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

  • VIDEO: Never give a queen a lift
    May 27, 2016
    A driver in Wales drove around for a day with an estimated 20,000 unwelcome passengers until the problem got to be too evident. The video shows the car of the 65-year-old grandmother, finally parked in the small town of Haverfordwest, literally buzzing with bees. Apparently, a queen bee got stuck on the vehicle and her community decided to follow the car and stick to it as well. It took two members of the Pembrokeshire Beekeepers' Association, a park ranger and some local people to coax the travelers
  • VIDEO: Concrete paving - you’ve come a long way, baby!
    July 14, 2016
    It’s 1948. The grand scheme of creating an Interstate Highway system in the US is still barely a twinkle in President Dwight Eisenhower’s military eye. Highway construction improved greatly in the late 1950s and early 1960s as the American contractors became more mechanized and therefore efficient at laying roads faster and of better quality. But how did they build a road back then in 1948? Thanks to Encyclopaedia Britannica Films, we have a movie of just how a concrete highway was created. The constr
  • VIDEO: Flux Capacitor takes off on an electrifying winning ride
    July 25, 2016
    Blue smoke belches from spinning tyres as possibly the world’s fastest street-legal electric vehicle takes off down the track at Santa Pod Raceway in the UK. Sports journalist and commentator Jonny Smith pushed his bright orange Flux Capacitor, a reworked electric Enfield 8000 from the 1970s, to a sub-10 second quarter mile - 9.86 seconds to reach 121.73mph. Not bad for a car designed with a top speed of 40mph in mind. The noise in the video is from the petrol-engine car that struggled to keep up.
  • VIDEO: Flux Capacitor takes off on an electrifying winning ride
    July 25, 2016
    Blue smoke belches from spinning tyres as possibly the world’s fastest street-legal electric vehicle takes off down the track at Santa Pod Raceway in the UK. Sports journalist and commentator Jonny Smith pushed his bright orange Flux Capacitor, a reworked electric Enfield 8000 from the 1970s, to a sub-10 second quarter mile - 9.86 seconds to reach 121.73mph. Not bad for a car designed with a top speed of 40mph in mind. The noise in the video is from the petrol-engine car that struggled to keep up.