Featured Art & Inspiration Your earliest movie inspiration?

On Any Sunday. Came out when I was 10. No time flat we bought a 1960 Yamaha Step-Thru 60 pile from under a deck and got it to run. Flashing head gasket, back tire roped to the wheel. That, Cox Dune Buggy and Dragster (cut the dragster down to an altered), Briggs on a board (from my grandfather's reel mower), a three a Honda 50 basket case cluster (made one runner) made me a motor head. Dirt bikes were cool around my neighborhood. A bunch of odd jobs and I bought a new one in '74 (XL100). When I started driving I had a sports car boner first ('69 MGB GT). Then it was off road ('72 Bronco, still have it). I 4 linked the Bronco, long before it was a thing. In the early '80's, if you were thinking 4 link, it was street rod magazines. That's where I picked up the affliction. I have been squirreling away parts for many years since. Now that I am done working on other people's stuff, I may get a chance to act on it. Mike

 

"Johnny Dark". It came out in about 1952. Tony Curtis drives an early fiberglass sports car. Saw it on the Saturday matinee at the Capitol theatre when I was a kid.

 

California Kid

 

Oh I loved that taxi cartoon short lol. Didn't so much as inspired me so much as let me know I didn't have to follow the same nerd path my dad took. Lol. I mean. I like stuff like dungeons and dragons and comic books but that's more of a side interest. Dad nearly got hired by marvel comics when I was a newborn.....he had to choose between diapers and a low paying entry level comic book inking job. He chose diapers much to my appreciation lol. But yeah before seeing that short I thought I had to be just like Dad lol

 

"Boston Blackie". Early 50s serial with Kent Taylor. PI, who drove several different custom cars. Background shows highway construction in LA. Lee Van Cleef (The Good,, Bad, and the Ugly) had bit part in one episode. Then movie "Hot Rod" same period.

 

I knew someone would beat me to it with one Cab's Family, what about Suzie the little blue coupe.

Hot Rod Girl, Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Mad Fabricators Vol. 1

 

the lively set doug mcclure james daren t bucket and channeled roadster did it for mealso a lot of other cool rides

 

I grew up in my Dads shop but I really came into my own on it in the early fiftiew and the one that did it for me was all those mid sixties beach movies. It really left me with the California vibe. Up until that time my West Coast rodding was limited to Rod & Custom, (by then a "full size"), and back issues of little pages that were everywhere in the shop. Didn't hurt that Annette was a big part of the scene.

 

I can't see that car without humming "California dreamin'" lol

 

Saw Thunder Road in the back seat of my parents car at the Starlite drive in Stamford Ct.
Also 77 Sunset Strip was exciting for my young hot rod mind.

 

60's beach movies was another for me. Gotta love big drag.

 

American Graffiti.
Gone in Sixty Seconds
Corvette Summer

 

Hot Rods to Hell

 

American Graffiti
Bullitt
Gone in 60 seconds
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry

 

The Lively Set for me too. I just had to find a set of those Cal Custom scoops like on the A roadster for the tri power in my Olds.

 

no movie influenced me towards cars, I'd say Mattel was an influence when HOT WHEELS came out.
movies almost turned me into a chopper guy. saw Easy Rider when it came out at age 9, after that I was all about choppers. I still have a bunch of chopper drawings I did, put extended forks on my bike. when I was 12 I wanted a subscription to "Street Chopper" magazine and my Mom got me a subscription to Street Rodder.
the rest is history.

 

I was not "influenced"? by any movie either. I will have to say that I enjoyed "The Great Race" (Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood, Keenan Wynn) as I saw it just after I had read an account of the real New York to Paris race with the Thomas Flyer and George Schuster.

 

Anyone decide to become a cop after watching " Car 54 Where Are You "

 

Classic Cars of Happy Days (Season 1)

 

Hello,

When we were little kids, the "Rocket Man" movies and cowboy movies were the main draw. Saturday matiness at our local walk to movie theater was the mode of the day. We did not care about cars, if they were in the movies. We liked the battles of good vs. bad or such scenes. Cowboys to country side driving cars… it was all a fantasy that played into our minds for entertainment.

My earliest movie was the one I made when I was given a 16mm color movie camera that was a point and shoot model. Put in the cartridge, shut, take off the lens cap and push the button at what was in front of me. A few tries at home in the Westside of Long Beach of my mom and friends going to lunch and shopping, then tagging along with my brother in his 58 Impala to Lion’s Dragstrip.

What ever movies we had watched did not compare and there was no movie that was more exciting than the films I took during our days at the drags. when I came home, I gave the film reels to my dad and he took them to the Kodak developing guy in Los Angeles the next day he went to work.

By the time the films got home, it was like opening a present on my birthday. I could not wait to set up the projector and shoot it on the interior wall of our house. We did not have a roll up screen as yet, a year or so later one of those showed up at our house, when our dad’s films he took, was to be shown to his friends.

Now, I had a projector, and slapped on the metal reel on it to show on a white wall. That was good enough for me and for my brother’s teenage friends that came over to watch what they saw the week before at Lion’s Dragstrip. It was one continuous reel of films I took.

Jnaki

Then one day, my dad brought home this tool:
A full metal film cutter for 8mm and tabs for our own 16 mm film strips. Now, instead of slapping on the 8 inch metal reel on the projector and showing the rag tag films of my dad’s friends and escapades along with my own drag racing films, I could cut out his portion of the films and make a strictly drag racing film from the week previously raced or just roamed around when we did not get to the next round of eliminations.
The purple strip is showing the film track and lifted metal cutters above, ready to come down to make the cut.

Today, this guy is still in a drawer waiting patiently to go back into action. I spent countless hours placing the film in the small cutter and neatly cutting out the film strip portion that did not belong. Then I would prep the edges of the film and glue the remaining together to have one long film showing reel of drag racing. If I did not do a good job of prepping the film cutting edges and gluing, as we watched the films on the teenage gatherings, I took the relentless “razzing” from the captive audience, when the film broke and a strong white light was now on the wall. BOOOO!

Note:

Finally, I could actually see the tiny 16mm color filmstrip on the screen and move the filmstrip back and forth to get to the right spot for cutting. It was a mini 4-5 inch screen that showed the color movies forward and backwards until I could get to the spot to cut and start the editing process. This was the first and last work on the long skinny filmstrip and when they were all cut and edited together, the films went on a 16 inch steel reel for longer movie showings.
Now, the teen gatherings were like going to a movie showing in our own living room, with food and drinks, as well as the constant teenage names and identification of the racers on the screen. The Nakamura Movie Theater was in full function for the next several years… still using a point and shoot camera. Yes, our dad got his films all nicely edited by me and when he showed them to his own friends on their visits to our home, it was a hit to see those different family/community gatherings.

 

Yes, and a great actor.

 

The year was possibly 1962/63, I couldn't have been over 12 years old at the time but I remember seeing a movie called hot rod on TV, it was on a Saturday afternoon and as I have said in the past I was drawn to hot rods like a month to a flame.

I was already reading hot rod magazine and enamored with what I was watching pn television but the movie made a huge impression on me, incidentally, the movie was made the year I was born. HRP

 

The California Kid.

 

That movie does have some killer cars in it

 

Firing a Ma Deuce from an airborne Jeep hit my early awe button. Rat Patrol was cool!
With respect to the OP, it was a TV show and not a movie.

 

Red Line 7,000. Wildcat never had much time for the chicks, He was busy tuning up his carburetors
and gettin his kicks.