I hope they were cheap! Who the hell wants that car after it's had the *beep* beaten out of it for 3 days. Hey honey why don't we get that guy next door to take our car out to the summer cottage on the coast. Yeah great idea. Ha!
shareCars were different back then. They were much simpler, and didn't have built-in obsolescence time-bombs. The V8 in that car is practically indestructible, and the whole car is made of steel that's thicker than it has to be. What he did used to be called 'running in': a process to make sure the nuts and bolts were properly bedded in and there was optimal fuel and air flow. The car would then end up running better and idling steadier, with more engine power. They still do that with quality cars (e.g. Porsches) but mass market manufacturers haven't done it since the early 1990s.
shareI'm pretty sure running it across a desert in the bush, through medians and running from the police isn't part of a running in procedure.There's nothing worse you can do for a fresh engine than leave it at the same rpm on and on and on and on. You have to chalk this one up to pure fun and entertainment,a great car chase movie. Very cool to hear those big block sounds howling down the highway. Those guys were doing some serious speed on those stretches
shareYou're right, it's never good to run a car through a desert. That would have chipped the paint and it might have taken sand through the intake. However there was a bit of a car delivery culture back in the day. Thrashing a customer's new car while delivering it.. These days with speed cameras everywhere and stiff fixed penalties, it doesn't really happen (not in the UK anyway). But you're right, this is an iconic car chase on celluloid and it looks great, which trumps boring realism.
sharedon't forget about the UK focus ST owner that took his car in to be serviced only to find out days later after checking his dash cam that some little muppet mech had the apes the *beep* out of it doing 90 in 30 zones....
shareIt was just different back then and this was actually a fairly common practice. My dad did this as a summer job during college, and delivered lots of cars between states. It's usually for dealer trades for cars that were limited production, that had very specific option packages, or that people either couldn't special order, or didn't want to wait for. I guess people just didn't really care as much. You would never do that now, as no one would take delivery of a new car as a new once the odometer made it into the triple digits -- you would be flat decking or putting it on a car carrier for sure.
In real life, I doubt you could trash the cars that hard. That Chrysler Imperial that Kowalski rolls into the garage with in the beginning was basically the Mercedes S-Class of its day, and there is no way that anyone accepting a $10000+ car (in 70's dollars) would accept it if it wasn't perfect.
This is a movie you know... Sandy (Kowalski's boss) probably had a reputable business, but in this movie, Kowalski no longer cares. And besides, it's only ONE CAR! Get over it!
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