how do i track down cars from "american graffiti"?...

i am trying to track down one or several of the original cars from the movie "american graffiti".

can anyone help me or possibly point me in the right direction please?...

thank you in advance.
tred.

 

do a search, someone said the deuce was in kansas behind a barn...

 

Elvis drives the blue T Bird to his gig at the Waffle House.

 

The 58 sits about 60 miles north of me in Colville, WA.

 

Paul LeMatt does personal appearances with a yellow coupe, may be a clone.

 

Hey Tred...I have read SO MUCH contradicting info on the coupe, that i would consider that one, at least to be a total loss..."its behind a barn" "Jeff Beck owns it" "Paul does appearances with it"
its everywhere, and nowhere...

As far as the others go, maybe its possible, but its ashame that the coupe has become nearly an urban legend...
watch out for the ten thousand people out there trying to p*** off theirs as: "the real "Milner's coupe"
Good Luck!

 

The coupe is owned by Rick Figarri in CA and is on the show circuit with Paul Le Matt occ***ionally. It's pretty rough, but is the real deal.

The 55 is out there, but does not resemble anything like the movie car. Rick who owns the coupe has a graff 55 clone that is right on, but is a clone. There's a huge following on the 55 as it's linked to the Two Lane Blacktop, etc....

The Pharoahs Merc in the movie was said to be owned by a member of the Straycats band...not sure on this one.

If you google american graffiti, there sights out there dedicated to the cars and can give you a whole lot of info.

 

I know where falfas' car is
hehehe

 

I thought the coupe was in England... seen something on TV about it last year.

 

That's helpful.

Is this the part where the requester is supposed to beg and plead for info?

 

I do believe I have Candy Clarks underwear,and a sample of the puke that was left before the fight scene.

 

These threads come evry couple months, and usually go several pages. Rarely any new info.

 

That's nothin', I've got one of Wolfman Jack's popsicle sticks!

 

This is how I understand it...

Two original 55's from the movie (I believe there were 4 - hero car, camera car, rollover car, and the burn car) still exist, but the look nothing like they did in the movie.

The camera car was found in canada and rebuilt to two lane blacktop specs, and the hero car was customized quite a bit and other than being black, doesn't look much like the AG car at anymore. These two cars had already been in Two lane blacktop.

The burn car that you see at the end of the movie upside down and on fire was crushed. The rollover car was also crushed. They apparently pulled these two cars from wrecking yards.

There were also several milner coupes, but only one is still known to exist as it did in the movie. That would be the one that Rick Figarri has (had?).

Legend has it that several cars were bought, then converted to all the same specs, and were originally painted red, but test shots showed it to be too dark on film during the nightime scenes, so they were all painted bright yellow to show up on film better.

I have heard the rail of milners of AG2 still exists, as do Toads 58, and the T-bird.

 

Here's a link to Kip Pullman's site. He was in the movie and gives his account of the cars. Some of this we've all heard...but it's interesting to hear his perspective.

http://www.geocities.com/kippullman/Graffiti_Cars.html

 

interesting to see what happened to the cars.....

 

Tred, why? Are you working on something???

 

The coupe was originally sold to Steve Fitch, who also owned ONE of the '55s. He, by all accounts, cared for the cars quite a bit....but rumor has it that eventually he fell on hard times personally, and at one point, yes, it sat behind a barn. It's now owned by Rick Figari, as MILNR points out, and yes, it's the real deal. It's gotten rougher over the years, and wasn't actually that nice to start...being a movie car on a limited budget, only cosmetics were done to get "the look"...for example, the upholstery was red & white, got a simple dye job to black. Figari lives in San Francisco, I think.

The '55....as noted, there's more than one, from the start, not even counting the clones. (Hell, there's someone who has a small business cloning coupe parts to sell to guys who want to build one of their own!) Not counting the fire scene at the end (a junker was used for it), there were 3 cars used between Two Lane Blacktop & AG: #1, used for exterior scenes; #2, used for interior scenes; #3, intended for stunts.

#1 is owned by Wayne Newsome (of Maryland, I think)....it's been modified into something quite different than what it was....

#2 still exists and is now kept as it was in TLB, though it has been restored. Apparently it was repainted to white, repowered, etc. over the years...but was restored to TLB condition sometime around 2000-2001. I don't know who now owns it, but I suspect the current owner likes the anonymity. http://groups.msn.com/twolaneblacktophomepage

#3 was sold, stripped, then eventually crushed.


The '58 is owned by Mike Famalette of Vallejo, CA and is in mostly original condition, again not perfect. It's had some drivetrain replacements over the years, but supposedly has another 348 under the hood now (had SBCs for years after the original 348).

The Mercury is owned by Bo Hopkins now & is being restored.

The T-Bird is still owned by the same couple who owned it during the movie, apparently.

 

Now for some trivia, "Toad" had a Vespa, the '58 was Steve's(Ron Howard).

 

OK this has been brought up here before............Rick Figari does own one of the REAL A/G 55 chevys,Richard had this one sittin behind his shop and was never used.........but was bought for the movie 2 lane.When rick found out richard was sittin on it he had Richard finnish it so it aint no clone!.......so yes it is the real thing

 

Anybody get the newest two-lane blacktop release? It came out about a month ago (its Holy **** worthy), but it has an entire feature about the location and history of the cars, including current owners, rebuild pictures and a talk with the builder of the the 3 two lane cars.....

 

Hell, I reckon I need find myself a copy of that.

 

Is that DVD different then the Collector's Edition that came in the metal box?

 

I love the movie, but honestly, I don't get why tracking down the movie cars is such a Holy Grail. They're movie cars, not cars that actually did anything noteworthy. Finding an original salt car or trend-setting rod I can see. But movies aren't "real". Just MTC.

 

I met the guy that has one of the 55's at the Mother Road Festival a few years ago, it was in TLB trim and still had the Camera mounts on it.I think he is from Pa. I was parked next to him and we talked a bit about it. It did not have the correct front suspension under it at the time I believe he said he had located the original stuff and was going to put it back on there to make it right for the Two Lane Blactop car I have some pics of it somewhere I'll see if I can find them

 

Exactly.

 

I live in Colville!

Where exactly is the car? I would love to go see it.

 

So I guess you guy's are not aware of the impact that this movie, though a movie, and not reality, had on hot rodding?
It was probably more responsible , with its 5 main cars, for more resulting builds and interest in builds than any other single car, or 5 cars for that matter.
They might not have been the cream of the crop, as far as representing what the best craftsmen were doing...but their importance cannot be argued realistically...they ran, drove, and were, and still are...( maybe?) real cars.

They might be the MOST noteworthy cars in hot rodding...even if they are not the finest.