Als moparguy gefallen mir natürlich die Berichte von den Dreharbeiten.
Hier:
Zitat:
Balchowski prepared both vehicles and their backups. All the suspension parts were Magnafluxed to check for weakness, and Balchowski reinforced all the lower control arms. For the Charger, he twisted the front torsion bars up for a little extra ground clearance, added Koni shocks, and swapped in NASCAR-stiff rear springs. The Mustang had its shock towers reinforced and bridged. Heavy-duty front coils were installed, along with a thicker anti-roll bar and Koni shocks. The Mustang's 390-cubic-inch/325-horse engine received milled heads and ignition and carburetor upgrades, but could never really keep pace with the stock 440-cubic-inch/375-horsepower Dodge.
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Balchowsky remembers "I hardly had to anything to the Dodge's engine, but what I was worried about was the strength of the front end." To shore up the front, Balchowsky revised the torsion bars, beefed up the control arms and added heavy duty shocks. As with the Mustang, all parts were 'fluxed. For the rear end, Balchowsky told us, "I got some special rear springs, what you call a high spring rate, a flat without any arch in it, and using that spring the car would stay low. It's similar to the same springs they use in police cars, which makes a good combination. When the police specify a package, they have more spring here, a little bigger brake there, a little bit more happening in the shocks, and it makes a good car. But the director of BULLITT wanted a brand new car instead of an ex-police car, so I got the springs from a friend at Chrysler. We had to weld reinforcements under the arms and stuff on the Dodge. We did lose a lot of hubcaps on the Charger. We'd put the hubcaps back on, but I suppose it probably would have been better if we had lest them off."
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"I'll tell you this," said Max Balchowsky, "I was really impressed with the Mustang after I got done with it. I didn't think it'd make that much difference beefing it up. Later, we took both cars out and went playing around with them over by Griffith Park (near Los Angeles). The Dodge, which was practically stock, just left the Mustang like you wouldn't believe." Ron Riner has similar recollections. "The Charger ran rings around the Mustang. We trimmed the tires down (on the Charger), we practically made them down to bicycle tires to try and handicap Hickman, and Bill just run them." Carey Loftin also recalls," we test ran the car at Griffith Park near the Observatory, up a long hill. and if you can run a car real hard up and down that hill it's working pretty good."