Hollywood doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to movies for the die hard car nut but hope looms on the horizon. Ron Howard’s Rush, a biopic about the legendary rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1976 Formula One season, is filming now and is due for release in early 2013.
The team behind the project is excellent — the director of Apollo 13 and Backdraft, the writer of Frost/Nixon and The Queen, and the producers of last year’s Senna — but the real promise lies in the photo above, shot by Top Gear.
That’s right, it’s an MS75 kujira Crown and a couple of daruma Celicas, on set because while the film’s being shot in the UK the final race of the ’76 season took place at Fuji Speedway. The producers are making sure that even the background cars are correct and apparently have gone through great lengths to locate not-exactly-common Japanese cars for the era. Someone’s doing their homework!
Thanks to silverRA29 for the tip!
That Crown looks to be the same one featured on Speedhunters a while back at a Dutch? car show. A very nice car, I hope this movie is in Hi- Def!
Just read the Top Gear article, and have one question. If the last race was at Fuji Speedway, why not shoot it there……….never mind, just answered my own question!
I know the plates are small props and probably won’t be a major shot in the film but… still irks me that the plates say “Fuji” in English;
1. There is no Fuji plate
2. The vehicle origin is NEVER written in English.
Wish they did just a little more homework. Just contract a Japanese guy to make sure it’s authentic. Even Fast and Furious got the plates some what correct in Tokyo Drift.
I hope they are kind to these cars. Hollywood has a bad habit of destroying cars for a film. I hope they are treated with resppect and returned to their owners as they were rented in nice shape. If these were purchased for the filming then chances are they will be abused and probably beat up and or destroyed. We can only hope they survive as the are becoming more scarce with each passing year..
Ron Howard should’ve hired us as consultants!