Revisiting our favorite car movies

The list we posted last weekend of our 10 favorite car films generated a fair amount of commentary — most of it relating to movies that posters felt were unfairly overlooked.

Up to Speed stands by its original selections, but we also understand the subjective nature of lists, rankings and popularity contests of any sort. And with that in mind, here are the four movies that got the most mentions from our readers:

"Vanishing Point" (1971) -– If, like Spinal Tap, we had gone to 11, this movie would’ve made the cut. Along with “Two-Lane Blacktop” (which did make the list), “Vanishing Point” is the car movie as existential epic -- as one poster noted, “one man, one car, one road: no exit.” (That car, by the way, was a white 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T.) If Camus had written a script for a car movie, this would have been the result. And it has one of the coolest endings in Hollywood history.

"Thunder Road" (1958) –- This tale of running moonshine in late '50s North Carolina apparently has a devoted following. Classic cars may be part of the reason, but we suspect that the presence of Robert Mitchum -- one of the great cinematic tough guys -- may also have something to do with it. (He even wrote and sang the title song!)

"Ronin" (1998) –- We saw this back in the dot-com era, and for some reason, the chase scenes just didn’t stay with us. But “Ronin,” with its tight European streets and slick European cars, clearly strikes a chord with many car-chase fans. We might have to put this one on Up to Speed’s Netflix list for a refresher course.

"Grand Prix" (1966) -– Like “Ronin,” this James Garner vehicle was directed by John Frankenheimer. The plot is basic big-screen soap opera, but it does feature spectacular footage of Formula One cars in all their mid-1960s glory, as well as cameos by some of the leading drivers of the era. When it comes to big-time racing films, some movie buffs prefer 1971’s “Le Mans,” which starred Steve McQueen and used a less-glossy, almost documentary-style approach.

-- Martin Zimmerman

After the jump: See the original theatrical trailer for "Vanishing Point."

Souped-up cinema: Our 10 favorite car movies

What makes a great car movie? We here at Up to Speed pondered this question while waiting in line for a matinee showing of “Flash of Genius,” the based-on-fact story of one man’s legal battle against the auto industry (opening today at a giga-plex near you).

We decided to put together a list of our 10 favorite car movies, hopefully avoiding the usual recital of road-race smash-'em-ups (although there are, of course, several of those in our tally) to leave room for a few less-obvious choices — films that say more about the role of the automobile in American life than simply speed, mobility or cool quotient.

Here, in alphabetical order, are our picks:

American Graffiti (1973) — Filmed mostly on the mean streets of Petaluma, this ode to cruising, street racing and an America that is all but unrecognizable today is on everyone’s list of great car movies, and deservedly so. The cars are classic — Paul Le Mat’s 1932 Ford coupe, Suzanne Somers’ 1956 Thunderbird, the Pharoahs’ 1951 Mercury — the acting is superb and the whole movie thrums like the well-tuned 454 in Harrison Ford’s ’55 Chevy.

Blue Collar (1978) — This movie isn’t about cars; it’s about the people who build them. Filmed around Detroit and in the old Checker Motors taxi assembly plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., and grounded by a slashing, bluesy soundtrack, “Blue Collar” depicts the auto industry — and, by extension, capitalism — as a soul-crushing fraud. And no one walks away clean. Workers, bosses, union reps, cops — they all exist on the downside of the American dream.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967) — Doesn’t usually make it on to greatest car flick lists, but this classic depicts the earliest entree into modern automobile-fueled criminal behavior (not to mention the template for the Grand Theft Auto Series of video games). For Warren Beatty’s Clyde and Faye Dunaway’s Bonnie, a car means freedom: freedom to rob banks, to attempt primitive drive-by shootings, and to bleed all over the back seat. For the record, the original gun moll and her man met their maker alongside a 1934 Ford.

Bullitt (1968) — A so-so flick, but the car chase through the streets of San Francisco — featuring a ’68 Mustang GT 390 — was so cool that Ford is still trying to make a buck off it 40 years later with its special edition Bullitt ’Stang. And any list of car movies has to name-check Steve McQueen at some point.

Repo Man (1984) — A postmodern paean to the Chevy Malibu, a car that’s collectible now but was a total junker in early ’80s, rundown Los Angeles. The definition of a cult film, it will forever change the way you think about opening the trunk. And teach you how to steal cars: “I never broke into a trunk. I shall not cause harm to any vehicle nor the personal contents thereof, nor through an action let that vehicle or the personal contents thereof come to harm. That's what I call the Repo Code, kid.”

'Flash of Genius' Takes a Swipe at Ford

Who killed the intermittent windshield wiper?

Nobody, actually. But “Flash of Genius,” a new movie from Universal opening Friday, tells the story of Robert Kearns, who claimed to have come up with the idea for off-again, on-again wipers — and then spent much of his life suing the automakers he accused of ripping off his idea.

It’s a classic Hollywood David vs. Goliath story. Kearns, played by Greg Kinnear, below, was a lowly engineering instructor who came up with a design for an off-again, on-again windshield wiper while tinkering in his basement workshop in the early 1960s.

Efforts to sell his patented invention to Ford came to naught and the automaker, which had been working on its own designs, began selling cars equipped with intermittent wipers in 1969. Kearns sued Ford in 1978 for $141 million (an amount that eventually rose to $325 million) and went after Chrysler four years later.

After years of litigation, Ford offered to settle the case for $30 million, but Kearns rebuffed the offer. In 1990, a federal jury found that Ford had unintentionally infringed on Kearns’ patent and awarded the inventor $10 million.

Kearns, who eventually filed lawsuits against 26 companies, also got a big chunk of money out of Chrysler. He died in 2005.

Up to Speed hasn’t seen the film yet (we opted for a screening of this weekend’s other big release, “Beverly Hills Chihuahua”). But based on the previews and several of the reviews, Ford doesn’t exactly come off as a model of corporate rectitude. (Indeed, the movie's depiction of the automaker's behavior launched Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times on a rant against Wall Street, the Bush administration and general capitalist chicanery that reads more like an op-ed piece than a film review.)

The Indiana Jones motorcycle -- what IS it?

When Shia LaBeouf speeds through a college campus with Harrison Ford riding shotgun, it will be aboard a Harley-Davidson. The motorcycle star of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is a 2007 Softail Springer Classic that was modified to look as if it was built at least 50 years earlier using mostly H-D service and accessory parts. So if you see the movie and have to have one, you might be able to build it yourself, though some of the parts were specially fabricated, including the fuel pump, kick start and saddlebags.

Harley-Davidson supplied Lucasfilm with the bike and asked that it be recognizable as a Harley. But the bike also needed to look era-appropriate because the movie is set in the '50s. According to the bike's L.A.-based builder, Justin Kell, it's "modeled to be a postwar Knucklehead."

Kell, 38, had to build the bike using "one bad pixelated picture on an 8-1/2-by-11 sheet of paper" as his guide. Ripping off the sheet metal and the chrome and hollowing out the exhaust, he lightened the bike by about 70 pounds; it also gained about 30 horsepower. Both improvements were necessary because the bike was used to do high-speed stunts and to ride a staircase in the film.

The disc brakes are a giveaway that the bike is modern. Although Kell "tried to work with different ways to cover them," he said, "the stunts put such a strain on the suspension that nothing would work without being dangerous."

Five bikes were built for the film, one of which was an effects bike that was destroyed in the course of filming, Kell said. Two of the remaining bikes will be returned to Harley-Davidson, which will display them in its new motorcycle museum, opening July 12 in Milwaukee. The two others were purchased by the production company.

-- Susan Carpenter

Photos: David James, top; Harley-Davidson