STARS AND THEIR CARS – BARRY NEWMAN AND THE DODGE CHARGER R/T 440 MAGNUM

The passing of Barry Newman on the 11 May means there can be only one choice for ‘Stars and Their Cars’ for this month. Some readers may remember the actor as Petrocelli, a television series filled with Cadillac Fleetwoods and other fine Detroit machinery. But for countless film enthusiasts around the world, he will forever be Kowalski, the driver of a supercharged white 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T 440 Magnum in Vanishing Point.

The film’s plot is deceptively simple. The main protagonist is an army veteran and former police officer, who now delivers cars. His next task is to drive the Charger from Denver, Colorado to San Francisco, which he aims to achieve in record time. At that time Chrysler rented cars to film studios for a mere dollar per day and the stunt co-ordinator, the great Carey Loftin, recalled the production using a quintet of Chargers, four with manual transmission. “The number five car that we never used was an automatic and it did have the 383. All the rest had the 440”.

Newman remembered the film using the automatic Charger as a camera car on the straight runs: “One was mounted on the hood looking into the windshield and looking at the driver. Another camera was hooked onto the front bumper and it looked ahead of the car at the white lines. A third camera was on the rear bumper.

“The camera car also had a tremendous amount of lights on it. The lights were extremely bright, and it's difficult to see, especially with that Colorado sun shining in your eyes. Somehow, while I was driving on this controlled five mile strip of road, a car got through the traffic blocks, and I was on the road by myself, and suddenly, I happen to see a car coming at me! I just swerved off to the right and went up a hill. A couple of the cameras fell off, but we were alright. It was a close call.”

All the Dodges performed well during filming with no blown engines, and none were fitted with special bracing. The only special equipment was heavier-duty shock absorbers for the Charger in the ‘No Name Creek’ stunt. Newman thought it “was almost as if there was too much power for the body. You’d put it in first, and it would almost rear back!”. As for their speed, Loftin remarked this: “at the most was between 100 and 110 miles per hour. We had a fairly low rear end ratio, and to get the appearance of speed, we would undercrank the camera. When people are walking, it can look really crazy, but out in the desert, it looks like the car is really flying. For example, on the scenes with the Jaguar, we cranked the camera at half speed. The cars were going about 50 miles-per-hour, but at regular camera speed, it would appear to be much faster.”

To quote Newman, “When the film first came out, it was the second feature to The French Connection but when it opened in London at the Leicester Square theatre,…it was acclaimed and people lined up around the block to see it”.

And any reader who is a Challenger enthusiast will be relieved to know that the famous scene with the bulldozer used the shell of a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro packed with explosives.