Some of you may have seen this video before. If not, the aural stimulation alone is worth it.

Imagine, if you will, a vintage Ferrari 275 GTB ripping through the streets of Paris at up to 140 mph.

Real car, real traffic, real red lights, real pedestrians. The filmmaker was arrested after the short film was released--the identity of the professional driver was never revealed...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...88008488190547

Enjoy!

 

Nice find.

 

Here's another one--manic...

http://www.wimp.com/cockpit/

 

This one has been around for awhile but it is still one of my favorites

 

Shot in 76' the dvd is available for sale. saw it in C&D R&T mags

 

Damn. I was going to post this in the "Most Dangerous things you have done" thread, but it's too late, my secret's out. The Formula 1 driver story was just to throw people off the track.




JonasM

 

while it was incredible to hear the sounds of that motor-- esp when he downshifted-- and to see how amazingly well that car was handling...

they both should've been arrested. while the driver had excellent vehicle control... that was still utterly reckless, considering the chance that a pedestrian may have been crossing the street in the wrong shady part of the road.

 

Rendezvous is a classic. Since I spent three years near Paris and I can relate to many of the streets from the beginning to the end.

Here's some more background on it:

The world's most notorious cult car film has finally made it to general release.
C'etait un Rendezvous -- much spoken about, yet rarely seen -- lasts less than 10 minutes and has no plot, no dialogue and no music. It consists solely of an attempt to drive a Ferrari across Paris at the fastest possible speed, with a low-mounted camera catching all the sounds and sights.

Insane speeds mix with ridiculous risks as the mystery driver hits 180kmh down the Champs Elysees at dawn, rockets through Place de la Concorde and past Opera Garnier before screeching up narrow, cobbled streets towards Sacre Coeur at Montmartre.

Along the way, the Ferrari blasts through endless red lights, slices between garbage trucks, buses and 2CVs and takes the viewer on a real-life ride more dramatic than any video game.

The film is steeped in mythology and for many years the only available copies have been bootlegged VHS tapes. Stories have been rife and varied about who made the film and who was driving the car.

In reality, the unlikely man behind Rendezvous was Claude Lelouch, the director of the 1966 French romantic hit, A Man and a Woman.

from an advertisement for it:

Now a British enthusiast, Richard Symons, has found the original 35mm negative print and had the film remastered and transferred to DVD. He has also coaxed details from the director, who confirmed it was himself and not any of the rumoured French F1 pilots who drove the Ferrari V12 at such frightening speed.

"The film lasts nine minutes and 30 seconds -- precisely the same amount of time it took to shoot," said Lelouch in a written statement sent to Symons.

"This is because it's exactly how much I had left after filming Si C'etait a Refaire [aka If I Had To Do It All Over Again, starring Catherine Deneuve]. At the time I thought it would be a shame to waste those 300 metres of celluloid. So I took the opportunity to create another film that had been close to my heart for some time.

"So I have 570 seconds, not one more, to do Porte Dauphine to Place du Tertre [with] the impossibility of guaranteeing the safety of the operation. I have limited the risk by filming in August at 5am. But I have not been able to close down the streets on my route.

"The most dangerous part of the drive is the passage at the gates of the Louvre. There is no view of the exit -- if a car appears at that moment a collision is inevitable. I strategically placed my assistant, Elie Chouraqi, there with a walkie-talkie so he could advise me of any danger.

"When I arrived level with the gates there is no signal, so I step on it. The rest of the journey is accomplished -- 15 minutes later I find Chouraqi fiddling with his walkie-talkie.

"I ask him, 'What is it?' and he says, 'It's this piece of shit!' pointing at it. 'It stopped working at the beginning of the take!' A shiver goes down my spine."

Lelouch was eventually hauled before a court. The judge read a list of the offences he'd committed during the filming.

"He takes my licence," Lelouch remembered, "and contemplates it for a few moments then gives it back with a large smile on his face, saying: 'I promised I would take your licence, but I didn't say for how long. My children love your little film ...'"

The thing Lelouch hasn't revealed, however, is what car enthusiasts most often debate: what type of Ferrari was it?

"I spoke to Claude Lelouch about this," Symons told Drive, "and he feels it is not relevant. He has owned several Ferraris, but he is an artist and his interest in Rendezvous is as a filmmaker.

"One thing he told me was, 'I don't feel like I directed Rendezvous, I feel like it was directed by God.'"

BTW, that was Claude Lalouch's wife at the end coming up the steps of Sacre Coeur (the famous hill top church) at 5 in the morning.

 

How about some background on this one? It seems like a Porsche (sounds like a Porsche), but what kind and who drove? Where was it done?

 

The Getaway In Stockholm videos are worth watching also.