1939 replies to this topic

[Ray Bell]

Was it a thread here... or an article in a magazine?

Somewhere there's a lot of detail about the frequent pit stops to replace film...

[R.W. Mackenzie]

It may have been on the recent show about the making of "Le Mans" that I heard that at a certain point the camera car was in a good position to actually win the race if they didn't stop to make the frequent film changes. The temptation passed and they carried on filming. I assumed that this meant they were constantly filming while on the track. Gary C's explanation makes more sense though because they would have wasted alot of film just showing an empty, dark track.

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Speaking of different versions of the film, I have been aware since seeing it in the Leicester Square Theatre, or somewhere up London when it first came out, that the t.v. version omits a certain sequence.

Err...that's where I first saw the film. So, as well as being on the same Page & Moy bus to Monaco in 1974, where else were you following me, Barry

[Barry Boor]

Do you know, David, I thought I remembered you from Leicester Square!

You were the ice-cream girl, weren't you?

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by Barry Boor
Do you know, David, I thought I remembered you from Leicester Square!

You were the ice-cream girl, weren't you?

Not sure about that, but I do remember thinking...wot's a bloke in a football shirt doing watching a motor racing movie

[Barry Boor]

I am getting rather concerned about your fixation with football shirts. I suspect you are, in fact, a closet Rushden & Diamonds supporter!

[ensign14]

Quote

Originally posted by Barry Boor
You were the ice-cream girl, weren't you?

So long as you didn't go to bed together...

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by Barry Boor
I am getting rather concerned about your fixation with football shirts. I suspect you are, in fact, a closet Rushden & Diamonds supporter!

Woooossshhhhh
Went a googling, found the website, and I'm still none the wiser. Must be very esoteric.

Baffled of Lancashire.

[Vitesse2]

There is nothing esoteric about either Rushden or Irthlingborough! They both make Corby look glamorous

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by Vitesse2
There is nothing esoteric about either Rushden or Irthlingborough! They both make Corby look glamorous

But Corby has Rockingham...what are you trying to say?

[Barry Boor]

Quote

Rushden or Irthlingborough!

HA!!!! Another closet Diamonds fan!!!!!

[Vitesse2]

Quote

Originally posted by David Beard


But Corby has Rockingham...what are you trying to say?

You've obviously never been to Corby itself .... think Royston Vasey but with a slightly more modern shopping centre!

Quote

Originally posted by David Beard

HA!!!! Another closet Diamonds fan!!!!!

Not at all! When I lived in Peterborough, my parents lived in Gloucestershire, so those three delightful locales were on the route from one to the other!

[Barry Boor]

You can't fool me, Vit, there is only a miniscule fraction of a percent of the population who would know that the Diamonds from 'Rushden &' was once Irthlingborough. GOTCHA!!!!

[R.W. Mackenzie]

You people are turning this pleasant collection of memories of my favourite movie into an excuse for communist football propaganda of the shoddiest kind!

But before I sink into more quotations from Monty Python, please be advised (if you didn't already know) that amazon.com has a DVD of the making of "Grand Prix" that is supposed to be available today. (Mine is supposedly already on its way.)

So stop being silly! Now, how about some close-order drill?

Regards,

Bob Mackenzie

[Pedro 917]

Last week, I've been to the Historic 6 hours race at Spa (see my thread with pictures from the event) and in the afternoon we went for a drive on the old track and stopped at the "Friterie" (Snackbar where you can eat French Fries mainly) in the Masta kink. We met a farmer who lived next door and had a nice chat about "the good old days" when racing cars passed at 2 meters from his front door at speeds over 300 kms/h. At one time, he went inside and came back with some old pictures. One picture showed the wreck of a Mazda in which Belgian driver Eldé (Léon Dernier) got killed during the Spa 24 hours race of 1969, not a pretty sight I must add. It was taken a bit further on the way to Stavelot. Then he showed us 2 pictures from the making of "Grand Prix" taken in front of the house. One picture clearly shows Jochen Rindt in the Ferrari of "Sarti" wearing the Surtees helmet and some other cars and filmcrew. The other picture was taken from his balcony and shows some cars. I copied them with my digital camera (worked out pretty good) and will put them here tonight when I'm back home.

[Macca]

By the right.........wait for it, wait for it........ Camp it....UP!!!

Sorry, couldn't resist that!



Whicker's World on TV years ago did a programme about the making of GP, anyone got a copy? Is it the same stuff as the new DVD?

I have quite a few books with stills from the film or behind the scenes, including 'The Grand Prix Gift Book', 'The Jim Russell Story', Eagle comic annual 1967, etc. Anyone interested in the pictures?


Paul Mackness

[Tim Murray]

Quote

Originally posted by Barry Boor
You can't fool me, Vit, there is only a miniscule fraction of a percent of the population who would know that the Diamonds from 'Rushden &' was once Irthlingborough. GOTCHA!!!!

That fraction is probably a bit higher now, as the Irthlingborough/R & D connection was a question on Mastermind (UK TV quiz show) last night (and the contestant got it right!).

[ensign14]

Quote

Originally posted by Macca
Whicker's World on TV years ago did a programme about the making of GP, anyone got a copy? Is it the same stuff as the new DVD?

Welcome...to Whicker Island...

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by R.W. Mackenzie

You people are turning this pleasant collection of memories of my favourite movie into an excuse for communist football propaganda of the shoddiest kind!

But before I sink into more quotations from Monty Python, please be advised (if you didn't already know) that amazon.com has a DVD of the making of "Grand Prix" that is supposed to be available today. (Mine is supposedly already on its way.)

So stop being silly! Now, how about some close-order drill?

Regards,

Bob Mackenzie

Oops, sorry, quite right, this sketch is getting silly.

Perhaps I can point you at a page on my website about the film to show that I am interested in the proper part of the thread....The film "Grand Prix"

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by R.W. Mackenzie

You people are turning this pleasant collection of memories of my favourite movie into an excuse for communist football propaganda of the shoddiest kind!

But before I sink into more quotations from Monty Python, please be advised (if you didn't already know) that amazon.com has a DVD of the making of "Grand Prix" that is supposed to be available today. (Mine is supposedly already on its way.)

So stop being silly! Now, how about some close-order drill?

Regards,

Bob Mackenzie

Oops, sorry, quite right, this sketch is getting silly.

Perhaps I can point you at a page on my website about the film to show that I am interested in the proper part of the thread....The film "Grand Prix"

[Pedro 917]

Here are the pictures I've "copied" with my digital camera :





Looks like the Ferrari body covers a Lotus chassis (8-cylinder Climax), the Eagle had an upgrade from 4-cylinder Climax to 6-cylinder ?, not to mention the funny exhaust pipes, only the BRM H-16 looks very real although the only H-16 at Spa '66 was in a Lotus (Arundell in practice).

[Vitesse2]

Quote

Originally posted by Pedro 917
[B]

Mattijs, Felix, Rainer: don't you just wish the 8W game was still running? Imagine the confusion that picture would cause, especially if you photoshopped the McLaren camera car out!

Jochen in a Ferrari???

[Ray Bell]

The Eagle's 'upgrade' was to a V12... weird pipes on both sides...

Brilliant shots, very good to see the goings on that Jenks hated so much.

[dolomite]

Quote

Originally posted by Pedro 917
Here are the pictures I've "copied" with my digital camera :

Looks like the Ferrari body covers a Lotus chassis (8-cylinder Climax), the Eagle had an upgrade from 4-cylinder Climax to 6-cylinder ?, not to mention the funny exhaust pipes, only the BRM H-16 looks very real although the only H-16 at Spa '66 was in a Lotus (Arundell in practice).

Great pictures!

The H-16 is not real, it's this car (or a similar one) made from a F3 Lotus IIRC:

[Ray Bell]

I think that's a Brabham...

Lotus had inboard springs on the front those days, IIRC.

[Macca]

Pedro, Ray

IIRC, mainly from the Jim Russell book, all the cars were his old racing school Lotus 20's which is why they all had outboard front suspension. The front spring/damper units were painted black to make them less visible on cars that were supposed to have inboard units, and bits of tin were wrapped round the top wishbones to look like fabricated rocker arms. Larger wheels were fitted, and the invividual style of each teams wheels was imitated with plywood discs!

The bodywork and exhausts on the 'Eagle', and indeed on the 'BRM H16' were based on early drawings and artists impressions, whereas the 'Manetta-Ferrari' was copied from the real car which was the first of the new F1's to be unveiled (at the end of 1965). When BRM didn't race the H16 at Monaco, the film crew had to hurridly make their 'Jordan-BRMs' look a bit more like the 2l V8 P261's; for later filming they were able to make new and much more realistic bodies. The body on the 'H16' in Dolomite's post is one of the earlier ones.

At Monza the Lotus 25 owned by MGM that had been driven as a camera car by Phil Hill in practise at Monaco was used for at least some of the shots as Aron's Yamura; it can be spotted from the genuine inboard front springs.


Paul Mackness
(got my Mum to take me to see it in 1967, still got my original cinema programme)

[Breadmaster]

Quote

Originally posted by R.W. Mackenzie
please be advised (if you didn't already know) that amazon.com has a DVD of the making of "Grand Prix" that is supposed to be available today. (Mine is supposedly already on its way.)

I have ordered mine too.......

and "Le Mans" too - because the temptation is too much!

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Great pictures, Pedro 917! The picture from the front is taken on the straight at Masta just after the kink. Please upload more of these "making of 'Grand Prix'"pictures guys. I've never seen them before.

Bob Mackenzie

[R.W. Mackenzie]

Quote

Originally posted by Ray Bell
I think that's a Brabham...

Lotus had inboard springs on the front those days, IIRC.

Ray,

I think the two #6 Ferraris are two different cars. The one in the head-on shot is a dressed up F3 car. The one in the rear quarter shot is a Lotus 25 (or 33, but I don't know if 33's ever ran with top exit exhausts). The shape of the windshield and the transition to the engine cover are more Lotus than Brabham. In the movie they used a Brabham but it used it's own bodywork suitably repainted (though I don't recall as what). You can see the Lotus "Ferrari" in the scene prior to the French GP where the cars are being driven from their garage (with Lisa riding on Nino's).

Bob Mackenzie

[Macca]

Bob,

You are dead right, that is a Lotus 25 or 33 in the second photo, now I will have to watch GP yet again tonight to spot it in the film!

It looks totally standard except for the obvious fake exhausts; I will look up a picture of Phil Hill at Monaco tonight to see what exhausts it had (assuming it is the camera car).

Apart from the windscreen and the eight inlet trumpets, I should have spotted that it didn't have the bulge on the side of the engine cover over the real inlets.

AFAIK the Brabham was only used by Jo Bonnier in the British GP at Brands, painted red but otherwise standard; the Ferraris were kept away by a "metalworkers' strike" , Jo's Cooper-Maserati was still under repair after Spa, and the Cooper-ATS V8 that he tried at Rheims was broken.

That appears to be Jochen Rindt in no. 6 in the first pic, he did a lot of the film driving. Brilliant pics anyway.


Paul

[Ray Bell]

If the Lotus being discussed is the one that features during the opening credits, then it's certainly got the high exhausts...

I've seen them in Panoramic splendour. Filling the screen... many multiples of them...

[Roger Clark]

I believe the Lotus 25 is R6, used by Jim Clark to win the Grands Prix of Holland, Belgium and Great Britain in 1964, and of France in 1965, as well as several non-championship races.

A sad end to a historic racing car.

[Ray Bell]

Quote

Originally posted by Roger Clark
.....A sad end to a historic racing car.

The Lotus 39, built (as I'm sure you're aware) for the Climax flat 16, was fitted with a Climax 2.5 FPF for Jim Clark to contest the Tasman Cup series of 1966. It then became Leo Geoghegan's car for the Australian title races and subsequent Tasman Cup events... he retained it for three years, along the way putting a 2.5 Repco Brabham V8 into it.

Among the events it won was the JAF Grand Prix at Mt Fuji... all in all a pretty historic racing car.

The other day I was talking to Leo... "I had trouble selling that for $5,000, you know, and today that must be worth a million bucks!" And that's the way it is and was...

"But I needed a new car to race," he continued, "and I needed to sell that car to buy it. I took the $5,000 I got for it when I sold it and added another $1,000 and gave that to Merv Waggott, then I hopped on a plane and went to England to shop for a chassis to put the engine into."

Interestingly, during Bob Johns' ownership of the car Jack Brabham walked by and noticed something different about the wheel fixing that caused him to do a double take and come back for a closer look.

During Leo's time, the knock-on wheels had shown a tendency to come loose or even fall off. Kevin Carrad, preparing the car, wanted to come up with a fail-safe solution to this, and he put a simple stud into the centre of the axles with the opposite thread to the knock-ons. That is, if the knock-on was a left hand thread, his extra stud was a right hand thread and vice versa. Then a cap went over the knock-ons with a nylock nut retaining that. If a knock on were to come loose, it would be tightening the smaller nut... that was good enough to ensure Johnsy was safe on the circuit.

But it was always sad to see that car with an engine bay holding a mere twin cam Lotus-Ford engine...

[Macca]

Having checked sources but not yet re-watched the film, MGM used Lotus 25/33s R6, R7, R8 AND R9 for the filming in 1966.

They owned R6 which was used for filming by Phil Hill in practise for Monaco, still in Team colours and carring #20; it had high exhausts. It seems they hired R7 and R9, which may have been for static shots only, as R7 had been hacked about by Parnell Racing to take a Climax FPF 2.7 litre while R9 had been crashed by Baghetti in practise for Syracuse and not yet properly repaired.

As well as the 'Ferrari' Lotus 25 pictured at Spa, there is a picture in the movie programme magazine of Garner in a 'Yamura' Lotus in the rain at Spa, so they probably had two running cars; the likely candidate is R8 which hadn't been seen since non-starting at Enna in 1965 (it was the Dickie Stoop car which Hawkeye had dropped in Monaco harbour).

In the January 2000 editions of both Motor Sport and Classic & Sportscar are photos of Garner in a 'Yamura' Lotus at Monza during filming.

The Brabham that Bonnier drove at Brands was listed as a 1.5 litre Climax, but a picture shows a low engine cover and short inlet trumpets (in red with fake Ferrari high exhausts), hence a BRM V8, so it was probably the same car that Amon tried to qualify at Monza in Yamura/McLaren colours - chassis number not known.

From R5 onwards all the 25/33s still exist IIRC (in original spec, though many are much rebuilt), although one is in unknown private ownership, and I haven't heard of the fate of the late John Dawson-Damer's collection - any news DCN?

Paul Mackness
badge no 25 (of course!)

[David Beard]

Quote

Originally posted by Macca
From R5 onwards all the 25/33s still exist IIRC (in original spec, though many are much rebuilt), although one is in unknown private ownership, and I haven't heard of the fate of the late John Dawson-Damer's collection - any news DCN?

Paul Mackness
badge no 25 (of course!)

I was under the impression that the J D-D collection of Lotii is intact and still retained by his family. I too would appreciate any news though...

[Richard Neale]

Somewhere I have a picture of Garner sitting in a Cooper (Less Bodywork) in the Cooper Works.
Did any Coopers get used for filming?

[Mike Argetsinger]

I'm not aware of any Coopers being used in action sequences. But the Cooper factory/works was used as the Yamura headquarters in the movie.

[David Force]

The 'Jordan BRM H16' was spotted at the Beaulieu Autojumble a few years back and I believe purchased by a group comprising William Taylor and Jim Bennett, the publishers of the fabulous Lotus 49 and 72 books amongst others. It was restored and raced and may have been sold since.
Does anyone know what happened to any of the others ?

There is a terrific sound track album of the film Grand Prix, I have a copy and the sound and doppler effect of the cars on the Masta straight are superb, you can hear who lifts...

Great photos of the filming at Spa, one of the best shots of the film ,if you were quick to spot it, was an overhead of Rindt in the Cooper Maserati collecting it all up after a monster flat out spin on the straight without touching the grass.

[Roger Clark]

Quote

Originally posted by Macca

The Brabham that Bonnier drove at Brands was listed as a 1.5 litre Climax, but a picture shows a low engine cover and short inlet trumpets (in red with fake Ferrari high exhausts), hence a BRM V8, so it was probably the same car that Amon tried to qualify at Monza in Yamura/McLaren colours - chassis number not known.

Bonnier started practice in a BRM engined car but the engine blew up early on. He changed to a Climax car which he raced. If the money MGM spent on fake Ferraris had been offered to Enzo as starting money he would probably have entered a full team and MGM wouldn't have had the problems they did.

[275 GTB-4]

In Australia on TV,

I recall that James Garner was interviewed about the film with several current day drivers (my memory is not that good! possibly Graham Hill) where they remarked on his driving ability in complementary terms. I also seem to recall that Jimmy had done some tin top racing in the states.

Anyone remember these aspects?? :

I am surprised that nobody has mentioned the very beautiful Francoise Hardy yet!!

[Pedro 917]

Some more pictures from "Grand Prix" taken at Spa :

Phil Hill getting some last instructions before the start :



Jean-Pierre Sarti (Yves Montand) :



The "Manetta-Ferrari" :



Nino Barlini and girlfriend (Francoise Hardy) :



Shooting......



In the "real" Grand Prix, Bondurant's BRM was painted in "Yamura" colors because of McLaren's withdrawal.

[Ray Bell]

Wasn't the story that Garner was barely a driver at all before the film... but became very enthusiastic about driving with his schooling at Jim Russell's?

[Macca]

Ray,

There is a good article about Garner in Motor Sport for Jan 2000, IIRC he was into fast cars anyway and really wanted the part, and when he got it he had some extra training before filming. He was the only one of the four principle actors to do all his own driving at full speed in unrestricted cars; in fact, he stood in for Montand, Bedford and and Sabato on occasion and can sometimes be seen in more than one car in the same sequence! The professional drivers were indeed complimentary, especially after he had gone down the Masta at 140mph in the rain with them.

Those Spa shots are brilliant, that looks like the Lotus 25/33 'Yamura' alongside the GT40 camera car.

I think Ferrari always seemed to have problems around the time of the British GP (as in 1959), whether because of strikes, holidays or just lack of resources after putting everything into Le Mans.
MGM needed all those fakes anyway, to take the shots they needed for the plot, and to use up in crashes.

David, I spoke to Jim Bennett at the Crystal Palace sprint in 1999 when he first ran the 'BRM H16', and he said that he had seen or heard of at least one 'Yamura', unrestored, in the USA.

Paul Mackness

[Macca]

I've found some more colour movie stills of 'Grand Prix', and as soon as I figure out how to post them, I will.

BTW, a previous thread showed a quote saying that Phil Hill's practise filming at Monaco was done in Lotus 25/33 R9, which HAD been repaired after Baghetti's Syracuse shunt.

Paul Mackness

[Macca]

No, still can't post my pics (maybe'cos I don't have a website of my own). Can I e-mail them to some kind person who might do it for me?

Paul

[Ray Bell]

Quote

Originally posted by Macca
No, still can't post my pics (maybe'cos I don't have a website of my own). Can I e-mail them to some kind person who might do it for me?

Sure thing...

raybell@justin-bell.net

[WDH74]

I seem to recall reading that James Garner's introduction to drafting was on the Monza oval, when he was following Phil Hill. After the shoot, he asked why the heck Hill drove so fast....
-William

[Ray Bell]

[Dennis Hockenbury]

Fantastic pics all.

Has anyone purchased the "Making of Grand Prix" DVD that can provide comments on this. I have read a few remarks on Amazon that basically said....."Don't bother".

[Pils1989]

Thanks for the pictures!
On the third picture... who's who?