By Jeff Glucker
Yeah, the lead image is unrelated. I just like rolling that thing out once a month for the last 10+ years. What I want to know though, is if there’s a car video out there that’s had a profound effect on your life?
And I ask this because I just came across a non-car video that brings me back to a great time in my life. It’s called Decade. This is a snowboard film by Mack Dawg Productions, and I watched the hell out of this during my time in college. I bought every song on the soundtrack, and I still think about the video from time to time. That’s because it brings me back to a simple and fun when I was a younger man.
This video, in turn, now has me wondering if a car video has had the same or a similar effect on you? Is there any car-related content that, if you watched it, brings you back to a great time in your life? Perhaps I might include all of the driving and car footage from the film Dazed and Confused. The BMW Hire films could be on the list too.
How about for you?
I’ve always loved Climb Dance, the french film of Ari Vatanen driving a Peugot rally car up Pikes Peak
I’m not sure there’s a profound car video in my life. But a very mainstream video, Leno presenting the Doble E, of all things, pops up in my mind right away. I always thought steamcars are kind of a dorky sideline of being an enthusiast, before I had truly internalized that all car love is equal. And this one is just fantastic:
I’ve always liked this video (and others by Leno) because it is about the experience of owning, driving and where it could take you. There’s also a lot of history and obsure facts that I find fascinating, and less time spent coming up with metaphors and superlatives that amount to screaming WHHOOOOAAAAH this is so FAST!!!!!”
Same reason I like Regular Car Reviews. The guy really seems to know his stuff about cars that most people wouldn’t consider to be worth the time.
Well, when I was young enough for things to have a profound impact on me it was the VCR era. Skateboarding ‘video magazines’ were huge back then, but no car focused equivalent. We didn’t watch tailor made short videos* outside of film festivals, and I didn’t have cable TV so I didn’t get those old car shows.
“Gumball Rally” was playing on an endless loop at the car museum I worked in as a teenager, that’s about the most salient car video memory I have. I can still watch every second of that film in a pie-eyed fugue state.
*I was in the target market for MTV when it first aired, so I’ve been profoundly effected by Cars videos, but that’s off topic.
Hell Yes! “You Might Think” is absolutely one of the greatest videos ever made. Period.
“Shake it Up” premiered around the debut of the channel, and it was in heavy rotation not only for its own merits, but also because MTV’s video library was extremely limited at the time, and it was a nice diversion from “Fish Heads” every three hours.
Funny, I just showed my boys’ the Fish Heads video a couple of weeks ago (and now they drive their Mom crazy singing “fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads…”). Although, I seem to recall seeing Fish Heads on Nickelodeon and not so much MTV – You’re right about the playlist. I think every 3rd song was by Rod Stewart.
I was going to say that my car influential programing was probably Speed Racer cartoons, but that reminded me that MTV aired the reruns in the 1990’s. Usually the music video that aired immediately before the show started was “The Ugly Truth”, which was Matthew Sweet’s Vanishing Point tribute made years before Audioslave was even a band.
This post was mostly an excuse for me to post the snowboarding video…
“The Gumball Rally” is still the best study of true car enthusiasm that anyone has ever prepared.
I don’t have a particular “video” (we didn’t even have a VCR until I was 15), but we did have cable TV and with it came my favorite channel – The Nashville Network (well, not the music part of the Nashville Network. I mean why would I want to listen to the Sweethearts of the Rodeo instead of Iron Maiden?)
But on Sundays….American Sports Cavalcade, presented by Diamond P Sports, and they would have everything from NASCAR and NHRA to World of Outlaws to monster trucks and swamp buggy racing.
I got a fourth overdub VHS copy of Crusty Demons of Dirt that predated the whole freestyle motocross thing by a few years, that was unlike anything out there at the time.
For my automotive Zen, I go back to the video that Magnaflow made of Vaughn Gittin doing his thing on a track making that 410 Roush engine scream.
Not a specific video, but in general PBS’s MotorWeek. I can’t look at a car now and not notice whether it has a comprehensive gauge package or a low trunk liftover, or wonder about the preciseness and length of the shifter throws.
…though they did have a 1988 Crown Victoria review that gave a young ptschett a case of ‘Panther Love’ for awhile. I was happy to get to see that review again a weekend or two ago when they had a session of streaming that season on Youtube.
I’m convinced that long running shows like that should just flush their entire archives to YouTube. There are literally millions of people interested in watching these shows, it might foster new kids into the hobby, and it serves as a great repository of pricing and performance info decades later. There’s also a good chance that this could stir up loyalty to the shows themselves.
Sam Smith talking about the Elan and Miata in a C/D video from eight years ago remains one of the most well-considered and thoughtful deliberations on driving in the modern world that I’ve seen. And the line about how he feels when he drives a Miata remains absolutely devastating. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssS169fntR0
Basically any movie with Burt Reynolds.
GUMBALL! “Roll on yellow Camaro!” (crunch)
Rockford Files (dropped my neighbor’s jaw doing one of Jim’s “efficient” turn-arounds at the end of my street)
Dukes of Hazzard (a study in Physics)
Annnnnd (drumroll please): Faszination on the Nurburgring!