Skip to main content

Put your foot down, get home early from the office this Friday

Many cities want to show off their tourist credentials by driving tour operators around well-maintained, scenic routes and even make a video to lure travellers. But sometimes it pays to take a somewhat different line, as the Californian city of San Francisco did in 2012. San Francisco’s hilly streets became a global image for the Pacific coast city after the 1968 Hollywood blockbuster movie Bullitt. The star Steve McQueen, driving a fastback Ford Mustang, pursued at breakneck speed the villain, who was d
June 4, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Many cities want to show off their tourist credentials by driving tour operators around well-maintained, scenic routes and even make a video to lure travellers. But sometimes it pays to take a somewhat different line, as the Californian city of San Francisco did in 2012.

San Francisco’s hilly streets became a global image for the Pacific coast city after the 1968 Hollywood blockbuster movie Bullitt. The star Steve McQueen, driving a fastback Ford Mustang, pursued at breakneck speed the villain, who was driving another iconic American so-called muscle car, a Dodge Charger. Few can forget the thrilling chase through the streets where the cars would become airborne only to slam down on the road with parts falling away due to impact.

If you want a more modern version, %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal click here Visit Ford Fiesta rally car video false http://www.traffixdevices.com/blog/2013/01/traffix-devices-featured-in-ken-block-video/ false false%> to see a custom-built 485kW (650-horsepower) Ford Fiesta rally car charge through the city’s streets.

According to a New York Times newspaper article in 2012, the video was created for use in the Japanese motorsport genre gymkhana: drivers hurl their cars around obstacles, often in controlled skids or drifts, and are awarded based on the speed with which they dispatch the course’s mandated challenges.

The video is the fifth in a series of gymkhana-style productions financed by DC Shoes, the apparel company co-founded by the driver Ken Block. Watch him execute 360-degree drifts around cones, people, vehicles, moving trolley cars and much more.

To read the New York Times article with an interview of Ken Block, %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal click here Visit ken block on the making of gymkhana page false http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/ken-block-on-the-making-of-gymkhana-5/?_r=1 false false%>.

Related Content

  • Fan’s Ford Focus finds favour with Flavor Fav
    December 2, 2015
    Pop stars are noted for taking the most outrageous limousines to their gigs. But what should a singing group do if their transport doesn’t show up, leaving them stranded in a strange city? That was the question facing New York’s hip-hop legend Public Enemy when recently in the United Kingdom they found themselves in a record store and their taxi to their gig nowhere to be found. Public Enemy had booked a normal taxi amid their concern that their large tour bus could not navigate the narrow city street
  • VIDEO: Get me to the church on time, and fast
    November 12, 2015
    God willing, two nuns in northern Slovakia caught on camera speeding managed to get home, or to the church, safely and on time. The sister, accompanied by another nun, was pushing her Skoda Fabia with religious conviction to around 160kph, or 100mph. However, they haven’t been the fastest nuns around Europe in recent years. In 2009, a nun in Italy, near Turin, was stopped by police for nudging upwards of 180kph – 110mph. The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper reported at the time that “demon driver Sister T
  • NDT sensor fusion in structural pavement condition surveys
    February 27, 2017
    Early detection of pavement defects and the causes of deterioration is essential for effective maintenance planning, writes Dr Alena Uus* There is a need for optimisation and development of UK highway survey methods that would provide comprehensive information on the surface and subsurface pavement condition and operate at traffic speed, which eliminates the requirement for lane closures. Performance of non-destructive testing (NDT) methods commonly employed in pavement condition surveys can be potent
  • Top down parking in South Africa
    July 3, 2015
    Some events defy understanding, many of which happen on the road. But this accident in South Africa really puts gives the imagination a workout. Nobody was injured when a car came crashing through the roof of a small house in Durban, according to the Times Live newspaper. Click here for the report. A person was asleep in a room close to where the vehicle buried itself into the home. The driver, too, escaped and claimed he recalls going over some kind of ramp that launched the car into the air and over the