check out our GEN X store: decadeoceanapa... Brad / Jon watch and react to, Ray Stevens - "The Cannonball Run Opening": • Ray Stevens - "The Can... by @raystevensmusic
I was near tears when I watched Burt Reynolds in The Last Movie Star. Not literally in tears, but seeing the guy who was in Gator, White Lightning, the Bandit Films, The Cannonball films and Hooper, as he was being chauffeured 'Driving Miss Daisy' style by the self-absorbed and super-distracted Ariel Winter...that was depressing
So, that Lambo was a LP400s, not quite the first in the us. However the owner (who still owns it to this day) had the custom front spoiler wing done, then the exhaust was a masterpiece. Its a one of one individual header, with 12 outlets each with a monza style tip. It gave the car a very unique howl like sound, almost like a million ghost horses crying out. The starting scenes were filmed on what was once called "route 66" in the southern CA part before the Nevada border. Last, the CHP car was a 1979 firebird trans am CHP special. They had custom aero,(spoiler and larger wing) and a what was then blistering 400hp custom SBC and a hidden 75hp nitrous kit. Built and used by the CHP for a number of years as high speed pursuit cars.
Having grown up in the era of speed which began with Bullitt, Vanishing Point, Smokey & the Bandit, Blues Brothers and this...then ended with Top Gun and Days of Thunder (thx for nothing CRUISE!) i am puzzled as to why so FEW ppl seem to knew that Cannonball Run has a twisted cinematic twin out there called...The Gumball Rally? That film is literally the same premise yet surrounds a smaller and more exclusive group of participants who all receive the green light code to gather: "Gumball". One of Raul Julia's least-known performing gems in my opinion. Also, the Top Gun "Need for Speed" actually is foreshadowed in Cheech and Chong's 'Still Smokin' which includes a Tom Skerritt 'Nam flashback that mirrors his final gesture towards Maverick yrs later. Something about 'calling for support'
I forgot to include Peter Fonda's sleeper speedster 'Dirty Mary and Crazy Larry' which I barely recalled from the theater but was reminded of in the opening of tv's 'The Fall Guy'. Took me yrs to recognize it's ending as a reflection of Vanishing Point. Then another 20 years to correlate 'Kowalski's' fate as a result of his amphetamine use which metaphorically speaks volumes of the 70s-80s cocaine epidemic in America. Of course none of that ANYTHING to do with our collective and inevitable crash in the 90s...sure.