Rendezvous: See most of Paris in 8 1/2 min

[Mr. Analog]

If you've ever dreamed of whipping around Paris at high speed this is your video...



Rendezvous

[Lazybones]

Should be titled "How to almost kill your self and everyone else who was minding their business"

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a  ... all ? Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit. The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets. Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

Not that it wasn't fun to watch.

[Darren Dirt]

About 2/3 of the way through, when the birds on the road first start showing up, and he does that really sharp turn, that was pretty fun.



I wonder if it was indeed a Ferrari, and not some motorcycle -- considering the weaving through traffic towards the end. Impressive, though, that is some good gyro stabilizers they were using.



I also wonder what time of day -- was it dawn or dusk? Cuz there were so few cars on the road, especially around some major tourist attractions (I even considered it might be footage from some XBox360 driving game, since there was so little traffic). And IMHO the only close call with a pedestrian was the woman on the sidewalk on the left, and the vehicle had slowed down to almost a standstill at that point due to the truck that was in their way (again, why I think it was a motorcycle).



Reminded me of some (music?) video I saw, where a couple of guys start at one US coast, and thru timelapse you get to see a few weeks of "on the road" type of footage, lots of night time city driving, neon lights, and IIRC one of the guys grows a beard during the video -- anyone know what I'm talking about?

[Cova]

There's something wrong with that video - I'm not exactly sure what they did, but whatever it is it isn't real.  First thing that really bothered me was really close to the beginning, when he's flying down those long straights and it sounds like hes riding redline the entire way, but he's hardly going faster than the other traffic around him (what little there is).  Either he's cruising around in 3rd gear, or the audio was altered/is fake.



Thinking more on what gear he'd be in, I started listening for gear changes as he got into some of the tighter stuff.  This is where it really started to confuse me and I have to think something is fake.  There are many places where he's in 2nd or 3rd gear at quite high rpms, going around tight corners/obstacles that just wouldn't be possible.  Even my RSX will do 80 kmh in second, and 140kmh in 3rd, my friends old mustang GT would do almost 80 in first and well over 100 in second.



There's also FAR too much tire squealing in the corners.  Movies and video games throw in a lot of squealing to make things sound fast, but professional drivers (not counting drift racers and rally racers) will rarely squeal their tires.  When was the last time you watched a F1 or champ-car race and all the cars were squealing their tires around every corner - or any corner for that matter unless they @%&# up and go into a slide/spin.

[Mr. Analog]

Ahh the internet, she is full of information!



http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/Rendezvous.shtml

[Lazybones]

Intersting.. Most of the speeds between points where not what I consider exterme speed, but if he hit the turns at those speeds it would explain the tire noise.



Looks like he only got the car going full out 4 or so times, most of the speeds are under 100 KM explaining the high RPM noise as well.

[Darren Dirt]

nice find, with all the graphs and such.



Looks like the maximum stretch was around 135mph (220km/h) and overall the average was more like 80-100km/h for most of the trip ?

[Thorin]

Ah, the Ferrari 275GTB.  Here's a picture: http://www.ferrariworld.com/images/ferrari/world/cars/ieri/stradali/8139_64275GTB_558x372.jpg.  3.3 litre 60-degree V12 putting out 280bhp at 7,600rpm, 5-speed manual transmission, SOHC, 2 valves per cylinder, 6 carburetors, tubular chassis with independent double-wishbone suspension front and back, coil springs all around, 1100kg (2420lb) curb weight.  Sounds like it could give a modern car such as a Mustang or RSX run for its money.  Tires: the biggest are 205/70R14.  Wait, what?  Those are tiny tires with huge sidewalls!  Especially compared to the tires we can get today.  Hell, my minivan has lower-height sidewalls.  And sidewalls are important when cornering at high speeds, as they keep your tire from rolling onto its side and squealing.



My guess?  The microphone was part of the camera, and the camera was mounted in the lower front fascia somewhere, so the tire squeal gets picked up real easy just like the engine noise.  So why the squealing around the corners in the first place?  As far as I can tell he trail-brakes into almost every corner, trying to push the car to its extreme limits of grip.  Given that trail-braking is something the pros learn to do because it lets them stay going fast longer, and given that this was supposed to be a pro F1 driver, it would only make sense he uses the tricks he knows.



So why keep it at such high RPMs without up-shifting?  Well, he's an F1 driver.  When he hits the (estimated) 8,000RPM redline, he's probably wishing he could spool the engine up another couple thousand.  And he probably wasn't going for top speed all the time, either.  Racing at 220km/h through a road where a truck could come out of an alley is a genuinely bad idea.



Definitely not mounted on a motorbike.  There's a couple of times that you can sorta see a lean to the outside of the turn - a bike would flip over if it leaned out of the turn instead of in.



But boy-oh-boy, that's definitely the sound of a raw Ferrari V12.  And they didn't have any sound-dampening back then (they barely do now).

[Thorin]

Here's a video of a car with modern, lower-profile tires driving at lower speeds and still squealing.  This looks to be a Solo II event, given the finish-box (the rectangular area marked off with pylons that the guy stops in): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7501704619228884263&pl=true

[Thorin]

So now compare all that high-speed -pro-driver footage to an amateur in first gear: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4676712887696998138&pl=true

[Thorin]

And wow, a motorbike that gets up to 299km/h.  Crazy mother.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2189557484665608350&pl=true

[Ustauk]

And wow, a motorbike that gets up to 299km/h.  Crazy mother.  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2189557484665608350&pl=true

I hope he signed his organ donor card.  Not that'd they'd be much left of him or his organs at 299 km/h.