In the race at the beginning of the movie, you can see a brief glimpse of a car called the Honker II which was driven by Mario Andretti during the 1967 Can Am season. For some obscure reason Paul Newmans name was painted on the nose of it. The car was not competitive and Andretti was prompted to say they should paint his name on the car and let Newman drive.
share"In the race at the beginning of the movie, you can see a brief glimpse of a car called the Honker II which was driven by Mario Andretti during the 1967 Can Am season. For some obscure reason Paul Newmans name was painted on the nose of it. The car was not competitive and Andretti was prompted to say they should paint his name on the car and let Newman drive."
That's because from what I've read in various books on the Can-Am Series, they coerced Paul into putting some money into the effort, (odd given that it was built by Holman-Moody, Ford's main NASCAR & overall racing arm at the time), thus making him a sponsor & likely done to give the effort some name recognition.
Honker II was named after John Holman, (of Holman-Moody), who got the nickname "Honker", from his days driving trucks & his love of using the air horn.
They "coerced" him? How?
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