3 replies to this topic

[nmansellfan]

Not directly racing related, but a little light relief nonetheless.

Many of us are familiar with the great chase scene in the 1968 film 'Bullitt', involving a Ford Mustang GT390 and the Dodge Charger R/T. I am told that the engine noise from the Mustang is not of the actual car, but recorded from a Ford GT40. Being a car fan, over the years i have seen many television shows and films where the centre of attention is a car. And the same GT40 engine noise sountrack keeps cropping up everywhere!

Film examples are: Vanishing Point and The Cannonball Run, and television shows include The Dukes of Hazzard and Street Hawk (In both cases the soundtrack was for a Dodge Charger!). Its easy to tell the same recording is used because if you hear it enough times over 20 years you can tell all the gearchange points (including those distinctive double-declutching upshifts in 'Bullitt'). Sad i know, but im a hopeless case!

Has anyone heard the soundtrack in any other show or film (most likely to be heard in low budget productions, see above...) and does anobudy know where and when the original recording was made? Was it made specifically for 'Bullitt'? Obscure questions i know but it always makes me laugh when you know a producer has just chosen a 'generic V8 sound' for the action on screen but it doesnt really match up!

[Viss1]

There's also a "generic V12" sound commonly used for "exotics." I first noticed it in the early '80s in shows like Hardcastle & McCormick and Riptide . It was NOT used in Miami Vice, though - that "Cor-Rari" had its own fake sound.

[Ralliart]

I'd never heard that the "Bullitt" sounds were from a GT-40, so that's interesting. What baffles me is that, in the chase scene, the sounds of the engine do not match the speed. Listen to the sound and then look at the pavement with it' s white stripes. The car's revving like hell but the speed, as indicated by the passing of the white stripes, is way off. The Mustang is traveling far slower than the engine noises suggest. "Bullitt" is and was not the first movie to blow it like that, of course. The people who coordinated the sound for "Le Mans" are also "guilty".

[Don Capps]

Perhaps the only "interesting" car not to have the Foley folks get it wrong was the Porsche that P.L. Newman drove in Harper, which sounded just like..... a Porsche Speedster!