Iconic Cars: American Graffiti

As with so many monoliths of the silver screen, American Graffiti followed the classic path of so many famous films, Citizen Kane, Jaws, Gandhi, failing as it did to find any easy backers, taking years to pull together, the shoot beset by difficulties due to budget and red tape.

It’s perhaps easy now to scoff at United Artists, 20^th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Warner Bros and Paramount Pictures. All those big boys turned down the opportunity to finance what has become a truly iconic movie, rammed with stars, directed by perhaps the biggest name in the Hollywood firmament, Mr (Sir/Lord/Jedi?) George Lucas, which went on to make ridiculous amounts of cash.

But at the time, in the early Seventies, no one had heard of him or his cast, of Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, Kathleen Quinlan, Richard Dreyfuss and erstwhile carpenter Harrison Ford. The studios were also put off by the fact that Lucas wanted the music to be famous hit singles, rather than a tailor-made (cheap) soundtrack written for a purpose. This was expense upfront that made no sense, serving to increase the risk.

It was only through the solid backing of Francis (Godfather) Coppola, coming on late as a producer, that the project got any backing at all; the princely sum of $777,000. Not including the extensive merchandising, American Graffiti has become one of the most profitable movies of all time, clearing well over $200m to date, from what was a relatively paltry outlay, in movie terms.

There are several classic All American cars in this quintessential slice of Americana, notably, a 1958 Chevy Impala, a ’55 Chevy, a fleeting open-topped white 1956 Ford Thunderbird, a 1951 Mercury and the standout Hot-rodded Canary Yellow 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe.

Having used other writers, Lucas ended up doing most of the work himself, trying as he was to evoke how it was growing up near Modesto in the early Sixties. The Deuce Coupe was purpose-built for the film, under the care of Transportation Manager Henry Travers. Lucas was himself a keen hot-rodder back in the day and knew exactly what he wanted and why.

It had modified chrome motorcycle front fenders and bobbed rear fenders. A dropped I-beam solid axle, a Man-A-Fre intake manifold, four Rochester 2G two-barrel carbs atop the 1966 327 Chevy motor.

The interior was red and white tuck and roll Naugahyde, dyed black. It also had a Sprint race-style header-exhaust system based on Lucas’s own dimensions and a drivetrain that included a Super-10 four-speed and 4:11 gears, in what is, in fact, a ’57 Chevy rear end. Some chop.

Any movie nerds out there will have also spotted the licence plate as a reference to Lucas’s first film, made at film school, called THX 1138.

Harrison Fords black ‘55 Chevy was, in fact, three cars splitting the action; the drag-racing effected in a 454 engined TH 400 with an Oldsmobile rear end. Travis drove both of these cars, dying his hair for their action sequences and was gifted them by Lucas at the end of the shoot. Can’t be bad.

The ’56 T-Bird was actually borrowed from a local family, having been spotted in the street and a piece of paper shoved under the windscreen wiper with the production office phone number on it.

After the shoot, the Pharoah’s Mercury was in fact bought by Van Halen’s Dave Lee Roth, having sat forgotten in Universal Studios backlot. Its history gets darker though after it was sold on to Stray Cats leader, Brain Setzer. He sold it on pretty fast he maintains and for a silly price as it was in his words, ‘a pile of junk.’

It then went through a couple of owners, before ending up with a New Yorker who, it is said, committed suicide in it. His father and the current owner, denies this, but there are, it seems bloodstains to substantiate these claims and the car remains rotting in his yard to this day, as understandably, he refuses to sell it.

So, not one iconic car, but many from this piece of history that is American Graffiti. Who knew? Certainly not the studios…