o/t but which automotive personality would you make a movie about?

harry westergard

 

Here's my pick:

Mendle "Cookie" Ledington, w/o out his creative mind the world would have had one less of Quick changes, Flatty Caddy & Ford heads, Intakes as well as the amount of driveline work still being by this one mans creation.
Talk to any L.A. area ol timer & he'll have a story.
Also w/o this man Mickey Thompson would have never been able to bring the record back to these shores in 1960 with his Challenger streamliner.
FritzVoight- Wrench man on the same car listed above.

Lots of other that I wpuld have picked have already been chosen,
I really like the Linda & Pam show That ould be visually exciting!

 

Andy Granatelli

 

Not that I'm a big nascar fan, but how about Wendell Scott?

 

He isn't called the Michigan Madman for nothing. Have talked to him a few times and have his book. Quite a guy. He told me he has a video out, I should get it. Also, I think that Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet deserve their stories told.

 

GM would probably pay to not have the Louis Chevrolet story made into a film.

May I second Barney Oldfield and Smoky Yunick?

 

Wasn't there already a Wendell Scott movie??

 

AHA! Google..."Greased Lightning"!! Never saw it.

 

Yep.....Greased Lightning....Richard Pryor.

 

Smokey and A.J. for sure.

 

Jungle Jim would have to a leading contender if a movie were to be made. A movie about cars or racing has to be able to attract all kinds pf people, not just gearheads. His exploits border on legendary. Fast cars, sexy women, and unfortunately, a young, tragic death at the top of his game. We all know that these are the makings of a great story. I've always thought of him as the Jim Morrison of drag racing. My gosh, I just imagined the thought of a major motion picture studio re-creating the famous 1965 altered wheelbase Brutus GTO!

 

Bibendum
Filo Bedo and the Black Widows
Speed Felon
Fred Sanford
Germ


now, seriously in no particular order:
Ak Miller
Gray Baskerville
Harley Earl
John Delorean
Sam and George Barris
The Alexander Brothers
Ed Roth and Dirty Doug
Larry Watson
Norm Grabowski

 

Ya know Boyd was the fluffer in Brokeback mountain...

 

I'll bet some people on this board actually saw brokeback mountain.......eeewww!
I'm thinkin most car builders had no fucking life..they were too busy building reputation and cool cars.
I think it was R&C that did a story on Dennis Varni a few years back...lotta good stories and the guy seems like a hell of a character that may be a good movie.
I think a lot of the names on here would be boring lives to watch....I mean wasn't Von Dutch pretty much a hermit alcoholic wife beater type of guy....oh yea...that got drunk and pinstriped some cars.
Now the Michigan Madman or jungle jim would be cool....but who would ride that crazy assed bike in the flick?

 

Oh - it's a must see. Some early tintop dirt track racing, moonshine running, that kinda thing - good movie.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0076106/

I'll second Harry Miller, or Andy Grantelli.
I'd have said Preston Tucker, but Coppola has done him!

 

On bikes my vote is for Leo Payne and cars would be Smokey Yunick, Harry Miller or Clay Smith.

 

I think the people who interest me the most probably spent their lives hunched over a seat grinder trying to refine a surface or doing back-to-back stopwatch tests to see if lowering the float level 1/64" would be better...
Wouldn't sell much popcorn.
Yunick's life had lots of NASCAR drama, both on track and in rule bending, that would sell, but the most interesting part of his life involves out of the box mechanical thinking, hard to put in a popcorn box!

 

Grumpy.

(meaning Bill Jenkins, not the HAMBer who looks like him...)

 

Bass

 

I'm hoping for Johnny Depp in the Cole Foster Story.

 

I was going to say Bill "Grumpy" Jenkins. He's probably the most forgotten however, he did more for SBC developement that anyone around. Remember when he had that little white vega with the SBC that cleaned everyones clocks at the Nationals and everywhere else. I've got pictures of it in the pits at Tulsa in 1972.

 

Frank Lockhart
Art Sparks
Harry Miller

 

LOL , Hack! There is no end to your depravity . swaZZie

 

They already did a movie about Wendell. Richard Pryor portrayed him. Can't remember the movie title.

 

There is a movie already in the can about Ed Roth;due to debut in Austin Texas on March 10-12 in conjunction with the SXSW Film Festival.Title is."Tales of the Rat Fink".

 

THAT I must see. I hope it's worth watching. The problem with movies is just what's been said above a time or 2...what sells. While some (most) of us are excited when we think about people who made great things in cars, did you ever notice when you talk with the "unknowing" (and there's a shit load of them) how they look at you like a dog to a high-pitched noise? Heart Like a Wheel sucked. Connie Kallita is one bad mutha of a racer and buisness man. He deserved better in that flick. And while at E-town he shows off the new Bounty Hunter F/C in 1969 to her son and it's a fuckin 73 Mustang body. I wonder if that editor is still in the game?

I'd have to cast my vote for Jungle Jim. He was a "hippie" drag racer in heady times. He had his own philosophy on nitro management. A character in his own right. And he had Jungle Pam. T&A always sells and she had it in spades. With all the focus on music from that time in ads it would be timely and sell. John Force is too active still to make a movie. Roth is one of my heros and our beloved Von Dutch would certainly play in the story as they were well aquainted. A Von Dutch story might clear up for the youth who the fuckin guy really was. I never recalled a story of him being a wife beater, but he was a bigot, doper, drinker, and one talented artist. I think he found out too late what he coulda done. Prior to he just didn't care did he. And Joe Pesce would make a great Von Dutch. Walken's too tall.

 

Bruce Lancaster...."AHA! Google..."Greased Lightning"!! Never saw it"

poncho62Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce Lancaster
Wasn't there already a Wendell Scott movie??

"Yep.....Greased Lightning....Richard Pryor"



Ah, I got it right on the tip of my tongue.........lemme think........Ahhhhhh....

Greased Lightning!!!!

Yeah, that's it.....


Mutt

 

Lets face it most of a car guys life is boring as hell.. Nobody wants to see someone file a bracket or fish a rod through a dash, or deal with fucked up threads on a bolt.
Thats why Monster Garage, American Hot Rod and such add all the stupid ass drama.
We motorheads have our heroes, but guess what? We arent the demographic that they are tryin to sell movies to. We're such a small segment of the viewing public that we're just pissants in the eyes of big Hollywood.
So if they did make such a movie theyd just fuck it up. Be thankful they dont. Now go back out to the garage you pissants.

 

But the story of Louis Chevrolet beating the shit out of William Durant (after Durant took Chevrolet away from him and told him that he could no longer use his own name) is sooo cool!


Harry Miller was a genius and he had some cool features, but it would make the most menial movie, he could make a great supporting character that could be well developed, say in a movie about Oldfield, or Lockhart, but on his own it would be a slow movie.

 

No contest....A.J. Foyt !!!