Pop Culture Collisions: Hollywood’s Most Famous Scrap Cars
23rd Jan, 2017
As you can imagine, at Scrap Car Network we see rather a lot of cars. Some are relatively unscathed vehicles that have simply reached the end of their lifespan, whereas a few meet their end in far more dramatic scenarios. Hollywood has a tendency to produce quite a few of the latter, so this week we’re taking a look at some famous scrap cars from the film industry, and exactly how they met their end.
Back To The Future: 1946 Ford Super De Luxe Convertible
Image Credit: Futurepedia
Back To The Future is the epitome of 80s. From the wacky Doc Brown – a character as endearing as he is enduring – to establishing the Delorean as one of the most legendary cars on film, the franchise has made a whole bunch of lasting contributions to popular culture. But it wasn’t the Delorean which suffered the most dramatic destruction in the series. That honour belongs to Biff Tannen’s 1946 Ford Super De Luxe convertible with a 292 flathead V8 engine. During an iconic chase scene in which he chases the hero, Marty McFly, Tannen’s car undergoes the indignity of crashing into a truck of manure (thankfully a practical effect rather than the real thing). The car was painstakingly extracted from the wreck during filming and went on display at Universal Studios until 1996, when it was sold to a private collector.
Bullitt: 1968 Mustang GT
Image Credit: FastcoCreate
Bullitt made cinematic history with its world-famous chase scenes, so it’s not surprising that the movie didn’t come up short in the car scrapping department, ending up with over 80 cars to its name by the end of filming. Bullitt was equally famous for its continuity errors – the Dodge Charger driven by the villains loses no less than eight hubcaps at various points during the most famous chase.
Two 1968 Mustang GTs were extensively modified for production, with one of them so badly beaten up in various collisions by the time the film wrapped that it was beyond repair. Its twin, while not escaping unscathed, hadn’t been put through the wringer quite so thoroughly, and it was purchased by an anonymous owner in 1972. Today, the exact location of the car remains a closely guarded secret.
Casino Royale: 2006 Aston Martin DBS
Image Credit: Evo
The DBS is by far the most dramatic car death on our list – no one can scrap cars like Bond. Back in 2005, after Aston’s president invited the producer of the latest Bond film to visit an Aston factory, she fell in love with the DBS and cast it immediately as Bond’s signature car for the film. This presented a problem for Aston – namely that the car wasn’t in production yet, and wouldn’t be for another year. However, having their car make an appearance in a Bond film wasn’t one they could pass up, so Aston’s engineers set to work creating two ‘hero’ cars: ones that looked near enough like the real thing, but that the filmmakers could destroy with impunity.
As anyone who’s seen the film can attest, the way the Aston makes its exit is nothing short of spectacular, as Bond’s desperate driving manoeuvre goes drastically wrong. However, the initial test with the first of the two cars didn’t quite go as planned, resulting in an unimpressive slide across the grass. So for the reshoot the producers installed a gas cannon that would punch a metal ram out of the bottom of the car and flip it onto its roof.
The results were jaw-dropping, and you can see the result in the finished film – the car flips into the air and rolls a dizzying number of times before crashing to a halt. The filmmakers initially didn’t realise that they’d actually set a new world record for the most cannon rolls in a car (seven!). Once shooting was finished, the destroyed cars were reclaimed by Aston Martin.
Scrap Car Network – The Cheapest, Admittedly Less Dramatic Option
While your own car isn’t likely to be done in by inconvenient manure trucks or seven consecutive flips (we hope), we can still help you get it scrap it regardless – and we’re good for the environment, too! Just enter your postcode and registration number onto our website to receive an instant scrap car quote, and let us take things from there!
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