ferrari through paris

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had  ... all » a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

pretty cool clip w/ pretty good sound, i looked it up on wikipedia and it had a 3.3L V12...wow that screams!

wow... more impressive is the awesome power and sound the italians managed to pull out of a 3.3 liter engine... the V6 in my monte is a 3.8... absolutely amazing

Oh. My. God!!!!!!

That was completely amazing and reckless! I loved it. Had my heart racing, every fibre of my being charged with adrenaline, although in no way comarable to what the driver must have felt. C'etait un Rendezvous is soooo cult.

Not impressed... I have a 3.3L V6 in my car, and it sounds similar.

NOT.

LOL, that was cool :AH-HA_wink:

I read something on this once...the part about 140 mph and driving a Ferrari is bull. Someone actually traced the route the filmmaker drove through Paris to find the total distance and calculated the average speed at about 45 mph (and top speed about 80 mph on the straightaway). The reason it looks like he's going so fast is that the camera was placed low to the ground, and the real kicker...the car that was being driven wasn't a Ferrari, but rather an old Mercedes with clips recorded from a Ferrari engine placed overtop during production of the film.

Edited December 22, 200619 yr by mustang84

It's called the Rendezvous or something like that. One of my friends dads has the dvd and traced the route on a map. It's not a Ferrari, but I have heard many different rumours about what it truly is. I think I've heard it is a Fiat of some sort.

Then technically I suppose there would be no Formula 1 driver either.

If the above is true, that's sort of disappointing, but sure looks and sounds great. Works just enough for me to be entertaining.