A Blast through Paris

[stuartgb100]

A bit off topic (and it may be well known about.... I didn't know, though).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 47&pl=true

This is a link to a 10 minute video of an early morning 'sprint' through Paris in the late '70s, ending with a meeting at Sacre Coeur (by the look of it).

3 questions:

1. What's the car?
2. Who's the driver?
3. and who's that girl?

Regards,

Stuart.

[cliveyboy]

It is
C'Etait un Rendezvous

A film by Claude LeLouch

It is probably the best car scene ever filmed but is still shrouded in mystery. Le Louch has never talked much about the film

It is widely believed to be a Ferrari 275 GTB as Le Louch owned one,but no one knows to this day who the driver is.

I have my own DVD copy as it was remastered and made commercially available recently
I have watched it lots of times and am still amazed every time I see it.

Clive

[mopho]

Here is some facts.
Don't know why it is not including the whole thing but you will have to copy and paste the first link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%27?tait_un_rendez-vous

http://www.chasecam.com/rendezvous/index.html

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/Rendezvous.shtml

[chrishewett]

I used to drive my mini cooper round london like that all the time in the 70's!
Chris

[cliveyboy]

My mate and me tried to recrete this in London recently.
But by the time we had bought our congestion charge ticket got through the rush hour traffic and overheated the film was 13 hours long.

Cliveyboy

[Hamish Coutts]

Tell me about it!

Impossible in Edinburgh. The city certre is either shut off to cars or clogged with loads of ? empty busses.
If you stand still too long you'll get a ticket from one of our really 'friendly' traffic wardens.


.... a few miles North or South of there then it's a different matter .

Hamish.

[Jonty5speed]

Not unlike Banbury Hight Street on a Saturday night (please replace 'Ferrari' with 'Fiesta').

Here's some more info borrowed from a website;

"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, nearly hitting real pedestrians, 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."

Sheer genius

[twincamman]

my guess is--- the car is a 2 cv and the driver was Oliver Gendibien and the lady was a happy hooker -----WHAT DID i WIN?????? ED

[simon.mitchell]

If 2CV's sound like that i'm buying one...

[reb53]

I've had a video copy of this for several years after it was shown on a local TV road safety type program.
"Look how dangerous this is", etc etc.
Watched it numerous times but still not totally convinced about the high speeds that get mentioned. The V12 sounds very busy, but when cars get passed the margin doesn't seem that great. Not suggestive of 80 or 90 mph margins anyway.
Put a video camera in the air intake of my Sprint a few years ago and went for a quickish drive in the country. The low view point certainly makes it look quicker than it was.

"Honestly your Honour".

Ralph.

[tdafforn]

If you search the net a little is turns out that the run ws done in an automatic Mecedes 6.9l SEL and the sound track was overdubbed.
some spods have matched the timing on the film to the known distance traveled at various phases during the film, and at most he reached 90 mph on the straights..
Still Very impressive
tim

[steveww]

The engine noise never sounded right to me either. I had guessed at 80 - 90 mph max. If you want to see something really scary look for the video of the RUF Yellowbird going around the ring

Truely inspiring car control, if only I was that good

I have put a camera on my S4 a couple of times and recorded some trackdays and blasts around the local lanes. Always interesting to see how you are doing.

[Alasdair]

I have seen this drive through Paris and feel it to be nothing than a doctored up money grab, interesting it may be, but fake.

For one, just take a look at the lady crossing the street, you would think that with all that great noise, she would have heard way before starting to cross and not 1/3 already committed!

Who will ever know the truth!

[chrishewett]

I used to drive two of the 6.9l sel mercs in the eighties. They were an impressive car for a big saloon, especially if you left them in second (good for 110mph). The handling was pretty good to. I can certainly see one keeping up the sort of pace in the film.
Chris

[denicholls2]

There's an interview with him where he tells how he did it, in a Mercedes, in one take, and with a top speed of 200 kph. Even a picture of the car with the camera rig.

So no, he wasn't silent on it as legend may imply.