One crazy mother ........

[Charlie Farley]

Check this out chaps.


Paris

(10 min long)
On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

 

[Fred/Belgium]

I saw this film!
Its amazing but at the time traffic was less in early morning aswel as regulation strictness was from that time...
I wonder who was this famous driver...

fred

 

[Chris P.]

That's Rendezvous. It costs something like $30 or $40 to buy it, but now thanks to the internet it's free. For now. I don't know when the info in the first message was printed, but that "film" has been around for a long time.

Anyone ever see Ari Vatanen drive a Peugeot up Pikes Peak? ?

 

[Mark Worthington]

I have that saved on my hard drive somewhere. It's a classic "underground" film. The woman who meets him at the end is a babe. I can only surmise she sent him out to buy some rubbers. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Bill Hara]

Rumour has it that the F1 driver was Jacques Lafite, a personal friend of Lelouch....

 

[Ken Mason]

I had heard about the Vatanen film - awesome! I think he is now a member of the European Parliament - let's hope they put him in charge of speed limits!

 

[Ken Mason]

On the Paris film, if you listen to the soundtrack something is not quite right. For instance he is flat in fifth for some time approaching the Champs Elysee, which in a 275 GTB would be at around 150mph but he hardly slows for the corner, (which I recall is reasonably tight) and when he passes other cars it just doesn't look that quick. Admittedly he does go through red lights at a huge rate but I wonder ii it is not speeded up footage and the soundtrack added later....

 

[ChrisL]

You may be onto something there Ken. The indicators on the cars are flashing a little too fast (about 2/sec), and at one stage there was a man briskly walking into the path of the car traveling toward him at supposedly break-neck speed. Also, the pigeons seem to fly from zero to across the road in no time. And finally, one of the screeches seemed to continue after the car had straightened… but then again maybe not. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Chris P.]

Yeah, I've always felt the same about the soundtrack. A gryoscope stabilized camera in 1978 is certainly possible, but I think the gearshifts should still be a bit visible. Plus, when he is supposedly cranking out in 4th or 5th, he is barely moseying past other cars. Plus there is quite a bit of screeching on cobble stone....