMENT!