They made three tries before actually making the jump. The barge kept settling into the sand, and it took the boat skipper a bit to pull it away from the bank. The distance was never right. The radio conversation went something like this: Stunt coordinator to the boat "Wichita (the boat) you've got to get the barge farther away from the bank." Boat skipper to the stunt coordinator - "Wichita to the movie people, y'all quit screwing around and get that car moving sooner so's the barge don't get sanded in, maybe I could." The next time they tried it, the boat skipper (his name was Don and he was damn good) held the barge just offshore against the current and when the car started for the ramp he poured the coals to the Wichita and backed out faster than the stunt driver realized he could, but by that time he was committed to the jump, that's why the car didn't make it all the way onto the barge. The car was undrivable afterwards, and sat on the bank for quite a while before finally getting towed off for scrap. If memory serves me correctly, they trashed at least five cars making the movie.
Jack Dasef , I loved this movie so much, that a few years ago, I made a clone of Gator’s car.I used a 1971 Galaxie four door that I de-trimmed into a Custom, with a 4bbl 351 Cleveland instead of the 429. I did swap out the FMX auto, for a toploader 4-speed.and painted it brown, of course. I had more people stop me and tell me how much the loved White Lightning than I can remember.,
Apparently the stunt co-ordinator wanted the barge moving for maximum tension, unfortunately the barge captain got excited and pulled away faster than was rehearsed. The stunt performer was actually pretty badly injured, but they kept the shot in the movie.
I don't care how long it takes, I will find a car like that and restore it . It will be identical to that one complete with the 429 4 in the floor. I always wanted to have a car like that, lol.
bud ekins Yep,Hal was hurt bad... Burt swam over and helped him. He was always a stand up guy when it came to the stunts... He even told his cast and crew to say a prayer for Dar Robinson before he did his Real Life backwards fall from a balcony in: Slick 1985.
71 Plymouth. He allegedly broke some teeth doing the car jump. .does that mean his face hit the steering wheel?! Although 99% of the time seatbelts or harnesses prevent a stunt driver's face from impacting the steering wheel - I do recall seeing stunt driver Spanky Spangler whacking his face against the steering wheel during one of his car jumps. He later said this happened because he liked to keep his three-point harness fairly loose so as to spread the energy of the impact. In Hal Needham's jump it is also possible the steering wheel became loose on impact and hit his jaw.
bud ekins Wow... I want to be a stunt driver myself... and that's the main reason that I'm going to try and make my own ''independent films'' mainly to give me an excuse to do stunts,jumps and driving like this... Thanks for telling me that: I've learned something new today! I also know that ol Bud was a great stuntman himself. He did the motorcycle jump for Steve and also did some driving in Bullitt...
Bo Hopkins was driving either a Mercury Monterey or a Marquis...the difference would have been headlights. Monterey didn't have the fold-up headlight doors as a Marquis would.
I have always wondered if any of these brown Fords that Burt Reynolds was driving really had the big block engine and the 4 speed tranny. You can see through the movie these cars had column shifts.
There were three 71 Custom 500's built for this movie with 4 speed transmissions and a modified Torino console. Not built in any Ford factory with a 4 speed.
Now if you pay attention, in some scenes of this chase, the car has a chrome strip going down the doors and then sometimes it doesn't. And in one part it doesn't have a back glass. Now mine is gonna have a back glass whenever I get it done but, chrome on the doors or not? That is what I was wondering about doing as I want it to be identical with the one in the movie but there are several different cars in the movie, so what do I do? Any thoughts anyone?
VengefulBatz That’s for sure, mostly for the movies. But find yourself a hard packed dirt road that doesn’t have much dust covering it and you might be surprised. Back in the day,a friend of mine stopped on a hard packed road and lit the tires, we knew it wasn’t gonna do anything. We almost died, we heard squealing , we stopped and had to get our jaws off the floor. After that he did it 3-4 more times and we had to pull over, we couldn’t see from tears of laughter. Someone made a joke about a car speaker in the woods watching us and making the noise🤣🤣
