World's most expensive AMC Hornet?

[Rusty_OToole]

The 74 Hornet that did the barrel roll in the James Bond film Man With The Golden Gun is coming up for auction. It is expected to sell for $250,000 to $350,000. This is the actual stunt car, heavily modified, that did the jump in one take.

 

http://www.thedrive.com/sheetmetal/13140/james-bonds-barrell-rolling-amc-hornet-is-going-to-auction

[joe_padavano]

When I saw the title of this post, my first reaction was this has to be the James Bond car.  Sure enough. Movie audiences raised on CGI "stunts" just can't appreciate how cool this was.

 

[keiser31]

There were two of those cars used. If you look closely at the car in the first part where they are driving down the road, you will notice the wider area above the front wheel well. Then they go to a different car (the car in the photo above) when they launch it off of the ramp.

[JACK M]

 

9 minutes ago, keiser31 said:

There were two of those cars used. If you look closely at the car in the first part where they are driving down the road, you will notice the wider area above the front wheel well. Then they go to a different car (the car in the photo above) when they launch it off of the ramp.

 

The text of the ad goes into that.

I wonder how many cars that the stunt guy wasted in his efforts.

[keiser31]

9 minutes ago, JACK M said:

 

 

The text of the ad goes into that.

 

I must have missed that.

[JACK M]

I would never have noticed that difference.

You have a keen eye for that kind of stuff. 

[padgett]

My first thought also. AFAIR one of the researchers involved in creating the AstroSpiral had a Hornet so was used for the computer model & was the reason they used a Hornet in the movies (baddies had a more interesting AeroMatador.

 

ps Was developed at Calspan who asked Milligan if he was interested. See here.

Edited August 5, 2017 by padgett (see edit history)

[joe_padavano]

1 hour ago, keiser31 said:

There were two of those cars used. If you look closely at the car in the first part where they are driving down the road, you will notice the wider area above the front wheel well. Then they go to a different car (the car in the photo above) when they launch it off of the ramp.

 

Well, yeah.  The stunt driver isn't going to try a stunt like that without a full roll cage and racing seat with harness. 

 

This may shock you, but Roger Moore wasn't driving the car during the stunt, either...

[keiser31]

1 minute ago, joe_padavano said:

 

Well, yeah.  The stunt driver isn't going to try a stunt like that without a full roll cage and racing seat with harness. 

 

This may shock you, but Roger Moore wasn't driving the car during the stunt, either...

Yep....that is what stunt drivers are for.

[Rusty_OToole]

They explain that the stunt car was heavily modified, engine relocated for better balance, full roll cage, single seat with center mounted steering and no doubt suspension modified. Moore and the sheriff were filmed in a stock version of the same car. The car being sold, is the actual car that made the jump. It was done in one take and the car was not damaged (so they say). They also say, the guy that did the stunt, spent 2 years figuring out how to do it, after proving in a computer simulation that it was possible.

[Doug Novak]

Hemmings Daily had  featured this last week and pictures of the stunt car show that the interior was stripped out and the frame reinforced. It had a racing seat only mounted in the center and a Roll Cage and Harness.

[padgett]

My understanding from some time ago was that the car had to be modified to fit the simulation, not the other way around.

 

Have to understand that in the late '60s computing power was very limited and a program like this was neither easy to program nor debug and probably took hours or days on limited resources to run. In a day of millions of lines of code for an operating system, back then a big program needed a shoebox and a magic marker: a shoebox to hold the punch cards - one line of code per card - and the marker to draw a stripe on the cards, if one or more got out of order, you could see it.

 

The article mentioned Fortran IV, I first learned FORTRAN II but liked V the best - it added if-then-else and case constructs. A simplified form became BASIC.

Edited August 5, 2017 by padgett (see edit history)

[mike6024]

Very interesting topic. Complex engineering dynamics problem they simulated. Here's some info on the computer modelling.

 

http://jalopnik.com/the-james-bond-corkscrew-jump-was-the-first-computer-mo-1711459704

 

In 1974, Jay Milligan Sr. created the All American Thrill Show sponsored by the American Motors Corporation. The fender banging, car mangling, brake screeching show climaxed with a mid-air, 360 degree barrel roll called the Astro-Spiral. The stunt, designed with help from local Calspan engineers, used an AMC Hornet Hatchback. This was the same maneuver executed by Milligan’s team as Roger Moore’s stunt coordinator in the James Bond film, “The Man with the Golden Gun.”

 

http://www.ecfair.org/blog/erie-county-fair/member-our-fair-family-passes-remembering-walter-jay-milligan-sr/

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcc8tQfxV7E           -    Interview

Edited August 5, 2017 by mike6024 (see edit history)

[joe_padavano]

Computer simulations of bodies in motion are done every day in the aerospace industry.  This is just physics.  That doesn't take anything away from this stunt, but either you believe Issac Newton, or you don't.  The latter are members of the Flat Earth Society...

 

I've always been amused by the statement that this stunt was done in one take.  I find it hard to believe there would have been a second attempt if the first had failed.

[padgett]

"designed with help from local Calspan engineers" & Al Gore invented the Internet.

 

ps at GMI in the early 70s we used a six degrees of freedom model for suspension and body movement on an IBM-370. I "adjusted" it to model the over 1 gee lateral acceleration my B/P Corvette was capable of. Turned out the 68 only transverse rear IRS locating mount was better at keeping the Blue Streaks tires at max contact than the 69-on. Some of my models took hours to run.

Edited August 5, 2017 by padgett (see edit history)

[60FlatTop]

An engineer on a planet in the orbit of Sirius can calculate the vector of a stick thrown by a man on Earth to a dog running at an angle of 30 degrees and 50 feet away from the man in relation to the engineer.

I still have the stick and the dog. The stick is under the porch and the dog is sleeping in a sunny spot on the rug. We are just waiting for our next engineering feat and kind of bored.

Bernie

[Paul Dobbin]

 

If I had done that stunt my AMC,  I would have crashed thru the up-slope of the dilapidated old bridge and plowed directly into the water taking most of the wood with me.  Like in the Dukes of Hazard, I think movie stunts are very expensive fakes, not to be tried at home.  Like when somebody says, "Hey,watch this!", chances of seeing a disaster re pretty high.

[joe_padavano]

15 hours ago, Paul Dobbin said:

 

 I think movie stunts are very expensive fakes, not to be tried at home.

 

Well, DUH!  This wasn't a "fake" in the sense that all new movie stunts are CGI and no actual vehicles or people are involved, but as discussed in the link in the very first post, the stunt car was heavily reinforced with engine and components rearranged to maintain proper balance for the jump.  And obviously the ramp was a lot more sturdy than the appearances suggest.  Still, the car did do the jump under it's own power.  The CGI capability didn't exist then.  That's like the joke in the aerospace industry in response to those idiots who think the moon landing was faked: in 1969 it was easier to actually go to the moon than to fake it.

[padgett]

Thought it was faked in "Diamonds are Forever". (1971)

 

Saying I remember was that we "flew to the moon on plated wire memory".

[Paul Dobbin]

[padgett]

Something about "Pow..."

[emjay]

I never had a chance to try that in my 74 Hatchback.  Did unload the suspension numerous times, but never found remains of a bridge like that AND have someone with a camera.

[Rusty_OToole]

" I've always been amused by the statement that this stunt was done in one take.  I find it hard to believe there would have been a second attempt if the first had failed. "

 

There would have been more attempts although not necessarily with the same car. The Dukes of Hazzard  demolished more than 100 General Lees. For the Hornet stunt they may have had several cars prepared in case the first try didn't work.

[mike6024]

 It would have been more impressive if done in a Gremlin.

 

 

Edited August 8, 2017 by mike6024 (see edit history)