"The French Connection" cars

[rocketraider]

The sheer number of late 1950s thru 1971 cars on the streets of NYC in this movie is amazing. I never tire of watching it, for the story and the cars. 

 

I know urban cop cars lead hard lives, but some of those 3-4 year old NYPD cars were really beat to pieces.

 

We've discussed "Bonnie and Clyde" cars a couple times recently. After watching the TFC chase scene under the Els I'm starting to think Clyde should have let Buck (Gene Hackman) drive the getaway cars!

[TerryB]

Great chase scene as you mentioned, one of my all time favorites.

[46 woodie]

If you watch the chase scene in the Steve McQueen movie "Bullit", watch the car's that are parked along the streets of San Francisco. All sorts of interesting vehicles. If you enjoy these types of errors, count how many hubcaps fall off the Charger that's chasing the Mustang. I think if you look closely it's seven hubcaps. Back in the 60's and 70's in the Bronx, most damage to cop cars was from rocks and other junk that was thrown from the roof tops. The Bronx was a dangerous place in the late '60s and '70s and several book's have been written about it. Fire companies were doing 30-40 runs a shift as "the Bronx was burning"!

[Harold]

At least one of the car crashes during the chase scene was unscripted due to locals stumbling onto the filming area.

[rocketraider]

I have read that the FC chase was unscripted and not exactly "coordinated" with local authorities.

 

Along with "Bullitt", "The Seven-Ups" had a great chase too. 

 

I try not to think about all the cars that got destroyed...😣

[Pfeil]

I've seen them all and this one takes it.

DEATH PROOF "Car Chase" Clip (2007) Quentin Tarantino

[STEVE POLLARD]

19 hours ago, 46 woodie said:

Back in the 60's and 70's in the Bronx, most damage to cop cars was from rocks and other junk that was thrown from the roof tops.

One of my Fire Commissioners was a retired NYC Fireman and he told me stories of riding in a enclosed cab of a fire engine, responding to alarms and have bottles, rocks etc  thrown from the roof tops, smashing on the roof of the fire engine. To make matters worse, prior to hooking up to a fire hydrant, some of the locals would have put rocks / garbage in the pipe, end result would be damage to the fire engine's pump.