The ultimate road movie?

THERE’S A SCENE in the early draft of the script for the 1971 movie Two-Lane Blacktop describing the first sighting of The Car. ‘It is a 1955 Chevy two-door, several shades of primer gray, there are wide M&H Racemaster tires… the engine is a 454-cubic-inch high-performance Chevy with aluminum heads… there is a four-speed transmission, Hurst linkage and a Covico steering wheel.’ Such minute attention to detail proves this wasn’t a typical car film and that the vehicles used were more than mere props.

centres around a car race but isn’t an all-action chase movie. Stark, existential and almost documentary in feel, it’s been called the most European of American road movies and, for many, is the best car film ever made. A world of small-town America where the human characters are nameless yet cars are included in the cast list, its original title – – was dropped because of its drug connotations. Screenwriter Will Corry had envisioned the Chevy and The Driver, but The Mechanic was ‘a black guy called Augustus’ and ‘at a Mexican root beer stand they challenge three rich kids in a brand-new GTO to a west-to-east race’. A heroine was in love with The Mechanic so pursued the Chevy in a