Car fans with a sense of nostalgia have been well-catered to in recent times. We’ve had landmark documentaries in Senna, McLaren and TT: Closer to the Edge.
And we’ve even had surprisingly enjoyable dramatic fare in the form of Ron Howard’s Rush, which detailed the battle of wills between James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the 1970s.
Now, the 1960s track war between Ferrari and Ford for endurance car dominance is set to be played out in similar big-screen fashion, with a feature-length (and as-yet unnamed) motion picture due for release late next year.
Matt Damon will play Carroll Shelby, while Christian Bale will take on the role of Ken Miles, Ford’s GT40 test driver. Jon Bernthal (Baby Driver) will play Ford boss Lee Iacocca. Ferrari is clearly to be cast as the corporate villain of the piece — and if you’re familiar with the story you’ll know why.
There’s no hint who might play Enzo, although can we suggest Jeffrey Tambour? Behind trademark shades he’d be a dead-ringer for The Old Man. And presuming some screen time for the racers themselves, who might play our very own Chris Amon? Luke Wilson, perhaps?
Walk The Line and Logan director James Mangold has been shoulder-tapped to helm the project, but other than the principal players, there’s little else by way of teaser trailer or information on the precise biopic scope of the film. The 1966 running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans must surely be a certainty for the third act, however.
Meanwhile, and speaking of quality docos, you can always school up on the Ferrari v Ford battle by seeking out The 24 Hour War, which uses archive footage and interviews to describe the drama on and off the circuit.
Travis Pastrana’s Evel streak
High-flying X-Gamer Travis Pastrana has basically done it all — where “it” refers to taking a motocross bike and defying the laws of physics on it. He’s a rallyist, motorcycle racer, Nascar driver, extreme daredevil and sneaker enthusiast ... and soon he’ll take on the flawed genius of all things, er, motorcycle stunt-like; Evel Knievel himself.
This weekend, Pastrana will be emulating the late-star spangled jumpsuit-wearer in Evel Live, a three-hour broadcast on the History Channel, which will showcase the 34-year old repeating three of Knievel’s most famous jumps.
During the show, which will be beamed around the world live from Las Vegas (of course), Pastrana will first jump 52 cars as a sort of amuse-bouche. For an entree, he’ll then jump over 16 full-size buses. The main course? A soaring flight over the Caesar’s Palace fountain.
Here’s the kicker, though: Pastrana won’t be on a modern dirt bike with all its extreme sports suspension and in-air manoeuvrability.
Oh, no. In order to provide the full Knievel facsimile, he’ll be doing his gravity-defying stunts using a 750cc V-twin Indian Scout. Heavy, solid, un-manoeuvrable … but exactly the sort of hardware Knievel made his name on (or under, in several cases).
It’s not all a straight salute though; Pastrana is setting out to beat two of Knievel’s jump distance records and equal a third.
The show will also feature archive footage of Knievel and interviews with friends and family and — we’re presuming — behind-the-scenes mini docos of Pastrana’s week building up to the event, which will include lots of shots of him staring into the distance in the Nevada desert at sunset as he contemplates the danger ahead.
Still, it should be quite a show. Let’s hope there’s no need for panicked cuts to commercials ... if you catch our drift.
Forget autonomous cars, some insist on flying ones
We’d assumed that carmakers had all but given up on that most retro-futurist of dreams; the flying car.
Turns out though, having commuters whizzing through the air Jetsons-style is still of great interest to some carmakers. And we’re not even talking about never-heard-of-before start-ups who’ve only appeared to generate 4K promo videos of concept cars (as opposed to actual cars). We’re talking here about Audi.
The Volkswagen Group offshoot has roped aeronautical giant Airbus and the German Government in to help with its plans. The bigwigs in Berlin have okayed Audi and Airbus to start testing “air taxis” above Ingolstadt (Audi’s home town).
The aircraft are more like tiny helicopters than the sort of plexiglass domed jet-propelled craft the Hanna Barbera cartoon benchmark led us to believe would be the template for flying cars, but the goal remains the same: to alleviate traffic congestion by sending some (one percenters, we assume) skyward.
We’ve covered flying car plans in the past and it would seem we need to add the prefix “pigs might” to the front of every aeronautically-minded company pushing for personal flight. This could be different though; a big carmaker, airplane manufacturer and a governing body with big red tape-slicing scissors — a flying car with Audi’s four rings on the nose cone could be a reality.
It’ll be well into the next decade before we see anything approaching a commercially available flying car. Still, in a few years, we look forward to having someone flying up behind us in their Audi flashing their lights as they insist on getting past.