Wings

[holywood3645]

Before Red Bull even thought of it!

[Elanintheforest]

Have you been playing with Photoshop, James? Looked very impressive at first glance!
Mark

[Mazzini]

I think thats the Elan my tame auto electrician looks after, I'll ask him.

[stevebroad]

If photoshopped, it has been done very well. If not, ouch on landing!

[Elanintheforest]

Ouch on landing indeed! It does look very good, but I don't think there's enough suspension drop, the tyres are flat at the bottom and no shadow! But I'm probably wrong.

Great picture either way.
Mark

[redcarandco]

Photo is a real one (no trick) It has been taken during Tour of Spain or Portugal more or less 10 years ago Driver is a former chevron driver a well known very fast man still in activity in Europe and still driving race cars...I met him in Chimay some months after and he said to me something like :"flying is easy ....landing is difficult...It costed him a new chassis....(sorry for poor english) I think if memory is good his name is John Sheldon or something approaching
Roger

[Elanintheforest]

Wow! I'm not surprised the chassis gave up after that.
Just for James, even the old Twincam Escorts had their limits when it came to flying, and they were built for it. This is a prototype car being tested at the Army's tank proving ground in Chobham, Surrey. They would try to break it to find the weak spots, strengthen them up, and go again....until they ran out of weak spots!
Mark

[The Veg]

They broke a lot of Chargers making The Dukes of Hazzard.

[Elanintheforest]

Around 300 I believe!
Mark

[steveferguson]

John Sheldon driving Bijou in Mallorca, and the photo is real! The car and driver have been very successful and compete regularly throughout Europe in both rallies and road races. Although I have supported and worked on this car it is prepared by Ricky Higgs Preparations. The quality of the driver and its preparation are key factors in the cars ability to achieve such success and continually take punishment such as this. Robs Sparkie

[denicholls2]

They broke a lot of Chargers making The Dukes of Hazzard.

Yes, and what's amazing is that those (surplus due to fuel price pressures at the time) cars are now worth large change. I can also vouch that for a full-sized American sedan, they handled pretty well. Not Elan-well, of course.

I remember in the original series they apparently wanted to prove the jumps were for real. On many of the landings, the cuts are late enough that if you look carefully, they show the front rails collapsing under the windshield.

Amazing they built the Escorts to fly, that's an expensive undertaking.