Car
Parent categories: transport - tourism
Related: Citroën - concept car - crash - road movies - streamline
1908 Ford Model T advertisement from Oct. 1, 1908 Life magazine
Edsel advertisement, the least successful car in history.
Car designers: Luigi Colani
The DS (also known as Déesse, or Goddess, after the punning initials in French) was a model of Citroen automobile manufactured and sold between 1955 and 1975. The DS is characterized by long, smooth, fluid body lines, a hydraulic suspension system, front-wheel drive, and a large, preternaturally comfortable interior.
Ford T
The Ford Model T (colloquially known as the Tin Lizzie and the Flivver) was an automobile produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from 1908 through 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, the car which "put America on wheels"; this was due to some of Ford's innovations, including assembly line production instead of individual hand crafting, as well as the concept of paying the workers a wage proportionate to the cost of the car, so that they would provide a ready made market. The first production Model T was built on September 27, 1908 at the Piquette Plant in Detroit, Michigan. Cars built before 1919 are classed as veteran cars and later models vintage cars. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T [Mar 2006]
See also: mass production - 1908 - 1909 - 1910s - 1920s - car
Car chases
A representation of a car chase only makes sense in relation to all the others we have seen - after all, we are unlikely to have experienced one in reality, and if we did, we would, according to this model, make sense of it by turning it into another text, which we would also understand intertextually, in terms of what we have seen so often on our screens. There is then a cultural knowledge of the concept 'car chase' that any one text is a prospectus for, and that it used by the viewer to decode it, and by the producer to encode it. (Fiske 1987, 115) via Daniel Chandler, http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre1.htmlCrash (1996) - David Cronenberg
Crash (1996) - David Cronenberg [Amazon.com]
Crash is a novel by J.G. Ballard first published in 1973 about a subculture of people who are sexually aroused by car crashes. They re-enact famous car crashes (such as those that killed James Dean and Jayne Mansfield), cause accidents themselves, and document other crashes. It was a highly controversial novel: famously one publisher's reader returned the verdict "This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish."
It was later made into a 1996 film directed by David Cronenberg. It won a special prize at Cannes for daring, audacity, and originality. The film was as controversial as the book, featuring graphic depictions of sexual acts mixed with violence. This caused the UK tabloid press to condemn it as sick and evil, though few papers pointed out that it was based on a novel by the author of Empire of the Sun. Although passed by the British Board of Film Classification with an 18 Certificate it was being banned by Westminster Council, meaning it could not be shown in any cinema in Central London. The film has been produced in both NC-17 and R versions. This controversy has now subsided and the film is readily available on DVD. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_%28novel%29 [Mar 2005]
see also: J.G. Ballard - David Cronenberg
Death Race 2000 (1975) - Paul Bartel
scene from Death Race 2000 (1975)
Death Race 2000 (1975) - Paul Bartel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Death Race 2000 is an action and self-described cult film directed by Paul Bartel in 1975; it is rated R. The movie takes place in a dystopian view of American society in the year 2000. David Carradine, Simone Griffeth and Sylvester Stallone played the star roles; Mary Woronov, Roberta Collins, The Real Don Steele, Joyce Jameson, Carle Bensen, Sandy McCallum and Harriet Medin co-star.
The screenplay was based on a short story by Ib Melchior, and inspired the 1976 video game Death Race.
A tremendous global economic crash had occurred in 1979. The current (as of 2000) American President took control to repair America, and since then has ruled the country from abroad with an iron fist. He is simply known as Mr. President, and is rarely seen in American public.
One of Mr. President's most famous decrees has been that of the Transcontinental Road Race, a violent spectacle that takes a small set of racers from New York to New Los Angeles. The event depicted in the film is the 20th annual Road Race; therefore, Mr. President started the event during his second year in office. --http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_Race_2000 [Mar 2005]
see also: satire - Roger Corman - cult film
The Car (1977) - Elliot Silverstein
The Car (1977) - Elliot Silverstein [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Car is a 1977 horror film directed by Elliot Silverstein, written by Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack, and starring James Brolin, Kathleen Lloyd and Ronny Cox. It was produced and distributed by Universal Studios. The film was influenced in part by Steven Spielberg's 1971 thriller Duel and features a mysterious car with a murderous driver. The most memorable thing about the film was the sound effects which featured a hellishly terrifying horn blast the car made whenever it was about to kill somebody.
Tagline: "What evil drives..."
Synopsis
A small New Mexico community is terrorized by a phantom black car that appears out of nowhere and begins running people down. The main character, Sheriff Wade Parent (Brolin), is on a mission to stop the demonic car which may be driven by Satan himself.
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Trivia
* The phantom car in the film was a customized 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III designed by famed customizer George Barris who designed the Munster's Koach and the original Batmobile (used in the 1966 television series).
* There were four cars built in six weeks for the filming and all were destroyed during production. Supposedly, a fifth car was built and displayed for a time at Universal Studios but was eventually given back to Barris who later sold it to a private collector in the 1980s.
* The Ertl Company made a limited edition 1:18 scale die cast model of "The Car".
* The "demonic car" concept is also featured in Stephen King's novel and 1983 movie Christine (about a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury), and also a 1990 FOX movie called Wheels of Terror (which features a driverless Dodge Charger that abducts a little girl).
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Car [Jan 2006]
List of films about possessed or sentient inanimate objects. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of films about possessed or sentient inanimate objects [Jan 2006]
See also: car - horror film - 1977 - American cinema
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