This is the DeLorean documentary by Pennebaker Hegedus Films, it’s a full-length film about the DeLorean Motor Corporation, the DMC-12, John DeLorean, and the trials and tribulations that the company confronted before the launch of their iconic car. Filmmakers Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker are icons of the direct cinema approach to filmmaking, they typically…
First Time Out is a short film from 1967 showing an early performance of the Ford Cosworth DFV engine, an engine that would go on to become one of the most successful in the history of Formula 1 racing. The first car fitted with the DFV (Double Four Valve) V8 was the Lotus 49, the…
Editor’s Note: This film starts with 2 minutes of skiing and ice skating footage, stick with it and it’ll all make sense in the end. Riding the Film is a 1937 Chevrolet instructional film that does an excellent job of showing how motor oil is used throughout your engine for lubrication. There are a series…
This is episode one of Hargety’s Behind the Wheel series, it focusses on one of the great automotive controversies of the 1960s – will the Corvair kill you? Or more specifically, will the Corvair spin out of control and roll a half dozen times when you steer rapidly at speed. In 1965 an ambitious young…
Editor’s Note: This film was transcoded from VHS so it’s not perfect, there are also a couple of black screen sections where I assume the original ad breaks were – I suggest fast forwarding through them. The original Widowmaker Hill Climb took place on a hillside in Draper, Utah. It became a world famous event…
This short film by the team at Wired gives a remarkably detailed look at the disassembly process of two automatic mechanical watches, one by a Japanese manufacturer and one by a Swiss manufacturer. The film is hosted by appropriately named professional watchmaker Ryan Jewell, he does an excellent job of explaining how the watches work,…
The television show Torque was an Australian institution, watched religiously by petrolheads in the country throughout the 1970s. The show was presented by Peter Wherrett, now remembered as an Australian icon, whose review could make or break a car – a bad review from Wherrett could be the death knell for a new model. This…
The Red Grifo is a remarkable 20 minute long documentary about the incredibly rare and much-loved Iso Grifo, an Italian sports GT car that first appeared in the 1960s. The Grifo is perhaps best known for its DNA, it was developed by Giotto Bizzarrini the godfather of the Ferrari 250 GTO, it was designed by…
Go Grandriders is a documentary that follows a group of larger-than-life motorcyclists in their 80s as they ride around the island of Taiwan, covering an impressive 1178 kilometres in 13 days. This film was the highest grossing documentary of all time in both Taiwan and Hong Kong, and it even enjoyed a limited U.S. theatrical release –…
This formerly classified CIA training film covers techniques used to surveil cars using multiple vehicle-based teams communicating by radio. The quality of the film’s production came as a bit of a surprise, the camera work is excellent but perhaps most surprisingly the soundtrack includes both the Shaft theme song and the Star Trek theme song….
This On Any Sunday cap by Iron & Resin is a celebration of the work of documentary filmmaker Bruce Brown, the man behind Slippery When Wet, Surf Crazy, Surfing Hollow Days, The Endless Summer, and of course, On Any Sunday. Bruce was instrumental in getting entire generations of people into both motorcycles and surfing, and…
This film runs at almost an hour in length, and it includes interviews and insights with many of the leading lights of the Australian custom motorcycle scene. Although it isn’t often credited as such, Australia has had a signifiant influence on the modern custom motorcycle scene around the world. Websites like Bike EXIF, Pipeburn, and…
