'The Italian Job' - 1969 Mini Cooper S
At the start of the 1969 film ‘The Italian Job’, one is led to believe that the automotive star of the film may in fact be a brand new orange Lamborghini Miura being driven through curvaceous mountain passes in northern Italy. This notion is brought to an abrupt halt, at the car collides with a bulldozer, and then is pushed over the edge of the road into the chasm below.
The film, released by Paramount pictures, is a comedy caper, about a crew of British crooks trying to steal gold bullion. Our characterful felons hatch a plan to steal the gold from the FIAT factory in Turin, Italy. The real automotive starts, the three Minis (red, white and blue) are modifies to carry the gold through the streets of Turin, the police and mafia unable to catch them due to the traffic chaos caused by a deliberate mal-programming of the city’s traffic signals. The Mini’s small size allow them to be driven through shopping arcades and even the sewer system (filmed in the UK) before the gold is transferred to a football tour bus.
No more spoilers though, if you haven’t seen the film.
The Mini was by this stage, ten years old, but ‘The Italian Job’ film cemented the Mini is popular culture as much as its association with the Beatles and as regular street furniture in almost every British film during the decade. When BMW sought to create a new Mini for 2001, a remake of the film, now shot in the US in 2003, was a key ingredient in bringing back some of the nostalgic Mini magic.
What is the deal with the E86 Corolla?
The car is now considered the quintessential Japanese classic, when the reality is that the car was the last vestige of the old RWD Corolla genes. Even stranger still then car was not considered particularly special when new. Just another car that with a few years and a few dozen thousand miles, is just another used car.
The kind of car than might be driven by a student with a take-away food run.
If that take-away food was in Japan, it might just be tofu that you were delivering, and as with all ‘first’ cars, the ability to be independently mobile was more important than any objective faults the car may have had. You could now play at being a race driver.
And thus: Initial D – the story of 18-year old Takumi Fujiwara, a high-school student who delivers tofu in his father’s 1985 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT Apex AE86 coupe. Initial D was original an illustrated manga in Weekly Young Magazine from 1995 to 2013, but adapted to anime in 1999. Though legendary in native Japan, Initial D also has a cult-following outside of the country, with English-language distribution through Tokyopop, and latterly Funimation.
I relate to the story, having delivered takeaway food in my own RWD Corolla during the same period, though I did not have the benefit of the punchy 4A-GE 1.6 DOHC Twin Cam – but then, I didn’t have to race through mountain passes in the Kantō region of Japan up against Mazda RX7s. What all RWD Corollas do though, is go sideways. And in a FWD world, that is still a big deal.
The name ‘AE86’ too has so much cache that when Toyota released a new RWD sportscar in conjunction with Subaru, they named it the ‘86’.
The three model Mini Cooper S from the original film 'The Italian Job' is included with full instruction in my latest book "How to Build Brick TV and Movie Cars", Published by Motorbooks.
The book is now available on most online platforms.
The easiest way to find the book is by the ISBN
ISBN-10: 0760365881
ISBN-13: 978-0760365885
www.quartoknows.com/books/9780760365885/How-to-Build-Bric...
'The Italian Job' - 1969 Mini Cooper S
At the start of the 1969 film ‘The Italian Job’, one is led to believe that the automotive star of the film may in fact be a brand new orange Lamborghini Miura being driven through curvaceous mountain passes in northern Italy. This notion is brought to an abrupt halt, at the car collides with a bulldozer, and then is pushed over the edge of the road into the chasm below.
The film, released by Paramount pictures, is a comedy caper, about a crew of British crooks trying to steal gold bullion. Our characterful felons hatch a plan to steal the gold from the FIAT factory in Turin, Italy. The real automotive starts, the three Minis (red, white and blue) are modifies to carry the gold through the streets of Turin, the police and mafia unable to catch them due to the traffic chaos caused by a deliberate mal-programming of the city’s traffic signals. The Mini’s small size allow them to be driven through shopping arcades and even the sewer system (filmed in the UK) before the gold is transferred to a football tour bus.
No more spoilers though, if you haven’t seen the film.
The Mini was by this stage, ten years old, but ‘The Italian Job’ film cemented the Mini is popular culture as much as its association with the Beatles and as regular street furniture in almost every British film during the decade. When BMW sought to create a new Mini for 2001, a remake of the film, now shot in the US in 2003, was a key ingredient in bringing back some of the nostalgic Mini magic.
What is the deal with the E86 Corolla?
The car is now considered the quintessential Japanese classic, when the reality is that the car was the last vestige of the old RWD Corolla genes. Even stranger still then car was not considered particularly special when new. Just another car that with a few years and a few dozen thousand miles, is just another used car.
The kind of car than might be driven by a student with a take-away food run.
If that take-away food was in Japan, it might just be tofu that you were delivering, and as with all ‘first’ cars, the ability to be independently mobile was more important than any objective faults the car may have had. You could now play at being a race driver.
And thus: Initial D – the story of 18-year old Takumi Fujiwara, a high-school student who delivers tofu in his father’s 1985 Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT Apex AE86 coupe. Initial D was original an illustrated manga in Weekly Young Magazine from 1995 to 2013, but adapted to anime in 1999. Though legendary in native Japan, Initial D also has a cult-following outside of the country, with English-language distribution through Tokyopop, and latterly Funimation.
I relate to the story, having delivered takeaway food in my own RWD Corolla during the same period, though I did not have the benefit of the punchy 4A-GE 1.6 DOHC Twin Cam – but then, I didn’t have to race through mountain passes in the Kantō region of Japan up against Mazda RX7s. What all RWD Corollas do though, is go sideways. And in a FWD world, that is still a big deal.
The name ‘AE86’ too has so much cache that when Toyota released a new RWD sportscar in conjunction with Subaru, they named it the ‘86’.
The three model Mini Cooper S from the original film 'The Italian Job' is included with full instruction in my latest book "How to Build Brick TV and Movie Cars", Published by Motorbooks.
The book is now available on most online platforms.
The easiest way to find the book is by the ISBN
ISBN-10: 0760365881
ISBN-13: 978-0760365885
www.quartoknows.com/books/9780760365885/How-to-Build-Bric...